Beerburrum to Woodford Ride 28/05/2017
The first of the long distance winter rides taking advantage of the cool dry days. Expect more of these challenging but worth while rides between now and when things start heating up again.
The fog was still rising over the highway and the temperature reading outside was a fresh 13°C. After being thankful for the modern marvel known as a heater I went back to the critical decision of whether I wanted a bacon & egg roll or a ham & cheese croissant when we arrive at Woodford. Still undecided I arrived at the Mathew Flinders Park rest area where I found Rod and Murray getting ready and a couple of cars that looked like they took advantage of the free overnight stay (be smart, don’t drive tired).
I began to unload the bike as the rest of the 14 riders trickled in and also started to get ready. Here Gary from Bendigo asked if he could tag along which is always fine for MTBA members. It was just before the ride off that I realised that I hadn’t copied the route onto my Garmin… so John and Mike managed to improvise the route – thanks guys!
The improvised route took us along Caves Road, around the northern side of Mt Tunbubudia over to Twin View Rd. Riding along the road for a little before heading back into the forestry where we met our first set of climbs. Reaching the top we followed a mix of forestry access tracks and a bit of single track and passing a recently felled forestry area which was kinda eerie in that it looked like a war zone with the morning mist still drifting around. We then popped out onto George St, Woodford, completing the first leg of the ride.
We b-lined straight for CJ’s Pastries for a well earned coffee for around 30 minutes. I decided on the croissant. We were lucky that we just beat the motorcyclist rush hour as there was a line out the door and motorbikes everywhere before we had finished.
From Woodford we headed back via Old Cove Rd before turning down Dunning Ln and back into the Forestry. A few more climbs later we took a rest to watch a 4WD negotiate a technical climb which was kinda interesting, video of it available here. We then skirted a hill via some single track and then headed over to the Glasshouse Mountains Lookout. It was along this section where Gary from Bendigo suffered a catastrophic rear derailleur failure with both the cage and hanger getting bent up in the rear wheel. A bit of bush mechanics and we had upgraded Gary’s bike to a single speed.
We did the usual happy snaps of the views from the lookout and then headed back to the cars to call it a day.
A long ride with a fair bit of climbing but it was worth it for the great weather and views.
Ben Johns
Club President
