Mapleton Community Ride Summary 04/12/2016
On this ride I found out that plus bike riders are people too. Buying into the middle ground of tyre sizes never pays off – it’s not the best of both worlds, it’s boring being-all-things beige. Pick a side and defend it with all the misinformation and confirmation bias you can muster in a 5 minute google search! However; Graham and Daniel were the two plus bike riders this ride, a Norco and a Scott respectively and I discovered that you can talk to them and they won’t try and validate why they wasted so much money on a marketing gimmick. As a matter of fact they’re quite normal. So the next time you bump into a fence sitting semi-fat rider give them the benefit of a doubt and look past their shortcomings. Maybe you could help them out by convincing them to go back to normal sized tyres. [/sarcasm, I actually like plus bikes]
Getting on with the summary… I was pleasantly surprised after rolling up early and seeing the car park full and people getting ready for a ride. Turns out they were our elite crew starting early for a longer ride down to Pt Glorious – sounds like they had a pretty good time with Murray breaking out his Independent 29er which was one of the first 29er style bikes to grace the local trails. (It also had normal sized tyres).
The fasties moved off and then the more leisurely crew began to trickle in and prepare themselves for the way more exciting ride on some shared access trails to a lookout and then onto the MAGIC MILE.
Skirting Lynda Garrett park via the fire road we joined onto the newly signed and cleared trail 3, it’s a wide access road that doubles as a fire break. The trail was a bit up/down and has one hill called ‘Oxygen’ that’s a bit of a challenge (Corrine fell over on it while trying to dodge horse poop) . We then reached a bush camp with a nice lookout and had a breather. While there we stole Greg’s snake lollies and talked about how Michael the club secretary bonked out big time on the last hill and his questionable tyre choices and how he hadn’t had a sidewall tear yet.
Continuing on along trail 3 we went through some fun creek crossings to the motorbike parking area then headed down trail 1 or the beginning of the Magic Mile. There was a tree down and the usual assortment of derailleur destroying dunnage but the rain had washed off the leaf matter exposing the concrete like dirt underneath which made for some rather fast rolling. After briefly stopping at the day use area to give some people the option to head back to the cars we continued on to the end of the ‘mile and made our way back for coffee at the local bakery.
All in all it was a slightly more hilly community ride but one that took in different views and routes and that’s always a good thing right?
Ben Johns
Club President
