Yandina/Cooloolabin Ride Summary
It was a glorious day to ride to Point Glorious. A ride featuring Jez from Venture Cycles, Mal from the Sunshine Coast Cycling Club, and Lester from the Noosa Trailblazers and a few other new faces as well – thanks for coming guys I hope you enjoyed yourself. Hello to past member Jason Daw who stopped for a quick chat as well.
Terry about to show us his breakdancing moves
All up there were 21 of us at the Cooloolabin Dam Trail Head (with 11 starting from Yandina to tackle the Bottle and Glass Road climb). To get a few more kms Gavin rode in from Buderim and Brad rode in from Mapleton.
Yandina was 5°C and that tends to make hopping out of the warm car and stripping down to a thin layer of lycra not very fun, but #cyclinglife and #yolo and all that. “Why were people wearing their lycra on the outside today?” I hear you ask. Today was the day that Ben, Gavin, Lester and Murray were going to “groadie” (gravel roadie) it up to the Pt Glorious lookout to show us all what a gravel/CX bike can do! Although they had to tentatively negotiate the descents they made up for it with speed on the flats and hills.
Bottle and Glass road was reportedly fixed up but it was still the same old rough-as-guts-stumble-up-a-hill it’s always been. Rod and Gavin quickly took lead and battled each other to the top leaving Murray and Ben to fight for third place which Ben almost lost because he had to dismount when his wheel spat out a baby head (definition: Baby head – weird term for a rock about the size of a baby’s head).
Wheelie-bin bike
They all made it to the top and shot along the dam walls and single track that follows the dam edge (thanks for clearing sticks and debris during the week Terry). The two groups met at the trail head and set off to loop the Cooloolabin dam and climb to Pt Glorious. There were a couple of rougher deviations for the MTBers, one of which had a small creek crossing that Murray managed on his gravel bike. Once at the lookout we rested and soaked in the views and chatted. We ogled Jez’s Trek Top Fuel and Mal’s sexy red plus bike (Graham was bemoaning the fact he didn’t bring his new plus bike as he fought his way over roots and loose gravel). We also politely commented on Murray’s bike but actually wondered why a company would paint a bike like a wheelie-bin. Also most people openly shunned Michael’s obnoxiously loud, truck sounding fat bike as per standard procedure (edit by Michael: but they were probably secretly jealous).
After the lookout it was back to the cars and coffee in Yandina. Some of the group took the opportunity to check out the intense downhill tracks and obstacles along the sides of Bottle and Glass road. There was some wild stuff in there but luckily there were B-lines for the less courageous of us.
Thanks for coming everyone, seeya at the next ride at Ewan Maddock Dam – Glenview.
