Ed had arranged the ride, a little social "race" with a bunch of heading for Wee J from Uriarra Xing via Doctors Flat road on the mountain bikes, while Eric and Clare aimed to beat us there via the bitchumen road route which was slightly longer, but had less hills, it whould work out pretty close Ed thought...
Meeting at Uriarra Crossing was a wise move, good parking and the cars would be safe, while we set of, with Ed setting a cracking 240W pace for the first 20mins. When we got to the start of Doctors Flat Road we looked back and realised we had severely dropped one member of the crew, oops! Still, there would be no mercy now, with Phil keen to show his mettle on the 700C wheel equipped tourer. We pushed on and the pace stayed high...
At the top of the first hill we had reached the highest point in our ride, would it be all downhill from here? No ;)
Barreling down into the National Park, the downhill fore road is fast and sweetly graded dead flat, and the scenery got much more Brindabella and a lot less open farm land. Heaven. The crew was pushing strong and Ed plunged though a water crossing at the bottom, completely oblivious to the fact it's the middle of winter, one serve of frozen wet feet for you mate :)
We rode on, soaking up some great vistas and a beautiful sunny day. 4 major climbs were done and I could tell by the frantic pace of the crew that we were at the last climb (3 of the boys had done this ride before, and suddenly the 3 of them were all attacking hard!), I figured we must be nearly there and joined the foray. Much laughter was had as we tried to smash each other over the top, laying down several 1100+W sprints, a tidy interval session really ;) Phil's 1" wide wheels proving to be the weapon of choice for the decent into Wee J, as he pulled away down the hill effortlessly to the pub, taking line honours, good work! 5 minutes later, Eirc and Clare roll in... we've won I think, but then we find out they left 10mins after us at the start, dammit, they get the win by 5 mins!
A long lunch of hot soup and sitting in the sun later and we're heading back the way we came, me dead keen to get back that 5 mins and beat the roadies to the carpark and pushing hard, sadly though, a couple of riders had faded in our crew and Ed was worried we should watch after them. "I guess we should be nice" I say (secretly thinking "bugger!") ;)
The trip home felt a lot slower, with a lot of stopping and waiting for a couple of the boys, but odly, we put in a decent effort and got back only 2 minutes slower than the trip there. Sadly though, Clare had whooped us by 10mins and was waiting at the car, dammit! She is a fast one!
This is a great ride, and it would be a fun 100k return from Canberra at a more sociable pace, especially with a pub lunch in the middle like we did, but it was certainly pretty sweet done as a little "race", pushing each other on and have a great time.
The crew:
| Ed | Geared 29er |
| Phil | Tourer |
| Joel | Voodoo 29er HT |
| Kev | Anthem X1 |
| Jase | Anthem X1 |
| Clare | Fast Roadie |
| Eric | Carbon Scott Roadie |
The Stats:
| Date | 5/7/09 |
| Distance | 100km |
| Climb | 3820vm |
| Time | 5:02 |