Neil and I headed out from home at 8am for the short warm ride to Adam's in Calwell, the day was looking fantastic, bright blue skies and not a breath of wind, perfect! At Adam's the rest of the crew rolled up in cars (cheats!), including new recruit Ed and his BOB trailer.
As I am most of the way through my training for Worlds, which is a mere 3 weeks away, I thought it would be good training to pull the trailer and try and keep up with the crew; so I offered to tow gear like changes of clothes for the overnight stay. Some of the crew were more enthusiastic than others with having some extra luggage room, clearly keen to slow me down I found out later there were heavy bottles of coke and other items that could have been purchased along the way loaded in there, and these are the guys I call mates! :D
Loaded up and chomping at the bit, our 8 man peleton hit the highway for Burra... having never pulled a trailer before, I found it took a lot of getting used to, for example, standing up and pedaling with the fork locked out was fairly dangerous as the front wheel wobbled around underneath me, steering erratically, and at the first hill on the Monaro Highway, I struggled to keep up, it was tougher to pull that load up the hills than I thought it would be, tucking in behind whatever wheel I could for some slip streaming, the boys were all awesome with helping out, taking turns on the front.
Into Burra for out first hourly food stop and I was hungry, I've been training and riding long and hard enough to know what I need to eat on a ride, so I had packed the perfect amount of food for a two day ride of this length, but at the first food stop I ate double what I normally would, which was weird. An hour later in the Tinderries I ate triple... it was weird. I'd lost some weight last week, down to a personal adult lifetime low of 68.0kg; was this my body trying to put it back on, or the trailer taking it right out of me? No extra calories were burned on the Polar though, so I don't think that was it, it was weird, I was just really hungry. I think a lot of it was me worrying about not be fuelled up enough to pull the trailer and keep up, so I was over fueling to be safe, it was odd though :)
We planned to go around Captains Flat after some private property and bush bashing fun last year, and went south of Tinderries Crossing this time. I thought we had planned the route with only nice open fire roads and no private property this time, but as we rode up Browns Road we were accosted by Farmer Peter Brown for riding in his "backyard", which was a two lane dirt road with fences down either side, hardly damaging his paddock or riding right up to his house to disturb him, hmmm... I guess we were in the wrong, but I'd far from deviously planned to sneak through and shoot his cattle, I really thought it was a public road. He was not amused with our clearly threatening presence, we did have Dangerous Dan with us after all, and sent us on our way to Majors Creek.
Although the trails were easier with less hills at the cost of more distance, We rolled onto Captains Flat road having taken exactly the same amount of time as last time, the detour was no faster, but it was easier. It was on the long climb here that Neil and Adam had a big low moment, I passed them on one climb and they'd been stronger than me all day, taking effort out to push the trailer with me up a couple of steep hills. This was a sure sign something was wrong. We got some food into them and they came good, and we hit the long climb out from's Captain Flat toward Majors Creek.
It wasn't long before fatigue was starting to set in with me too, and the extra food I'd been shoveling in wasn't helping, my gears were playing up and was getting very tired and cranky about it, not a good sign that I was coping. It wasn't long before I dropped right off the back of the crew and they were out of sight, I stopped, exhausted, and staggered over to a fence, clinging to it like a broken man, with a dizzy spell from hell. I chomped down the rest of my food, leaving me with nothing for tomorrow, and came good enough to push on.
The day was getting long (much like this write up!) and although the sunset at Majors Creek was gorgeous, it confirmed my worst fears, that we would have to descend the Great Dividing Range in the dark, on a single lane dirt road with sheer cliff drops to reward any mistakes. The BOB trailer is an unpredictable beast on descents too, so I was very nervous about it. We had 3 lights amongst 8 riders (or is that 3 smart guys and 5 idiots?), two lights went ahead with a crew of 6, while Dan babysat me and the trailer for the slow crawl to the bottom, BOB swinging around left and right trying to throw me off the mountain as we went. Thankfully though, BOB failed and we made it intact to the bottom, regrouped, and then the most bizarre thing happened...
The adrenalin of the descent coursing through everyones veins, and the knowledge of the short and flat high speed run from here to Araluen, where hot food and a bed waited for our arrival, everyone lifted, big time. We were off at flat stick in a tight group, the boys with the light showed the way and the rest cruised along behind with a lot of happy banter and woohooing, we all alive again! It was an awesome feeling, and as we hit Araluen the locals at the pub gave us a cheer as we rode by in our little night time peleton :)
Steak and Chicken burgers at the pub were the order of the day; I went for both and they were damned good!, I mean I'd been a gluten all day, why stop now ;) Much pubside banter, phone calls on the payphone home to concerned significant others, beers, Cokes and Gatorades later and it was time to hit the sack for some well earned sleep...
On arrival back at the rooms, Al found out why it's a bad idea to leave sweaty cycling gear directly on top of an oil heater, his and Mark's room filled with stinky sweaty plastic smoke! The clothes thankfully survived, and no need for the fire brigade, but I suspect they has an interesting sleep in there :) Some slept better than others that night; having to share a double bed with another bloke was always going to be funny, especially for Kevin, who clearly missed his missus, Adam being awoken in the middle of night by an unexpected cuddle from an obviously very tired Kev, who swears he was asleep at the time, yeah, sure mate! :D LOL
The Araluen Courthouse put on a big breakfast spread for us, which was marred only my the speckle of Mark eating Weetbix in a most disturbing manner, Leandra, I feel for you :) Put off eating anymore, it was time to get on the bikes for a 7am start, to be sure we made it to Batemans Bay in time for the bus back to Canberra, and after a late arrival last night, I didn't want to risk a late start today.
Dressed for a Canberran 7am start, we headed out, but it's much warmer down here, so it wasn't long before we had to stop and strip of some layers, and even more layers at the next food stop. Last year the road from Araluen toward Moyura really sucked the life of us, it's undulates up and down for mile after mile, but this year, on rested legs and for me, with the trailer clearly lighter than the day before with most of the food and drink consumed, it was no worries at all, pleasant in fact, the climbs were gentle and the views over the lush valley below made them worthwhile, then they are followed with a cooling recovery downhill, very nice indeed.
It wasn't long before we made it to the base of the 450vm climb up Knowles Rd. Having not done it before I was worried it would be too steep and I would have to push the BOB trailer up there. It's not steep at all though, just the right gradient for cruising, and it flattens out every few hundred meters so you get a rest, then cruise up the next gentle section. It was a nice climb, with only one 100m section being tough (but doable with the BOB on). At the top everyone was feeling good and I think most enjoyed the challenge of the climb, not easy, but not hard either, certainly doable by all.
Some screamingly fast downhills later and we're at the Western end of the Angry Doctor Single track, time for Ed to take the reigns of his BOB trailer, as I wasn't confident I could pull it through technical single track without risking an injury, and this close to Worlds, I wasn't taking any risks. Once that thing was disconnected from my bike I felt like I had a rocket engine, I was off, charging into the single track like a dog off his lead, in the big dog for the remainder of the trip! Sweeeet ;)
Adrenalin kept everyone's pace up and we all hammered through the single track, near misses and watching Ed masterfully handle the BOB in some tricky sections made for great amusement, with spirits high we raced into Mogo at full stick like we'd just started the ride, let alone ridden 180k :)
We were ahead of schedule, so took time out for a nice long lunch on the grass, it was another beautiful day weather wise too, warm and sunny, much better than all the recent Canberra winter mornings I'd been training in, lush in fact!
With a painfully over full belly, we rolled up to Ridge Road for the final 20k of the trip, rocketing through the single track and sky larking like kids, the whiff of home a strong odour indeed, or was that Al's gas release I could smell? ;) It was all over in the blink of an eye and we were in Batemans Bay before we knew it, over an hour ahead of schedule, we'd skipped some single track in the heat of the moment, pushing a little too fast, too excited. Oh well, something to make sure we don't skip next year... ;)
A successful trip, not a single mechanical or problem, very lucky boys indeed.
A top effort by all, thanx again boys!
The crew:
| Jason | Giant Trance |
| Adam | Scott Scale Sore Bum |
| Mark | Merida Dually |
| Al | Ibis Mojo |
| Dan | Turner Flux |
| Kevin | Rocky Mtn |
| Neil | Canondale Scapel |
| Ed | BOB Trailer Man |
The Stats:
| Distance | 201km |
| Time | 14:00 |
| Climb | 3500vm |
| Speed | 12km/h avg |
| Date | 28/06/2008 |