Hi Folks,
Nothing like a rainy day to write up the Lake Weyba Ride summary, so without further adieu…
28 riders ready to roll!
On a somewhat cloudy morning 28 riders prepared themselves in the car park near Peregian Beach for a 30km ride around Lake Weyba. We set off just past 7AM (unfortunately just missing Lumir and Alan who got kidnapped by Siri). I had to drag the group up a hill straight off the bat so I quickly got my first satisfying fix of everyone wailing and moaning. We then nipped across David Low Way and after a little bit of bitumen we were on the dirt and skirting the southern perimeter of the lake through grassy fields and paperbark forests.
We navigated around to where the single track starts through the southern reaches of the Noosa National Park. This bit of track consists of sandy soils, roots and grass. and holds up well to all sorts of treatment, as made evident by all the trail bike marks along it. Regardless of it being sandy it tends to hold water and there were regular puddles all the way along it, this helped feed our bottom brackets their fill of grit.
We sneaked under the Sunshine Motorway through a little known pedestrian tunnel that Michael tries to name “Pedestrian tunnel of death!”. But there is nothing deadly about it – he just puts “of death” onto the end of everything to make things sound more extreme. At the eastern entrance of Wooroi we offered the option of anyone who wanted to go it alone and do a few loops of Wooroi but as there weren’t any takers we continued on and headed back down a firebreak that crosses a stream and runs alongside the golf course.
John had to do a quick adjustment but then bridge was good to go again
Zig zagging through the small streets like BMX Bandits (that’s an old 80’s movie kids) we cut though a ‘back track’ that had a make-shift bridge and into the Noosaville commercial estate. Here we got to whiz through the back of Noosa Civic Shopping centre and onto the Eenie Creek Road cycleway (there are great cycling facilities around Noosa). We followed this over the bridge and into Noosa Springs.
At the end of Leslie Drive is where we hit the sandy soils of the eastern side of Lake Weyba. This was the most anticipated/dreaded section of the ride – those with fatter tyres and/or motors were looking forward to the soft sand and those with traditional tyres were not. The wet weather had helped bed the sand down a bit but there were sections that felt like you were riding up hill even though it was flat. However the different vegetation and nice views along this track made up for the extra effort as it is quite unique compared to where we normally ride.
After the sandy tracks were done we tramped sand through the back streets of Peregian Beach and rode some more grassy easements back to where we started.
Big hello to everyone especially our “long time no see” members, it was good to see you. Also a shout out to our new member Michael who made it through the whole 30km, nice work!
Ben Johns
Club President
Lake Weyba Ride Nov ’17
