Saturday 15 November 2008 - OGNR (Great North Road)

A last minute bit of excitement from Doug, and we had organised a Saturday mountain bike ride (lordy, who has heard of such a thing).

Akis and Stephe joined Doug at Old North Road, leaving from the pumping station at Mangrove Mountain, over to Wisemans Ferry and back. And it was, as always, truly great (although, again, seriously exhausting, and not as if we set any land speed records along the way). The 45km ride was under a gentle misty rain most of the way - except, of course, when we were shattered coming back up the various hills when the sun came out and punished us... ah, the Gods of ONR are a scary and cruel bunch!

Not too many people out and about, but we did see a couple of folk - and they too seemed to be having fun.


[Akis, Stephe, Doug about to set off]

Although it seems harsh to describe it as a fairly 'standard' ride, we did the usual things, and decided against doing Spiders - but the usual things were all fun, and the riding was good (requiring a bit of concentration now and then, eh!).



We also stopped and smelled the roses along the way (!), and had fun on the 'mound
of death':



The trail was great, and the view at the end superb:



And a bit of playing on the way back...



The profile and track are still a joy to behold:



The full set of photos are up here.