Neil and I met at the Cottor pub amd waited for Scott, who showed up on his bike, haven ridden in from Reid, the psycho :) To rub salt into the wounds he rode up Pierces Hill while Neil and I drove up to the Laurel Camp Rd, something is a miss in this boy's brain, we did offer him a lift, but he turned us down!
We got on our bikes and giving Scotto no chance to recover, pushed off up Laurel Camp Rd without giving him a break, which he didn't seem to need anyway, it was a steady and constant climb to the base of the Tidbinbilla Range, we were able to ride more of the climb than I had anticipated, but we still walked plenty of it. 700 vertical meters of non stop climbing and we made the top in good shape, there was some low level cloud and we'd climbed up into it, which was pretty ominous.
Cruising along the ridge of the Tidbinbilla Range through the cloud was great. In some places the cloud broke and we got some great views down over Pierces Creek Pine Forrest.
Pushing on we came to Camel Back, above Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, and into some awesome downhill, down the side of Tidders Range into the reserve, huge water bars saw us getting 6 meters of air, and kit being lost mid air out of camel backs and pockets :) The last water bar, before the reserve was steep and provided some amusing hang time, my stomach was in my chest, put it that way :)
Then we cruised down to the Nature Reserve Visitors Centre where Neil shouted us some Snickers goodness, I won't forget it either mate, that was awesome :)
Time to get into the serious side of the Nav to get us back to the Cottor, so out with the map and a battery change in the GPS and we pushed backup through Block 64? Pine Forrest, which had a huge hill, I tried to ride some of it, but it was hopelessly steep, so back to pushing, down the other side we got some more water bar action, but it was a bit slippery and rough and fatigue was hinting it's presence, so I took it easy, still managed some nice jumps though, enough that (unknown to me) my GPS flew out of my pocket and got left behind :) I came back for it a couple of days later, and it was still there, unscathed, amazing!
From here we pushed into Pierces Creek Pine Forrest, which had more climb in it, but there were all gentle and ridable, and even though this forrest has been logged since the fires, it was still nice to cruise around, looking up at the range we were riding along top of earlier in the morning. We cruised out making it back to the cars in time to be home for lunch, and with 1355 vertical meters and 44 kms behind is, I was pretty hungry too!
Thanx for coming out lads, I am looking forward to the next one!
The crew:
| Jason | Spesh Enduro |
| Scotto | Kick-a-poo dually ;) |
| Neil | Canondale Cheating Scalpel |
The Stats:
| Distance | 44km |
| Time | 4:48 |
| Descent/Climb | 1355 Veritical Meters |
| Speed | 61km/h max, 13km/h avg |