Another solo effort saw Chris and I hit Mt Taylor
from the Athlon Drive parking area side after work. A
rough start on small and steep trails and we eventually
found the concrete walking trail that leads all the way
to the top. The trail does have lots of errorsion
stopping bumps in it that cause some serious amounts of
air if you came down this way, they are only 20 or so
meters apart so you be jumping, landing then jumping
again without much braking time :)
The climb was
never ending, we stopped at least 3 times on the way up
to catch breath, but the view was worth stopping
for. Excellent views over Tuggeranong Valley down to
the Hyperdome and Lake Tuggers plus a fantastic
sunset.
The path ends about 100m from the top and we were
left on dirt. Two short but steep and slippery climbs
to the top and we were there. Phew.
A lung
burster of a climb, but done on the bike for almost all
of the way!
Finally starting to feel like we can
actually ride MTB properly. It's taken almost 20 rides to
get here, but the it takes a while to build the
skills up I guess (well it does when your a lazy
nerd-boy like me!)
The downhill on the west face was a
steep but wide fire-trail with massive jumps for
errosion control. A rush to take at speed, much air was
had :). Bored with ease of that, Chris led me off
road to make our own trail down the grassy and rocky
North side of Taylor. A very bumpy but great fun ride
to the bottom led us onto the path around the base
of the hill that we followed from the North side
down to the car parking on the east side of the
mountain. Some silly jumping left me with a double puncture
that wouldn't heal, damn patches! :(
Ended up
walking back to the car for the last 400m or so, but it
was worth it as Taylor is a great ride that has to be
repeated, but with an effort to climb it with less stops
and more speed on the downhill :)
|