xc – Page 37 – Musings

Cycling, South East Qld, xc

The “Super W”

by NeilEnnis 7 July 2012 4 Comments Shortlink

My friends have named a tough ride in D’Aguilar National Park the “Super-V” because of the tough elevation profile you get when you ride it: A loooooong way down, then an equally long way up. I walked the “Super-V” just over a year ago with my son, Lachlan.

Today I thought I’d mix it up a bit and add an extra climb to make it a “Super-W” 🙂

I started from the Goat Track and made my way up the bitumen to Mount Glorious, then set off down Lawton Road. This is a special place in the rainforest with Piccabean Palms and wonderful Giant Figs. I just had to stop and get a few pictures.

I enjoyed the roll down Lawton Road which is a fun steep descent near the top… until I met up with Kelly and Dave. They were riding their bikes back up the track because they were unable to get past one of the landslides: A huge gulf has opened on the road with nowhere to go above it, and nowhere below. All that remains is a 10cm wide precipice which is hard work to carry a bike over. I suggested that between the three of us we might be able to help each other get the bikes across and continue with the ride.

We rode together up the steep climb to Northbrook Mountain and then parted ways. They were headed down Kipper Creek Road towards Wivenhoe Dam. I was headed back towards England Creek. I love meeting new people on the trail 🙂

The ride down England Creek from Northbrook is amazing. It just descends for what feels like ages. I lost 500m of altitude in about 7km, and I’m glad I rode down it, instead of UP it like my friend Flyboy (Dave).

Eventually I reached the bottom, and the delightful bush camp at the England Creek Crossing. I wasn’t staying the night this time, so I just devoured a banana and took a few pics of the beautiful creek.

From there it was a bit of a climb up to the intersection at the bottom of Joyners Ridge Road. Normally if you were doing the “Super-V” you’d turn left into Joyners Ridge Road and make your way back up the hill to Mount Glorious. But today I was going a bit further, so I kept going straight ahead down again towards another crossing on England Creek.

England Creek is spectacular. The water is crystal clear. There’s no sound at all except bellbirds, wind in the Eucalypts, and water babbling over the pebbles. I don’t know what cosmic lottery I won to be able to enjoy these simple pleasures, but I’m continually grateful.

From this point, the hard work begain in earnest. I had to make the slow steep climb up Goodes Road. This is a cruel climb, rising almost 500m in 5km. It’s very steep, and after the long ride I’d done it was really difficult to turn the pedals and get up the hill.

I repeatedly yelled to myself in U.S. Army Marching style:

IF. IT. IS to BE
IT. IS. UP to ME!

If anyone would have caught me yelling out like a madman, I’m sure I would have been sectioned and locked up.

By some minor miracle, I made it to the top without passing out. I didn’t walk – I’m really proud that I was able to ride the whole way.

From there, I followed Dundas Road back to Mount Nebo and civilization, and enjoyed the fast roll down the bitumen back to the Goat Track.

After a tough ride, I love the quick drop back down the Goat Track. It was cold, and I had my plastic vest on, but it was enjoyable.

Can you see the “W” in there?

This ride was just under 45km, and took me almost 4 and a half hours. I burned about 4,500 kcal (about 8 big macs) and climbed about 1,700m. This one rates 8.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. If you do it in summer, I’d rate it 9 out of 10.

Total distance: 44.55 km
Total climbing: 1753 m
Average temperature: NAN
Total time: 05:34:22

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Cycling, History, xc

Centre Road

by NeilEnnis 30 June 2012 No Comments Shortlink

It rained most of last week, so I used my opportunity today to catch up on missed rides.

I think I over-did it a bit.

I started from home in Lawnton and made my way via Clear Mountain and Samford to Mount Nebo which took me a couple of hours.

Due to the clean air after the rain, I had some great views from The Goat Track east to Moreton Bay.

From Mount Nebo I turned onto South Boundary Road – a wonderful fire trail which runs through most of the southern section of D’Aguilar National Park. Today, that meant an enjoyable 15km descent (with a few short climbs) from Mount Nebo down to the creek crossing at the bottom of Centre Road.

The fascinating thing about this long descent is that you start in wet rainforest, but the vegetation slowly changes until you’re riding through breezy open Eucalyptus meadows. Some of the downhill sections are too quick to look around at the trees for very long, so it was worthwhile stopping every now and then to take it all in 🙂

Eventually the descent came to an end at the Enoggera Creek crossing on Centre Road. Enoggera Creek is pretty significant for a couple of reasons. It was dammed in 1866 to form Enoggera Reservoir – Brisbane’s first (and Australia’s second ever) dam. It’s purpose was to supply drinking water for the burgeoning new colony. Waterworks Road in the Gap, Ashgrove and Red Hill is named after this reservoir. From the dam wall, Enoggera Creek runs through the Brisbane suburbs of The Gap, Ashgrove and Newmarket before eventually becoming Breakfast Creek and emptying into the Brisbane River.

Thousands of people see Enoggera Creek from their cars every day as they pass along Ashgrove Avenue or Kelvin Grove Road, but I bet you’d only get a handful of people each week who see it this far upstream.

As with all good descents on a bike, you have to pay for it at some stage with a long climb up a hill. So from the creek, I pushed up Centre Road for a couple of km and finished my ride via Bellbird Grove, Camp Mountain, Ironbark Gully and Bunyaville.

All up this took me almost 6 hours (excluding stops). I rode a total of 85km, with just over 1,900m of vertical ascent, and burned about 4,900 kcal (10 Big Macs). I think this one rates about 8.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. That final big hill riding back through Ironbark / Lomandra was pretty painful!

Total distance: 85.75 km
Total climbing: 2009 m
Average temperature: NAN
Total time: 06:50:52

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Aboriginal Australia, Cycling, South East Qld, xc

Flinders Peak

by NeilEnnis 24 June 2012 6 Comments Shortlink

We rode through the Teviot Range today on a big loop through Hardings Paddock, Flinders Plum, Flinders Peak and Undullah.

The traditional owners of this area are the Ugarapul Aboriginal people. Mount Flinders is sacred to them because they believe that the powerful spirit, “Yurrangpul”, lives there, and guards their traditions and sacred places. His name is similar to the local word for green tree frog: “Yurrang”. The green tree frog is the totem of the Ugarapul people.

Hardings Paddock is about an hours drive south-west of Brisbane. Not wanting to start our ride too early on a winters morning, we arrived there about 8.30am.

Our first stop was Goolman Lookout which has great views to the south-west as well as back into Brisbane. Mount Goolman was originally called “Murdoch Peak” by John Oxley in 1824, but it was later renamed “Goolman” after a local indigenous word meaning “Stone Axe”.

The last hundred metres up to the lookout is steep, and we had to push the bikes most of the way – something we’d get used to for most of the day 🙂

The air was quite clear, and the view to the city in the north-east were amazing.

From there we were able to get a good look at Ivorys Rock – a round hill to the south of the lookout.

The track from Goolman Lookout to Flinders PLum picnic ground is well maintained and clearly marked. The only problem is that in parts it’s very steep. On several occasions we had to get off the bikes and push them up the steep hills. The up-side of this is that we we enjoyed riding down the other side. There were warning signs saying “Extreme Caution” before some of the descents, which in mountain biking parlance means it’s going to be a particularly fun ride.

Troy’s bike has been lovingly set up for long-distance touring. I am amazed at the distances this man can cover in one day. So I thought it was quite ironic that he was the only one who suffered a puncture. The white ball-shaped object on the ground near Troy’s feet is actually an inner tube wrapped in an old sock. Troy says a sock is a much better way of stowing a tube compared to a plastic bag because it offers more protection. The last thing you want when changing a tube is to discover your new tube has a hole in it because you didn’t protect it well enough!

After a tough 5km climb across the southern face of Mount Flinders, we eventually made it to the top of Mount Elliott Road, with more amazing views.

From here you can see all the way to Mount Barney and the Border Ranges. From here it’s also a long descent down to Undullah – so we enjoyed a long white-knuckle descent down the steep gravel road.

The bottom of the hill was a great place to chill out, take a break and a bite to eat. It’s also where we parted company with Troy who continued his epic ride to Kerry, south of Beaudesert.

Perhaps the funniest mechanical incident of the day happened when Pete got to the bottom of a steep hill, went to apply some power, and discovered he no longer had a chain. After a quick bit of back tracking, we managed to find the chain, and put it back on with a spare link. (Hint: Don’t leave home without a spare link for your chain!)

We rode northwards into Ripley before finally turning back towards our starting point. Wards Road offered some more great views of Flinders Peak.

We rode about 50km in about 6 hours including breaks (moving time 4 hours). It included almost 1,700m of ascent. I burned just over 3,200 kcal. This would be a tough ride in summer or in wet weather. The dry cool weather of Winter is the best time to do this ride. On the tough-o-meter I rate it 8.5 out of 10.

Total distance: 49.7 km
Total climbing: 1729 m
Average temperature: NAN
Total time: 05:57:33

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Cycling, South East Qld, xc

Kenilworth

by NeilEnnis 17 June 2012 6 Comments Shortlink

There is an amazing sense of freedom in being able to indulge a whim and go anywhere on your bike that takes your fancy. On a Friday afternoon I though it might be fun to ride a loop from Mapleton to Kenilworth and back. My friend Ron courageously agreed to ride with me for the day.

Mapleton is a small village in the Blackall Range on the edge of a huge forest. Kenilworth is a small village on the banks of the beautiful Mary River nestled between the Connondale and Blackall Ranges. So the ride would cover a variety of landscapes, and include a lot of hills!

The smooth clay surface of Mapleton Forest Drive was pleasant to ride on. The tall eucalypts shaded the road for most of the way, and the gentle descent helped us keep up a brisk pace.

The descent gradually became rougher, steeper and faster until we were flying down towards Cedar Creek trying to avoid ruts and rocks in the track. I was grateful for my full suspension, which smoothed out most of the bumps. Ron was riding a hardtail (no rear suspension) and I think his bones got quite a rattling.

Eventually, the descent spat us out onto Cedar Creek Road – a rural community nestled into the end of a valley. Since the road was effectively a cul-de-sac, there wasn’t much traffic, and we had the road to ourselves.

At this point we had two alternatives. We could have ridden the entire length of the road and followed 15km of bitumen into Kenilworth. Or we could head up into the hills of Gheerulla…

(Photo by Ron Perske)

“Sorry, Ron. I didn’t realize Gheerulla would be this steep”. Ron didn’t seem to mind as we both heaved our bikes up the hill.

We eventually made it to the top, from where we could enjoy a few challenging down-hill runs.

(Photo by Ron Perske)

The down-hills in Gheerulla reminded me of “Whoa Boy” in D’Aguilar National Park. They were long, steep and had waterbars every few metres to stop soil erosion. The waterbars made the ride feel like a bit of a roller-coaster as we hung on tightly trying to make sure the bikes didn’t slide out of control on the way down. I made sure I hung my backside as far out over the back of the bike as I could.

After a few wrong turns in the Gheerulla forest we eventually found our way to Oaky Creek Road and then the main road into Kenilworth.

We eventually rolled into Kenilworth for lunch. It’s a goegous little town – the main street has numerous cafes, and a typical country pub. It’s popular with day trippers and touring motor cyclists.

Like a crazy tourist, I stopped in the middle of the bridge on the way out of town to get a photo of the Mary River. Luckily no cars were passing while I stopped.

The final part of our trip was the climb up Delicia Road. This started out as a tough climb with some amazing views to the south over the Obi-Obi valley.

(Photo by Ron Perske)

Delicia “Road” gradually increased in steepness until we had to push the bikes up the hill.

(Photo by Ron Perske)

It got steeper….

(Photo by Ron Perske)

…and steeper. Eventually I declared that whoever had named this precipitous sherpa track “Delicia Road” should be imprisoned. It wasn’t a road. It wasn’t a track. In places it wasn’t even a hiking trail – there was no trail.

Ron was amazing. He just said “It is what it is. It stands between you an the rest of your life. You can either sit down and cry, or keep pushing and get home”. I took his sage advice and kept pushing.

(Photo by Ron Perske)

And, almost miraculously, we reached the top, asked some friendly locals for some extra water, and took a few photos.

This was an amazing experience. I’ve done longer rides, but this one was really tough. It was worth it for the views, and for being able to share it with a friend. It’s not every day you get to rock-climb with a bike on your back, and live to tell the tale.

Unless you want a packet of pain, I would strongly recommend against trying to take a bike up Delicia Road, although it would ideal as a class 5 or 6 hike.

We rode 50km with about 1,500m of ascent in about 6 hours (including breaks). I burned about 3,300 kcal. Ron and I both think this one rates about 9.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter.

Total distance: 50.32 km
Total climbing: 1479 m
Average temperature: NAN
Total time: 05:52:13

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Cycling, South East Qld, xc

Mount Mellum

by NeilEnnis 9 June 2012 No Comments Shortlink

Mount Mellum is a scenic spot up in the hills between Maleny and Landsborough. We rode there today from Beerburrum on our way up to Mooloolah. The aim of the exercise was to find an alternative route from the Glasshouse Mountains to Mooloolah via Peachester so we can eventually organize another Cross Country Group Ride out that way in a few months.

Craig lives in the area, and knows it well because he spends many hours mountain biking through it each week. I met Craig a couple of weeks ago while riding at the Glasshouse Mountains. One of the great things about this sport is the lovely people you meet on the trail.

He kindly offered to show Tony and me around his “back yard”.

We started the ride with a climb up to the saddle between the twin peaks of Tunbubudla. This was quite rocky and steep in parts so we had to walk some sections.

Once we got to the “saddle” between the twin peaks, we have a rest. Since the twin peaks look like a pair of breasts from the distance, we surmised you could call this geological formation a “cleavage” instead of a saddle 🙂

From there we headed north towards the lookout and then to Beerwah. Although the rain threatened to come most of the day, it stayed dry. But the clouds looked fascinating as they shrouded the peak of Mt Beerwah.

At the lookout we met up with Craig’s friend, Gordon, who rode with us to Mooloolah. Gordon had a wonderful quote. He likens mountain biking to “Bushwalking on Wheels” because you get to explore the great outdoors – you just get to cover greater distances than when you walk.

We rode around the northern face of Mt Beerwah. This was a really fun undulating track. The only downside was that the recent rain made the mud and sand stick to the bikes. When we discovered a water tap at the picnic grounds we made sure we used it to wash it all off.

Out the back of Peachester we followed Macdonalds Road. It’s quite steep in places and eventually devolves into a road reserve covered in overgrowth. We found a fun but tricky technical descent down the track, followed by a tough climb up to Mount Mellum.

After enjoying the views at Mount Mellum, we followed Old Landsborough Road down into Dullarcha National Park. This finished in a fun 2 km descent down to the Dullarcha Rail Trail.

From there we followed the bike paths back to Beerburrum.

Some of the views on this ride were amazing. Thank you Craig! We couldn’t have done it without your guidance.

Just over 60km, with almost 1,100m of ascent, and just over 3,100 kcal of energy. This one rates 8 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter.

Total distance: 62.26 km
Total climbing: 1190 m
Average temperature: NAN
Total time: 05:29:35

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Cycling, Northern NSW, xc

Border Ranges – The Movie

by NeilEnnis 3 June 2012 1 Comment Shortlink

Here’s Tony’s video of our ride through the Border Ranges yesterday, including my wimpy attempt at crossing Horseshoe Creek.

Thanks Tony!

Cycling, Northern NSW, Scenic Rim, xc

Border Ranges and Horseshoe Creek

by NeilEnnis 3 June 2012 12 Comments Shortlink

A few weeks ago some friends and I had to cut short our ride through the Border Ranges National Park because of our late start and slow progress.

Today Eric, Darb and I gave it another try.

We arrived at the starting point at about 8:30am after a two and a half hour drive from Brisbane, and immediately started the long climb up into the National Park.

Normally, this ride has some amazing views. Rising over 1,100 meters, some of the lookouts are perched atop shear drops, and let you see forever in every direction. The clouds, mist and rain made that impossible today, but it was still a wonderful experience riding through the lush rainforest.

The rain also made it impossible to take photos. My camera is out of action, so all I had was my mobile phone which doesn’t handle moisture too well. Thankfully, Darb was able to capture the high points of the ride on his Contour video camera. Here’s a link to his video of it.

The challenging thing about this route is that apart from three fast descents, we were climbing for almost 35km, which took us about three and a half hours. All the while, it was raining, and the temperature was hovering around 11C. So it was hard work.

Eric and Darb are strong hill climbers. I found it impossible to keep up with them on the long ascents, and was thankful they stopped several times to help me catch up.

The fast descents were exhillarating though. Shooting down a dirt track at about 40 km/h with fogged up mud-covered glasses, and chill breezes cutting through rain-soaked clothes really makes you feel alive – and cold 🙂 I was glad I added a couple of Snickers Bars to my normal stash of food – they helped to warm me up again.

The final descent out of the National Park is awesome. We dropped 1,000 metres of altitude in just over 10km. That’s the longest descent I’ve ever done.

Normally on a run like this my brakes would overheat, and I’d end up losing them. This time my local bike shop had installed an 8″ brake rotor on the front, and a 7″ rotor on the back. They handled the descent with ease. My brakes didn’t fade at all. Thank you, Sam from Strathpine Bicycle Centre!

Once we left the park, we took a detour through some private property. I had been in touch with a local land owner who said he didn’t mind us riding down through his property to Horseshoe Creek. This was another fun descent down a steep boggy 4wd track with a couple of dozen water bars.

(Picture – Dean Dwyer)

At the bottom of the boggy track, with the bikes covered in mud, we had to cross a flooded Horseshoe Creek. Eric just lifted his bike above his head and waded across in the knee-deep water. I pussy-footed around trying to hop across the rocks and keep my feet dry. In the end, Eric took pity on me, waded back into the water and grabbed my bike, while I finished crossing the creek. My efforts were to no avail – my feet were soaked despite wearing plastic feezer bags over my socks.

The creek was a good spot to wash the mud off the bikes and start the second half of the trip through the much flatter farmland in the valley below the ranges.

(© State of New South Wales through the Department of Education and Training)
In order to fit the ride into one day, we decided to leave out riding into the small town of Kyogle. This saved us about 45 minutes, but it also meant that there wasn’t any place we could stock up on water if we needed it. In the preceding week I got in touch with the teacher at Collins Creek Public School who kindly agreed to let us pop into the school grounds and fill up on water if we needed it. It was a beautiful little school surrounded by farmland, and it in just the right spot for us.

For me, the toughest part of the ride was the final two kilometers. With the end of the day seamingly in sight, and 80 tough kilometers on our legs, the road became suddenly steeper, and we had to grind our way up the hill back to the car.

We did a total of 2,000m of vertical ascent on this ride. It took us seven and a half hours to ride 81.5 km (including an hour in breaks). I burned about 8,000 kcal.

Doing this ride in cold wet weather and having to drive two and a half hours each way to get there definitely rates this one 10 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter.

Total distance: 82.71 km
Total climbing: 1999 m
Average temperature: NAN
Total time: 07:33:35

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Cycling, South East Qld, xc

Peachester Forest

by NeilEnnis 26 May 2012 No Comments Shortlink

(Many thanks to Ron Perske for taking the pictures today. My camera has broken from over-use, so Ron very kindly agreed to be our photographer)

The late Autumn weather in South East Queensland has been amazing, which inspired me to do some more exploration around the Glasshouse Mountains and Peachester. The only problem was that once I’d committed with a couple of friends to do the ride, it started raining 🙂 So it ended up being a bit muddier than we had anticipated.

(Photo by Ron Perske)

Eric, Ron and I started our ride from Matthew Flinders park at Beerburrum, under the brooding watch of Tibrogargan. The park is named after Matthew Flinders who camped there in 1799 – the first european to visit the area. He intended to climb Tibro, but it proved too steep for him, so he decided to have a go at the much easier Mount Beerburrum instead.

(Photo by Ron Perske)

We headed west through the forest towards the lookout. Rain from the night before had soaked some of the trails, so within a quarter of an hour we and our bikes were quite muddy.

After completing the steep climb through the bush up to the lookout, we took a break to enjoy the view and try and get some of the mud out of the bike chains. I brought an old rag, and a bottle of wet-weather chain lube. I discovered that drowning the chain in lube kept most of the mud at bay.

(Photo by Ron Perske)

As we headed into Peachester Forest, we just followed whatever trails looked interesting. We had a basic plan of where we wanted to go, but whenever we came across a winding trail heading off to the side, we checked it out. Sometimes that turned out well. Sometimes we ended up to our axels in muddy water 🙂

(Photo by Ron Perske)

…sometimes we got our feet wet.

Eventually we ended up at Peachester for a bit to eat and a drink, followed by a quick descent down Old Peachester Road, then back to the cars along Old Gympie Road.

The fun thing about today was that we didn’t have a fixed agenda / schedule. The flexibility meant we could follow a whim and see where some trails ended up. The knowledge we gained will be really useful in planning future group rides through the area.

This ride was about 50km, and took about 4 and a half hours. I burned about 2,700kcal and climbed about 900m in vertical ascent. I’d rate this ride about 7 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. There are one or two short difficult pinch-climbs, and the mud made it a bit more of a challenge. It’s not really a ride to do in wet weather so leave it for the dryer winter months.

Total distance: 50.72 km
Total climbing: 992 m
Average temperature: NAN
Total time: 04:37:00

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