Sunday 19 April 2009 - Old Great North Road
The day started with a lot of rain, and an exchange of text messages about the potential for ongoing inclement weather (including from an un-named Celt (who really should have known better)). Nonetheless, after a bit of to and fro, we were sorted and a convoy headed up to Mangrove Mountain (sans Akis who was detained with some challenges at home, but at least he had a real excuse and wasn't being wussy about the weather!).
Doug figured it would be wise to avoid the weir given the ongoing rain, so we diverted to the alternative entry point - stopping at the top of what turned out to be a truly humungous hill down to the valley floor (and about fourteen times longer on the way back...).
And so it was that Doug, Brian, Nicole, Donal, Whisperer and Stephe set off - at around 8am, with a light rain and fairly cool conditions... The ride down was entertaining, visiting the cemetry on the way, and enjoying the scenery - but tempered a little by the inevitable thinking about "what goes down, must come up".
We didn't see too many folk on the way up the hill to Ten Mile Hollow, or further up the hill to the ridge line proper. Various break away groups formed as we rode up the hills, and along the ridge line - with Whisperer taking on the challenge of anyone who wanted a hurry along, and circling back when needed to keep his movement up (he and Donal using the ride as a warmup for the Dirtworx in two weeks). Brian was strong up the hills as ever, and had a welcome return to technical form, and Doug seems to have also recovered his 'mountain bike' legs, after worrying that it was all going to be beyond him last week at Mooney. And Nicole and Stephe cruised along smelling the flowers...
When approaching Devines Hill we were aghast to see that the magnificent single track has been horribly vandalised to make an open fire trail, some two or more kilometres further along the ridge than ever before. This provided a bit of a sombrebackground to the quick bite to eat at the top of Devine's hill, before we started to head back.
Doug and Brian had a time constraint and so struck off at a consistent pace - and were not seen again, arriving back at the cars around 1.30pm. The rest of the bunch had a fairly relaxed trip back - stopping to check out Donal after a (very silly!) fall, and waiting for folk as they needed to catch up on the hills - all the while with Whisperer zooming ahead and coming back to check out new lines and generally keep his pace up.
On the subject of new lines, to finish the ride, we headed left from Ten Mile Hollow, up to Clare's Bridge, and then down Donny's Trail - meeting some lads we had seen earlier coming in from Wisemans Ferry, on their way back up Donny's trail. Given that we've now been *down* that track, we have every respect for anyone silly enough to actually come up it!
Then, on to the huuuuuge hill back to the cars - a long, slow, but not too bad climb - back at the cars at 2pm, and a lot of happy and smiling faces! Around 55kms in all, and a jolly good time to boot.
Compare routes and profiles for the extension at the end:
The full set of photos are up here; and Whisperer's GPS route (with the Donny's Trail diversion) is here.
posted by Stephe Wilks @ 10:45 pm
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