Nasty Sticks and Pretty Pics – Mapleton Club Ride Summary – 23/04/2017
Q: What’s brown and sticky?
A: A stick!
That classic primary school joke leads us into the theme of Sunday’s ride. Sticks! Sticks everywhere! Sticks on the trail – sticks in wheels and derailleurs – sticks in my thigh. The li’l bastards were everywhere! But despite the constant assault from these gravity challenged branches the ride was actually a lot of fun.
So sixteen of us were ready to go at the Mapleton lily pond and the plan was to head to the Oaky Creek lookout through the Linda Garret Park fire breaks. Then on the way back we would do the flow’y Turpentine track (aka the Magic mile). Linda Garret park was a little damp with a few trees down but it was still great to ride as it’s so beautiful in there.
Craig’s snapped crank arm (photo taken with a potato it seems).
We met up at the new parking area where the motorbikes can load/unload and then broke up into two groups. A fast group lead by Nick shot off towards the lookout with the rest of us travelling a bit slower behind. Most of us made it to the lookout but poor Craig snapped his crank arm (no joke!) at the halfway point and had to head back.
The lookout was spectacular as always, with the beautiful weather we could see for miles. After a bite to eat and chat (where Will accidentally exposed his advanced knowledge of The Transformers cartoons) we set off back towards the Day Use area and the Magic Mile.
A few of us were running out of batteries so we only did half the Magic Mile and broke off early and headed back to the cars and coffee. The others completed the whole trail then grunted and groaned their way back up the Mapleton Forest road.
Points of note:
- Rob came along and pretty much rode in downhill mode waiting for a hill with jumps to “give it some fruit” (I don’t know what that meant but it sounded nasty).
- Our “Days without accidents” count was reset to zero again with two small incidents. Good job Amanda and Alan, we are definitely going to nail that KPI this year.
- Amanda played two games of Hockey the day before and then Miles and her came and road 30km with us. Nice work!
Thanks for the ride everyone and welcome to our new riders Alan and Lumir.
Michael (Why am I ride leader again!) Johns
Club Secretary
Ride map and elevation