We met at Uriarra Rd/Brindabella Road intersection and parked there, aiming to ride the full 60kms (with 1230vm of climb) Two Sticks loop. I'd ridden two sticks quite a few times before, but we usually car shuffle and start at Piccadilly Circus, ride out via the shorter Blue Range Road and end at Thompsons Corner (Condor Creek), this ia 30km effort with 630vm of climb, so today would be double the distance and double the amount of climb.
Brendan had left his seat post at Mal's place, so we decided to split up, sending Mal and Brendan off in a car to fetch the seat post, while the rest of us rode up to Piccadilly Circus, where they would meet us. The climb to Piccers was non stop for 90mins, it was pretty hard, and right at the back of the pack, with everyone else dissapeared ahead of me, it was pretty demoralizing, I was struggling, and it was damned hot, I wore all my cold weather gear, as it's winter and we are in the brindies, I ended up ditching my helmet I was so hot.
A couple of redneck thugs were doing loops of the dirt road here and swerving toward me as I rode up, beeping there horns and generally being quite stupid. I was jealous of there motors though, I wished I had one :)
Managed to make it to the top and met up with the crew at Piccers without holding them up too much, and Brendan and Mal had arrived, so we were regrouped and ready to roll. Scott had ridden out here from Reid and already had 50kms on his odometer, including climbing over Mt MacDonald at the Cottor, he was pretty tired and decided to head back, meeting his family at the Cottor.
From Piccers we did the usual Two Sticks run around to the base of Mt Corree, some nice decents on the way to loosen up the boday, and some wicked and fast water bars on the trail from Two Sticks to the base of Corree, Dan and I were hucking some silly airs of them and on the last big one, Dan landed with a thud, he commented he felt the bike bottom out, what he didn't realise is that he had broken his frame, shearing one fo the frame sections cleanly in two. Amazingly though, he did not notice until half way up Mt Corree, maybe it was just holding together until then.
On previous runs out here I had ridden about half up and walked the rest, this time I was determined to make it, and to my surprise I did, I managed to ride to the summit, something I'd never done before, it felt great. Vic was cheering me on for the final ascent up the new concrete driveway to the Trig, what a guy :)
At the top some 4WD'ers (not the ones that tried to side swipe me earlier :)) were stopped for a cup of tea and they had a tie down Dan could borrow to strap his frame back together. I waa thinking "there is no way that'll hold", but to my amazement, it did, he was able to descend and run the fast and furious 40kms from here back to the cars without any fuss, a real testimate to the Turner brand, the bikes rock even if the frames are broken in two!
I led the descent down from Corree and sticking to to the far left, I figured I would be fine, but a trail biker must have throught this side of the road was smoother, he decided to climb up Corree on my side of the road, I had about 2 seconds of time between spotting him and hitting him, brakes were of no use at this speed and steering was pretty optional on a rocky descent like this, I figured he would give way, having more manouverability, he didn't though, so I had to flick the bike sideways just as we were about to hit, I missed his handle bar by 6 inches or less, and was still going pretty fast. Scary stuff, never had a bear head on with a motor bioke before, and hopefully, never again!
At the bottom we regrouped and while standing there, Ben observed it was snowing, lightly, but wow, the temperature had dropped very quickly, then came the hail, tink tink on your helmet. I put all my clothers back on, and we headed off, for the fast and furious 40kms of Two Sticks, some wicked descending, lots of bunny hops, water bars, slippery mud being sprayed in your face and plenty of laughs. There's two or three descent climbs, and they always take me by surprise, they are doable though, so we cruised up them at a casual pace.
By the time we hit the Blue Range Road intersection, the hail had stopped and the road was dry again, the extention of heading out via Two Sticks instead of Blue Range was great fun too, all downhill, and ending with a gentle cruise through a sheep farm. We got back to cars intact and all with big smiles. It was nice to have gone out and had a such great time with a good crew, thanx guys!
The crew:
| Scott | Kona Kikapu |
| Brendan | Kona Stinky |
| Simon | Kona Stinky |
| Dan | Turner Flux (now in two peices! :)) |
| Mal | Rocky ETSX-50 |
| Ben | KHS XC |
| Vic | Giant Warp |
| Jason | Giant Trance |
The Stats:
| Distance | 57.1kms |
| Time | 5:00hrs |
| Climb | 1230m |
| Speed | 59.8km/h max, 11.4km/hr avg |
| HR (Jason) | 94% (173 bpm) max |