Parklands Night Ride Summary 15/03/2017
Yesterday’s downpour and the prediction of more today almost caused tonight’s ride to be cancelled. But the rain held off through the day so four of us HARDCORE! (or stupid?) riders decided it was good to go. Chad, Greg, Ben and myself were ready and raring at Radar Hill carpark by 6pm. Chad took the lead and took us up Ho-chi-ho, we then climbed the fire road to the top gate and then into Top track.
Now Top track is a black diamond trail and I’ve found in the past it sort of induces swearing and vomit from me. So I wondered to myself who would ride along that in the dark while its wet? Well it seems the four of us would tonight because as mentioned before we were HARDCORE!… or stupid. But we made it through unscathed and then dropped into Cancer Tree.
Climbing out of Cancer Tree
There wasn’t that much mud anywhere in Cancer Tree but there was a whole heap of wet slippery roots and logs. One log rollover almost got Greg as his bike slipped sideways but he recovered and kept his footing rather gracefully. It was here my bar light decided that it didn’t want to work anymore so I was left with only my helmet light so that was fun.
We then went down into Cabo Creek Climb then into Road Rage including the climb up to the fire road and then down through the slippery rain forest bit. Ben hit a fallen branch on a weird angle and his bike dropped and flat spun out from under him while he casually continued walking down the trail. It was pretty impressive.
We all made it back to the cars after about 10km and 1hr of riding and I have to say it was a pretty exciting ride.
MTB Yoda is wise
DARK GNAR Score
Reverse direction – 20 points
Black diamond trail – 50 points
Wet roots and logs – 30 points
Light failure – 20 points
Close calls – 40 points
Cane toads – 20 points
Yabbies – 10 points
Wet modifier – x 2
Night modifier – x 2
TOTAL DARK GNAR score – 760
Ride map and elevation
