Onto the bikes and quick cruise along Two Sticks road, where we got to witness where the bushfires of '03 would have been at the most ferocious. Large sections of gum tree forrest completely destroyed. Other parts of Namadgi were burnt, but have since recovered, some of the sections out here look like they are wiped out forever, dead gums with no regrowth at all :( Odly, other sections we rode past later in the day were untouched.
The approach to Mt Coree is daunting, she's a big beast, with a sheer face on the western side we were approaching it from, it reminded me of Milfound Sound in NZ, a mountain just rising straight up. Luckily we could cruise around to it's northern face for a switch back climb of around 6 or 8 paired u-turns of steep climb, after Mt Clear though, it was nothing and we all managed to ride to the top.
The view from the top was a full 360' panorama, just beautiful. You could stand there for ages just looking out on it, you could see Canberra to our left (most of it, 20/20 vision boy Neil was making out the City, Weston and Tuggeranong :)), kilomteres of mountains to our west, stunning valley floor to our south and the winding Two Sticks road to our north. Just spectacular. We sat on the western cliff face for ages, just listening to bird song echoing in the valley below.
Back on to the bikes for a screaming water bar filled 600 vertical meter run back down to two sticks. It was fast, and the switch backs interesting at that speed! It was very rocky, my arms were hurting from hanging on so tight! It was rough enough to rip a the side wall of Tim's brand new read 1.95 Larson tyre... we cut up the dead tube to double line his ripped tyre and luckily, it held together for the ride out.
Two sticks is always fun, I've been here half a dozen times, and it's always a great time. Great views from the ridge and a fantastic, and often times scary, descent at the end. We took a different trail down from the quarry this time, and it was a like being in a video game, dodging stumps and downed trees, bunny hoping things and opposite locking corners with sheer cliff drops, it was great fun!
All in all another great cross country epic ride, and I look forward to the next one, thanx for coming along guys!
The crew:
| Neil | Cannondale Scapel |
| Timbob | Spanking new Kona Kula HT |
| Jason | Giant VT2 |
The Stats:
| Distance | 30.0km (on the bikes, 10km in the car) |
| Time | 2:15 + stops |
| Climb | 630 Vertical Meters |
| Speed | 54.6km/h max, 16.2km/h avg |
| HR (Jason) | 89% (169 bpm) max, 73% (139bpm) avg |