Category: xc

My friend David told me he and a few mates were interested in exploring D’Aguilar National Park. So I jumped at the opportunity to organize a social ride along some of my favourite tracks there today.

As with most expeditions in D’Aguilar NP, this one started with a short climb up the Goat Track which affords great views out to Moreton Bay, but you’ve got to work for it as you climb 400m in just over 3km.

Rather than follow the bitumen at the top, we elected to ride up Hammermeister Road – a steep dirt road to the west of Mount Nebo. The road is named after Lou Hammermeister who started working in the timber industry at Mount Nebo during the Second World War and continued there for almost twenty years.

According to the Mt Nebo local newspaper “Mountain News“, Lou lived at Mount Nebo for over 60 years. He blazed any of the roads and fire trails in the area using his dozer. He also used his dozer to help build an Oval and Tennis Court at the Mt Nebo School. Lou started as a timber cutter, moving to Main Roads when logging at Nebo ceased in the 1960’s. As someone who regularly rides at Mount Nebo (including Hammermeister Road), I am grateful for Lou’s legacy.

A lot of my friends enjoyed Lou’s legacy today too 🙂

From there it’s a short jump to Dundas Road behind the transfer station at Mount Nebo. This is where the long descent to England Creek begins. A few of the riders, including Jeff (pictured) took the opportunity to drop some of the pressure in their tyres to get a bit more grip on the dusty track surface. It was then I realized Jeff was riding a hybrid bike. It had a 29 inch front wheel and a 26 inch rear wheel. Bikes with 29 inch wheels are affectionately called “Twenty niners”. But when you’ve got “one of each” on your bike, the collogual term for the bike is a “Sixty-niner”. Jeff’s bike is even stranger. The front fork only has one staunchion on the left-hand side. So this is the only “Lefty Sixty-niner” that I’ve ever seen.

From Dundas Road we rode into Goodes Road and enjoyed the quick drop down the mountain. It’s difficult to enjoy the spectacular views while riding so fast, but I think we managed. One of the “surprises” on Goodes Road is a gate across a steep section of road half-way down, which can sometimes cause riders to skid as they grab the brakes to avoid hitting the gate.

Unfortunately, Jeff got a puncture during the descent. This was when I discovered another surprise about “lefty” forks. You don’t need to remove the front wheel to change the inner tube. Since there’s only one staunchion, you can remove the tube while the wheel is attached. Amazing stuff.

After fixing the puncture, we enjoyed the final sketchy descent down to England Creek and splashed through the creek crossing before having a break.

It’s worthwhile having a break at England Creek because it takes about 90 minutes to ride from there up to the top of the hill on Joyners Ridge Road. It’s not steep (as mountain bike hills go) but it is still a long climb.

The highlight of riding up Joyners Ridge Road is reaching the Rainforest at the top. It’s a lush, cool, green reminder that the climb is over. I think we all heaved a sigh of relief once we reached the top.

All up, this ride was about 35km with about 1,300m of vertical ascent. It took us 5 hours including breaks and repairs (we had a long lunch at the Mt Glorious Cafe), and I burned about 3,000kcal. Wtih todays perfect cool spring weather, I rate this one 7.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. Add an extra point in summer or wet weather.

I was stunned when 32 people turned up for our group Mountain Biking ride from Beerburrum, through the forests of the Glasshouse Mountains, to Woodford and back. This is the largest social ride that I’ve been a part of, and I was amazed how smoothly it went, despite several crashes and a few equipment failures.

This ride was a combined effort between the online Mountain Biking community at MTBDirt.com.au and the Bushrangers Mountain Biking Club from the Sunshine Coast. Because there were so many people on the ride, I took a lot of photos, and have included a lot of thumbnails in this post to make it easier for anyone who was on the ride to take copies of any photos they want.

We started from Matthew Flinders Rest Area at Beerburrum. This is the site where, in 1799, the English explorer Matthew Flinders camped for the night before climbing Mount Beerburrum. He had originally planned to climb the taller (and steeper) Mount Tibrogargan, but found the sheer cliffs on the eastern face too intimidating, so opted for the easier scramble up Mount Beerburrum instead. Every year in July the local school celebrates the event with a commemorative climb up the hill to re-enact Flinders’ efforts.

But we engaged in a dfifferent sort of “Mountain Climbing” on our ride. The track behind the Glasshouse Mountains lookout is particularly steep. Everyone attempted to ride up it, but everyone (except one) couldn’t quite make it over one nasty little hump. Matthew Flinders would have been proud 🙂

After a final steep grind, we eventually made it to the lookout where we enjoyed the panorama and a quick rest.

One of the best things about going UP a hill is the being able to go DOWN it afterwards. We had a ball riding the Hennessey Hill downhill track. It’s a purpose-built track for riding downhill really quickly. There are enough jumps, banked corners and rock gardens to keep even the gnarliest downhiller happy. More importantly, each challenging section has a “B-Line” to allow less skilled riders to go around the features that they don’t want to ride.

There’s a maze-like network of tracks in this part of the forest. We decided to try out some single-tracks instead of following the dirt roads. This meant everyone had to ride single-file, which caused a bit of a traffic-jam whenever we encountered obstacle like fallen trees.

After the fun of Hennessey Hill, we thought we’d do it all over again with another hill… A little bit of hard work to get to the top, then another exhillarating flight down a steep and bumpy track while trying to avoid the deep ruts.

When given a choice between dirt roads and single-tracks, most mountain bikers will chose single-tracks. The quiet trails make it easier to enjoy the surroundings without having to worry about Four-Wheel-Drives and motor bikes whizzing past. So where possible, our route kept to the quieter tracks through the forest.

We were all glad to arrive at Woodford for a rest and a bite to eat. Because there were so many of us, we split up and ate at different cafes to keep the queues short. Eric gave us a demonstration of hard-core relaxation 🙂

What cross-country adventure would be complete without a swamp?

The north-east track out of Woodford took us through some beautiful secluded woodland. Unfortunately, parts of the track were quite muddy, and we had to tip-toe around the edges to avoid getting wet.

At one point, we had to cart the bikes over a huge fallen log followed by a barbed wire fence. I’m really grafetul to Eric who helped keep people moving in the right direction. One of the things I love about mountain biking in a group is how everyone works together and helps each other out.

At the top of “Trig Hill” we encountered another white-knuckle descent which I like to call “The Giant Drop”. It’s steep, sandy, dusty and bumpy.

As I wached Neil (“Bangers”) ride down it, I was reminded of Banjo Patterson’s description of another rider on another hill in “The Man From Snowy River”:

But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.

Unfortunately, Neil was more “Bangers” than “Man from Snowy River” and had a bit of a crash on the way down. Nevertheless, “It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.” 🙂

Thankfully, everyone made it down the hill in one piece – some walked, some rode (amazingly well).

I’m definitely going back to Trig Hill and “The Giant Drop” again 🙂

From there we made our way to the picnic area below the northern face of Mount Beerwah. The largest of the Glasshouse Mountains loomed over us for most of this part of the trip.

Everyone got to the end of the ride safely – tired but happy.

One or two people had a crash. I tried my first aid skills on Terry. Unfortunately I couldn’t unroll the “Micropore” tape so resorted to taping him up with duct tape. Ah the myriad uses of duct tape – one of the reasons I always carry a roll in my pack.

Geoff broke the hanger on his bike. That’s the thing that connects the gear-changing mechanism to the frame of the bike. When it breaks, the chain can no longer go round, and you can’t change gears. Normally the solution is to break the chain, shorten it, remove the hanger, and complete the ride with no gears (not much fun). David showed us an ingenious bit of kit he brings on his rides – a temporary hanger you can screw into the skewer on your back wheel. The end result is gears that still work, and an enjoyable ride home.


Thanks to everyone who came on the ride today. I loved being able to share this adventure with so many great people.

63km, 3,500kcal, 1,200m of ascent, six and a half hours of riding including breaks. 32 people started this ride, 32 people finished. If you’re looking for a fun adventure, grab a few friends and give this one a try!