Brisbane 500 Fail

A local bikepacking race popped up on the radar a few months ago. The Brisbane 500 was the brainchild of Brisbane local Hayden Lester and promised to tie a bunch of Brisbane’s best singletrack locations together via a network of backroads. I immediately put it on my radar but must admit, in the last few months life and work, then life and then some more work had got in the way. I didn’t rate my chances of getting the requisite time off work but two days out from the start the planets aligned and I thought “ why not give it a crack”?

After all. How hard can 500 km around home be?

My main problem was my lack of fitness. The subsidiary problem was I didn’t have the right bike for the ride. My Muru BNT was a great gravel grinder but is hopeless in singletrack. But it is the only bike I have set up for this sort of riding at the moment so I just though I would give it a crack.

Too heavy.

Riding into the start, pre dawn on ANZAC day was rather pleasant but I probably didn’t need those extra kilometres in the legs. I don’t know the city very well so it took a couple of minutes to find the start area. Once there a few other riders began to trickle in. In all, nine of us were going to give it a go but two or three of those only planned to do a portion of the ride for various reasons.

I duly noted that my setup was equal heaviest with Hayden’s so it wasn’t much of a surprise that we found ourselves at the back of the group pretty much immediately. No worries though. I wasn’t fit and it was a long ride so discretion was the order of the morning.

We exited the city via bike paths that were familiar with me as we wound our way toward Bunya forest. Bunya would be the first of our required single track sections. It was a little wet after some overnight rain, making the tree roots on the trail quite slippery with my overinflated tyres.

First dirt - Bunya.

I took it waaay slow through Bunya and it was frustrating. I know how fast I can normally ride these trails so it was doing my head in a bit and I had to keep telling myself to calm down, it will be a long day.

My preparation style for this ride.

Exiting Bunya we headed across to Kombi Trail, another ripping bit of single track. This WAS fun despite the heavily loaded, zero suspension bike. The climb out from Bellbird Grove over to The Gap however was not much fun and I did some walking on these steep climbs. I needed to save the legs.

I stopped at a 7-11 in The Gap for a bite to eat and a bit of a rest. A couple of the others were stopped as well and I enjoyed the first of several "gas station pies" for the ride. They were much better than the Mrs Macs rats coffins that  I remember actually!

Chunky Steak rat's coffin.

Back on the road and Gap Creek was next on the list of singletrack.

Hurting a bit.


I have to say I really didn't enjoy any of it on the Muru.

Gap Creek trail.

The bike was too heavy and too long/slow steering for singletrack and I found myself sitting at the grassed open area before the climb up to South Boundry rd wondering if I really wanted to do this. Hayden came along about 30 minutes later and wasn't feeling it either.

I talked myself into getting back on the bike by deciding that I wouldn't do the "side tracks" that dropped down to Gold Creek and the massive drop into England creek with it's equally massive climb out. No, my carrot was going to be the northern end of the route at Kluver's lookout - a location I had never been to before. (Yes, I was cutting bits off the route so I wouldn't be an official finisher).
From Kluver's, the route dropped steeply down to Esk, where we would hook up with the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail. The Muru IS made for rail trail!

I chatted with some hikers at the bush camp on South Boundry rd and they were impressed with my little Sawyer Mini water filter. They were carrying nine litres of water, so a 60 gram filter sounded like gold to them!

I stopped at the Boombana Cafe' but they were closed. Well, the door was open but they weren't taking orders. The owner would sell me a cold drink from the 'fridge though and really, that was all I was after here.

Typically closed Boombana Cafe'.

The road climb up to Mt Glorious consists of stupidly steep pinches with equally steep descents, while all the time steadily climbing! I got to the Mt Glorious cafe’ just before dark with a light drizzle falling. 

Sitting at a table I sent a text to my wife letting her know that I was ok but my heart wasn’t in this ride. She offered to come and get me but I didn’t want to go there. I have never bailed on a ride without having a major mechanical stopping me. I had seen a sign saying that Fernvale was just 48km away. I knew that Northbrook Parkway was one sweet motorcycle road and here now, right on dark there was almost zero traffic. I wouldn’t see anything at Kluver’s lookout in the dark so I might as well aim for the Fernvale Hotel for a hot meal and a warm bed.

Northbrook parkway twisty goodness in the dark.

There was still a lot of climbing before the descent began. The descent was brake searing and eye watering as I dropped a bunch of elevation in no time flat.

Lonely tarmac.

It took a while to get into Fernvale and I was hungry! The first place I saw was an empty Freedom fuel stop/convenience store. I attempted to order a burger and a milkshake but the young girl behind the counter could not have given a flying fig if she served me or not. I seemed to be an inconvenience in this convenience store...... I ended up getting a pie and a chocky milk (things that didn't require her to do anything) and retreating to the forecourt in a bit of a temper. I wish I knew who owned the store as I would be glad to give them a run down on how their staff treat customers.......

Luckily, the Fernvale hotel were super friendly, even if they had shut the kitchen for the night. Some chips(crisps) and a couple of beers soothed my rough edges.

The warm shower completely washed them away.

I was up early the next morning and out the door reasonably quickly. As I joined the rail trail I was scoping for tyre marks. How many of the racers had passed through during the night/morning? That was the game as I raced along the easy rolling rail trail.

Soon enough, after seeing at least one track in the dew, I caught up to Matt and Chevonne at a road crossing. Matt was having a minor mechanical and I was able to help him extract his chain from between  the front chainring and bottom bracket, with a bit(lot) of jiggling.

I rode with them and heard their story of riding through the night to get here. They were the two leading riders and I would have never known they had been awake for 28 hours now if they hadn't told me!!

The BVRT is finally finished and the bike paths at it's end in Brassall and Ipswich were first rate. I will have to come check them out some more another day.

Topping up the water in Brassall.

I rode with the pair until Yamanto, where we all tucked into some McDonalds for morning tea. The sound of F18 fighter jets flying around made me feel like I was in the US but I guess this is normal for Ipswich, with Amberley AFB just down the road.

Saying bye to Matt and Chevonne, I took a short cut along the Centenary Highway, cutting off many kilometres and much climbing in the Flinders Peak area. The route rejoins the Centenary Highway after Flinder's Peak and a short while after this point, I jumped off the highway to regain the race route at the White Rock entrance. Bashing through 100m of head high grass in cycling shorts is always interesting.....

I just hiked down from that highway overpass in the background. Yes, we have the 10 most venomous snakes in the world....

I have never been to this trail network before and was surprised to see a quite well set up trail head and fully pro trail marker signage too.

Yaddamun Trail entrance.

The trail started off quite rideable but soon deteriorated into pinchy, rocky climbs and descents. A proper mountain bike would have been a much better choice here and the effort had me sucking hard on the water bottle.

It took quite a while before I popped out onto quiet back streets and made my way towards home (which was where the actual course went anyway). 

More service station pies and icy cold milk drinks were consumed.

Crossing the Logan River I was close to home now and with no more roads to ride on, just bike path, much happier. Drivers are for some reason getting more and more impatient/aggressive/stupid.

I arrived home at about 1530 on Friday afternoon having ridden 271km(168mi) with 3900m(12800ft) of climbing since 0610 the day before. I guess I could have done the whole ride as I wasn't feeling too bad but my heart really wasn't in it. Something about being so close to home and knowing that there was still a lot of single track to ride - on a bike that just isn't made for singletrack - plus missing out on all of the family stuff that was happening over the weekend. I have been away a lot of weekends this year for work and just couldn't justify being away, selfishly pedalling my bike for this one. 

Who would have thought 500km around Brisbane could be so tough? There is a LOT of climbing here. the pinchy, up and down, up and down that really saps it out of you. A nice sustained 1000m climb would have been preferable!

Thanks to Hayden for putting this route together though. It would have taken a massive amount of effort to stitch it all up. Congrats to the four riders who completed the whole course. Dan Graham was the first rider back at 0935 Saturday morning, so about 2 days, 3 hours and 25 minutes!! 

A very solid effort!!

Cheers.

Official finishers. Hayden Lester photo.