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Features | General | Team Reports
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Easter - uni holidays - a time for eating lots of chocolate, catching up with friends and family, and epic rides up very large mountains! They said it hadn't been done before, they said it wasn't meant for bikes, but we heard the calling. Mountain biking from Freeburgh (just out of Bright) to the base of the Victorian Ranges and up the North-West spur of the 1912 metre Mount Feathertop, and back again, was our mission for the day.
The two intrepid explorers; Tim "the Terminator" Retchford and Geoff "Viking" Vietz.
Well we started off nice and early (out of bed before 9 o'clock!), and readied ourselves for the epic journey by throwing in some breakfast bars (the poor mans powerbar!), some snakes (the poor mans glucose tablets!) and went to the bakery for some floury rolls (the poor mans..roll!!). So having looked at the map for almost five minutes the night before we felt pretty prepared. With all that we left the comfort of our luxurious tent, aptly named "the garage" (we reckon it would fit the sube[Subaru] inside!), mounted our trusty steeds (Tim might beg to differ that mine is "trusty"!) and with the official call "gladiators ready!" we started the ride.
Well into the swing of things barreling down the bitumen to where the dirt finally started before realising that there was a few items that had been neglected. So it we returned to base camp and the garage for reloading.
So again it must be said "gladiators ready!", the warm up was over, now for the real stuff. It began quite nicely, with a jaunt along a sealed road, before heading off the beaten track onto the start of some road for which I have no recollection of the name, then onto another, and then through some creeks to ensure that we had wet feet for the entire trip! We were setting a cracking pace, but this doesn't make the trip any shorter when you are going in the wrong direction, heading back towards Victoria! So after realised our folly we re-assessed our map reading skills and managed to backtrack to the trail we had passed quite some moons before. Obviously the Terminators fault!
Ahh! the Dungy's trail. Well we found what we were after, but you have to be dubious about a trail with a name like "Dungy's", too much like "dodgy" for my liking, how true that was!
It started off with a manageable grade, so we got back into the riding rhythm and just chatted to our friends Mr Kangaroo and Mr Wombat. Well chatting was all very well until an hour or two of climbing later that rhythm turned into more of a techno beat, then more into a rap, and it went a sumtin like dis:
Me and my homie Timmy T,
Jazzy G, that's me!, we are the pose,
Ridin and a chatten was what its all about,
Til the road got rough and threw us all about,
Climbin dose steeps was kinda tough,
The road was steep and rocks made it rough,
Rocks on the road were kinda big,
To get up da climbs we really had to dig,
Any slower climbing and we woulda fallen down,
No matter cos Timmy T and Jazzy G were in da town!Break it down Timmy T: Yo big rocks, yo big rocks! hmmmm??anyway!
Some wicked views of the ranges were to be had by all, and climbing more and more we relished in the altitude to be gained around each corner. A couple of hours after starting the climb and getting up into the alpine area the climbing got most serious. Think of the steepest fire trail you know, then steepen it! Then add some big rocks! Well it was kinda like that!
We finally made it up the steep stuff, to a bit of a plateau, however, this wasn't the nice flowing alpine meadows, no sir-e-bob, this was dense bush which tore at your clothing and scratched your exposed bits, making them all kinda pink! But it was all pretty much ridable, apart from the occasional getting caught on a tree root and falling off the side off the track to the great roar of applause of the rider behind.
Well once out of the thick stuff the real ascent of Feathertops North-West Spur began, so the bikes were shouldered and we started climbing the rock plateaus that went on and on and on. That ridge seemed like the longest two kilometres I had ever done. We carried the bikes for a long way up that ridge (2km). You may think that these super-whiz- bang-fabbo aluminium bikes are light riding on the trail around your house, but when you have to shoulder them and lug them up a rocky ridge you gain a new appreciation for the weight of these things. The problem with climbing this kind of stuff after riding up all the steep bits beforehand is that the lactate builds up in epic proportions. Imagine drinking two buckets of lactic acid, then waiting til it runs down to your legs and THEN try and walk up really steep bits with a bike on your back. So with pumped legs I took one slow step at a time until we stopped for lunch to eat, recover, and try and unfreeze the wet feet from that creek crossing so much earlier that day - dumb move that!
Due to the mist that was seen, the scenes were missed, so it was difficult to know when we we were actually on the top. But we finally decided that we were at the highest point and were pretty stoked by it all. So the self-timer opportunity ensued.
The Terminator and the Viking on Feathertop's highest point.
From the highest point you would have thought it would just be smooth sailing. But that crazy snow making god Huey had been doing some casual work at Easter time, and there was white stuff a plenty to make the decent down the peaks rocky shale all very exciting. But a few near misses and we were down. We also met another person who was to remark - "Where the hell did you come from, wouldn't have expected to see bikes here!"
Riding down the Bungalow Spur was awesome, just awesome. I can see why they banned bikes from this, it's a dangerous trip, it's just too much fun and someone could have a heart attack and die!! This is the place where the phrase "Wahoo!" was invented.
So we made it back to where we began so long ago in the little town of Freeburgh. After nine hours of riding time, six up and three down, we were not feeling too bad, managing to set a cracking pace back along the road, "on the boost!" the Terminator added. Whatever weary feelings we did experience were soon lifted by that hypo effect of a couple of litres of coke! Pretty soon after we were already planning our next adventure.
Long live the epic adventure!
XC is the official website of the Skiing Australia Cross Country Committee. It is produced with the assistance of the Australian Sports Commission and the Kangaroo Hoppet. The editor can be contacted via hoppet@netc.net.au.
