A Munda Biddy Sampler

The Great Cycle Challenge rolls on despite a work trip getting in the way. Actually, this time around a work trip helped facilitate some more riding. You see, while it was nice and dry here in Perth, it has been quite wet at home which would have put the brakes on my challenge odometer had I been at home.

The day started with a pleasant ride out East from near the Perth CBD.  As I have mentioned in the past, Perth has some great cycling infrastructure with dual lane paths snaking all over the city. I followed one of these East toward the airport, occasionally taking to various back streets to get out to Midlands.

Ascot Racecourse

I had made a last minute decision to take the bike on this trip so had no pre-prepared navigation notes to follow, just a sketchy memory of which way to go. The sketchy memory came through for me with an "almost" flawless ride out to Midland and beyond to Bellevue and the start of the Heritage Rail Trail.

I have done this trail several times now so just got stuck in with climbing the range.

Darlington station

My aim was to get to Mundaring then make a decision on weather to keep heading East along the Kep Track to Northam or to turn South and sample some of the famous Munda Biddy Track.

The Munda Biddy runs from Mundaring all the way to Albany, 1000km (621mi) away on the south coast of Western Australia.

I did have a .gpx file to follow out to Northam on the Kep, but nothing at all for the Munda Biddy. Ah well, sometimes you have to live on the edge. The Munda Biddy it was going to be!!

I had a rough idea of riding down to Jarrahdale. Rough in that I knew it was south along the track but I had no idea whether it was 80km or 120km away. I also had no idea of the surface conditions and must admit I was thinking it must be like the awesome surface of the rail trail. FAIL on that one!! I did look at Trailforks and found one ride from Mundaring to Brookton Highway - quite a way from Jarrahdale - that quoted 46km. This was going to be a solid day but on the plus side, I did have ALL day! (plus lights)

Decision made, I quickly pulled into Woolies for some snacks and sustenance to keep me powering along for however long I needed to......


Did I mention it was a cracking bluebird day at about 20C(68F) and just a perfect day to be riding? Well it was! And even better, being a work trip, technically I was being paid to do this stuff....... ;) happy days!

Trail Marker Number 1

Anyway, I pushed off toward Mundaring Weir and the Weir Hotel. The track took quite a few twists and turns along here and all I had to go by were the Munda Biddy Trail blazes.

This turn obviously gets missed a bit!

Being on the CX bike I was smoking along and as a result I shot past about 6 or 8 corners. This was going to be a long day if I kept missing turns like this!

Anyway, after getting very good at feet up u-turns on gravel I was soon enough standing outside the Mundaring Weir Hotel. My neighbour, Chris, just happened to call and I was able to brag about where I was (Chris did a few years in Perth so appreciated where I was).

A little bit of  blacktop and I was back onto the dirt, looking for the yellow trail blazes. They eventually became easier to find and once I was past the maze of singletrack that is just South of Mundaring Weir they actually became very easy to spot and progress increased markedly. The trail also criss-crossed the Bibbulman Track a few times. It looked superb but alas, it is a walking only trail.

Progress increased, apart from the few hills that I had to get off and walk up as a combination of high gearing, skinny tyres and loose surface made it just not worthwhile hurting too much.

I don't want to bang on about it as every other article written about the Munda Biddy devotes many words to it but I must make mention of the loose gravel/sand (Pea Gravel) that is quite widespread, especially on downhill corners. I was running 35mm tyres at 60psi. Always going to be sketchy.

A very good section.

 While I did have 8-10 "oh shit" moments where I thought the front was folded and gone, the Sammy Slicks I was running seemed to grip on their side knobs and right me at the last moment. It certainly made it tougher but in no way was it terribly difficult to navigate. There, Pea Gravel done. Lets not speak of it again.

I pedaled on.and on.......and...on. I couldn't beleive how isolated it felt being on the trail, even though I was probably not at any time more than 50 odd kilometres from Perth city. I didn't see another soul all afternoon, apart from the two road crossings where cars were whizzing by at what looked like warp speed after my ant like progress through the twists and turns of the Munda Biddy.

I made a point of not looking at the distance measured on my GPS as I find this always underwhelms me. You know, you think you have done 100 miles and really you have only done 15.......anyway, I eventually came to Brookton Highway which I knew from my look at Trailforks in Mundaring was 46km away. Shit. 46km? That was tougher than it should have been!

Here I found a fly in the ointment of my Southward progress. There had been a controlled burn conducted in the last few days and it was still smoldering in places, so the trail was closed. There was a gravel road alternate which navigated around the burn. While I was a bit bummed, on the other hand I was down to about 200ml (6oz) of water with no prospect of getting a top up before Jarrahdale - however far that was away......

The dirt road was very wide and consisted of red gravel. It was quite smooth and it reminded me very much of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

This is a massive state but the soil seems to be the same from top to bottom. I soft pedalled along this 19km diversion so as not to increase my thirst. I was thankful it was quite a cool day and my water consumption was low as a result.

I could see an area called Gleneagle on my GPS and was hoping that there might be a small town or shop there. There wasn't.

There was a campground which was pretty bloody grubby with rubbish everywhere-too close to the Albany highway-and no campers, whom I was hoping to cadge some water from. :(

Looking at the GPS I could see the Munda Biddy snaking around to the East before swinging back toward Jarrahdale. It crossed a sealed road, a sealed road that went straight into Jarrahdale. Being about 4pm I decided to just roll along the seal as I wasn't really sure what I would find in Jarrahdale. Yeah, yeah, do your research, I know....but this was spur of the moment and you have got to live on the edge occasionally!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was only 14km to Jarrahdale as it looked further on my 1 3/4" GPS screen. It proved to be a rather pleasant roll into town although apparently I did miss some really nice sections of the trail that ran through an old P.O.W. camp and along an elevated ex railway. Oh well, next time.

50ml left....and I hadn't really drank for 2 hours.....

Once in Jarrahdale I quickly found the general store and went mad in the fridge, emerging to sit in the late afternoon sun with water, chocolate milk, chicken sandwich, fruit cake etc.......and settled into it.

Food and lodging - both top notch!

Sitting at the table next to me were two guys I took to be hikers. Chatting, it quickly emerged that they were from Victoria and doing an End to End of the Munda Biddy on bikes. We chatted away for a bit when I learned that the general store also had a B & B upstairs. For a modest price I could get a room with continental breakfast. I could also have dinner in the Jarrahdale Tavern with my newly found friends. SOLD!

Jarrahdale Tavern - the photo does not do it justice.

After draining the Jarrahdale water supply in the shower (did I mention it was getting cold now?) I doused myself in deodorant (only travelling with my now stinky riding gear)  and wandered down to the Tavern for dinner. Dave and Ross turned out to be brothers from Bright and Ballarat in Victoria and were taking 3 weeks to do the Munda Biddy. We enjoyed a great meal, even better beers and discussed all things mtbing for quite a while. Well, until about 7:30, when we all decided we were stuffed and elected to turn in for the night.

The stats for the day were -

Day 2

I was up early the next morning and tucked into the continental breakfast my hosts had left out. I wanted to be on the road early to beat the traffic and to give myself plenty of time to get back to the hotel as I would be more or less following my nose. 

I headed out of town and turned right onto Nettleton Road as instructed by Jim, the owner of the Jarrahdale Bed and Breakfast/Store who promised me that it was a nice quiet road with not much climbing. Thankfully he was bang on the money with only a half dozen cars passing me on the entire road and what hills there were, were very gentle.

When I finally met the South Western Highway at Byford I was instantly back in the bustle of a city with cars whizzing along the road and it took a few minutes before a break large enough for me to safely cross the highway emerged. Talk about leaving a time warp! Yuk!

Most of the rest of the morning consisted of battling ever increasing morning traffic which is the same as traffic in any major city - just bloody awful. There were flashes of brilliance when I would find one of Perth's great bike paths but these tended to petre out into nothing, then I was back on the road, dodging idiots who should have got out of bed just 5 minutes earlier.

I eventually found my regular river loop bike path and trundled along the Swan River and around to a cafe' that I like to frequent when in Perth and in possession of a bike. The Bayside Kitchen is a great location to kick back and watch the water. As a bonus they do awesome food and coffee too!

From here I ambled back around the river with no particular goal in mind. It was too early to head back to the hotel and the riding was too easy on the flat bike path not to keep riding, so I did keep rolling around the place soaking up the glorious day.

Eventually doing nothing in particular got the better of me and I went back to the hotel to prepare for work that night. All in all, a great morning on the bike that felt soooo easy yet yielded 86km(53mi) for the tally.

So, at Thursday lunchtime - Day 12 - I sat at 737km(457mi) for the month. I might not quite make my self imposed 14 day/1000km but it will not be far off.

 Is 2000km for October still possible? 

Time for a controlled burn........

Cheers and thanks for checking in.

Just Like A Mountain Bike - With A Motor

I was stooging around Perth, West Australia, the other day just minding my business.

My regular Swan River lap on a hired road bike was going according to plan but things were starting to heat up, temperature wise. 

You see, Perth had just endured a record breaking spell of hot weather only normally seen on the sun ward side of Mercury! 

The heatwave was officially over but it was heading for the high 30s again today. I was slurping plenty of water to stay hydrated but my mind was wandering. Wandering back to a blog post I read last week.

 Author of said blog, Mike, (BMW GS1200 owner/rider) had been for a test ride on the new Honda Africa Twin. It is an adventure bike that has been promised for a while now but was short in the actual delivery. Well no more! Honda has finally released it to a public that has until now had to make do with massively overpriced, overweight motorcycles that are purportedly for "on and off highway" use. 

I have been eyeing the BMW 800GS and the Triumph Tiger 800XC for a while but they are too heavy, too expensive and too road oriented for my taste so I have just sat on my hands, despite having a good look at the BMW during our tour of New Zealand in 2014.

Where am I going with all this I hear you ask? Well, I am going to take the bikecycle back to the hire shop - which happens to be right near Dale Britton Honda....

I thought that I might just pop in to see if they had any Africa Twins on the floor. You know, just to see what they look like in the flesh. 

Well, I was pleased to see that they had two in fact. One was the base model in silver and the other an ABS model in Honda Tricolour. There was another scruffy looking bloke sniffing around them, so we took turns at ogling each bike.

Chatting to Dale Britton himself confirmed my suspicions that this bike was generating much interest. Dealers had to beg Honda for demo bikes as the actual release date for the Africa Twin here in Oz isn't until May. The rest of the world has them NOW. The caveat for dealers to get their mitts on an actual bike was that they were under no circumstances to sell the demo bike lest they be shut out of the supply chain for 12 months! Tough stuff for people who earn their crust by selling motorcycles to punters like me......

In spite of this, he insisted I take the nice, shiny ABS model for a test ride. I came up with all sorts of reasons not to but really, I was bursting to throw a leg over it. I just needed to return the treadly and get changed into some motorcycle friendly kit, not the bike gear I had on. I would return!

And return I did! The obligatory paperwork took all of 30 seconds to complete and they pointed me at the Africa Twin, burbling away just outside the front door. I threw a leg over and tried my best not to wobble out into the traffic.

I needn't have worried, I felt at home almost immediately. The throttle was light, but not too light so it was easy to be smooth despite me not having ridden a motorcycle for maybe 4-6 weeks now. Being in a strange city, on a strange bike didn't feel that daunting because this bike was easy to ride. It felt like a big soft mountain bike.....just with a lot more GO than I can provide.

In finding my way down to the Swan River I had plenty of stop/start work at lights and left/right as I flowed through back streets down to the river. The bike felt typical "Honda". 

Smooth, polished and a little bit homogenised. 

The bike has good standover height. At 178cm(5'11") I could touch the ground easily but not quite flat footed both sides though. There is a height adjustable seat option but I am not sure what the demo bike was sporting. Either way, I felt pretty comfortable with the size of the bike and the layout of the cockpit. The bars were comfortable and despite my short 45 minutes on the bike, I am pretty sure that a long day in the saddle would be easily accomplished without needing to be hoisted off by a helicopter at the destination. The seat felt, well actually, I didn't notice it at all, so it must have been ok.

Long, it isn't.

The instrument cluster is pretty basic compared to most new bikes. I didn't have time to sort through the menus, what with trying to take photos in traffic err..controlled conditions....

I mentioned that the bike felt soft earlier. Well, getting on the gas saw the nose rear skyward. Not that the front was lifting off, just the back was squishing down. Backing off and braking firmly sees the nose dive like a football player at the World Cup. To be fair, this may be perfect for off road use, something I didn't get to try being in the centre of Perth. If it IS too soft I am sure it can be set up to suit the road a little better without compromising the off road capability.

I had read good things about the aerodynamics of the screen on various blogs and reviews in that the AT doesn't buffet your head around. I found the BMWs we rode in New Zealand to be terrible in this regard despite there being different screens fitted to the bikes we hired. They were all bad.

The only place to try the Africa Twins aeros was along the Swan River while riding into the Fremantle Doctor. My 70km/h plus the Doctor's 40km/h gave me a virtual 110km/h headwind and I am pleased to say that the result was a quiet, smooth ride.

I negotiated some more city traffic, finding the bike easy to filter at the lights. It was a hot afternoon, maybe 37C (99F) but the engine didn't give off an uncomfortable amount of heat even with the cooling fan cycling on and off.

I thought that I was pushing the friendship by now and made my way back to the dealership. I managed to surprise myself by finding the dealership pretty quickly. Being handed the keys to a brand new bike, in a city on the other side of the country to where I live, with no escort to lead me around was outstanding customer service. I know when test riding bikes here at home they will not let you out of sight, so kudos to Dale Britton Honda for trusting me with their one precious demo bike.

My thoughts? 

I must say I don't get excited by many motorcycles these days. To me they seem to be all about "more". 

More power, more speed, more weight, more cost, more "cred". The Africa Twin represents a bit "less" to me. It isn't uber powerful, it isn't a supertanker, though it isn't a featherweight either. It isn't a pose, it is meant to take on adventure. Sure, it makes compromises in what specification it can have but I must say that I feel that Honda have worked extremely hard on not allowing compromises to affect what it can do.

This is just an initial opinion and just my opinion. I do want to ride the DCT version of the bike which may be easier said than done. Finding a dealer willing to risk sitting an auto on their showroom floor, possibly to be stuck with it might be tough. Also, I need to get some dirt under it's wheels before I go making any rash decisions.....

....but it took a long while to wipe the sh#t-eating grin off my face..............

Cheers.

Western Wandering

Perth was the main destination this week with two nights being spent in the hotel there, with some local W.A. flying in between.

I managed to hire a bike from the usual place (About bike Hire) and get a Swan River loop under the wheels. The loop goes via Fremantle and is about 50km, which I can seem to knock out in about one hour and fifty minutes. It is very flat for that 50km! I was pressed for time so no stopping for photos this time around. Rest assured, the view hasn't changed much since the last time I did the ride but it was very nice nonetheless to be out in the fresh air.

A relatively easy two sector day was rostered and we turned up at the appointed hour to do our "thing". The company's newest aircraft was at Perth domestic terminal after completing our first business class service from Sydney and was recomposing itself for the return service.

The launch was very well received by those lucky enough to partake in the action and more can be read about it here.

Perth traffic.

We made our way up the west coast for a port that would be a first time visit for me. It amazes me how busy these small airports have become with the mining boom. Twenty years ago when I flew around in this part of the world in light aircraft a one hundred seat jet was was the regular service to a select few destinations. Now one hundred and eighty seat jets fly into every town and quite a few mining airstrips as well, just carrying mining crew.

The WA coast looking out over Kalbri.

Port Hedland terminal.

After a few more days of criss-crossing the country it was nice to be coming home. We passed these guys on the second last sector. No matter how many time I see it, I find it hard to comprehend how accurate satellite navigation is these days. In the middle of the outback, an hour into the flight we pass exactly centreline to centreline at about 1670km/h closing speed. You can appreciate why it is vital that we are at the correct level i.e. at least 1000ft vertically apart, otherwise the result would be unthinkable.

 

                              

How far do you have to go for a ride?

With all of the activities going on at home lately it is proving nearly impossible to get out on my bike for any meaningful riding. I managed a quick spin sunday morning, with a run down Wallum Froglet here in Cornubia. It is shaping up nicely, but needs some work to improve the flow on a couple of corners.
The kids pestered me sunday afternoon to take them for a ride. It didn't take much effort on their part. Any excuse for a ride with the kids.

Sunday night brought work back into the picture with a trip to Perth. I had a cunning plan and packed my road shoes,gps, gloves and a biddon. A spot of breakfast at the trendy "Tiger Tiger", then on to the Red Cat bus to pick up a hire bike. I was in luck, as I had not booked, they had a Merida road bike available and I was quickly saddled up and on the bikepath heading toward the Narrows bridge.

It was a perfect morning for a ride too. Cool and dry. It felt great to be on the road again with the suburbs looking picturesque. Jutland Parade was it's usual immaculate self and I had to stop on the Esplanade at Peppermint Grove for some pictures. Unfortunately they do not do it justice. It really was a magic morning for a ride!

Moving along toward Fremantle and the slightly maladjusted seat was giving me some grief. It was slightly too high and too far back. Just one of the hazzards of going with a hire bike. I would have to find a friendly bike shop to borrow an allen key to adjust it. That shop turned out to be Fleet Cycles, in Adelaide st, Freo. Give them a try if you are in the area as they are very kind to interstate cyclists.

By this stage the tummy was beginning to rumble so I picked up just about the biggest chicken and avocado sandwich I had ever seen and headed to the Esplanade Park to chill and refuel. This is always a very pleasant spot to relax and I guess we can thank the winning of the "Americas Cup" for bringing this run down little seaside suburb back to life back in the 80s. It certainly has turned into a trendy and cosy spot over the ensuing years.

Freo is also the home to this little piece of heaven (which is in the background of the above photo)

If you have not tried a Little Creatures beer, do yourself a favour and neck a Pilsener or a Sparkling Ale. If, like me, you enjoy a refreshing beer you will not be disappointed. Plenty of people must be like me(god help us all!), as the last time I came here there was only one shed on the pier, not the three that currently stand tall.

Another point of interest is the Maritime Museum where you can view the remains of the Batavia. To stand there and look upon the bones of this ship built in 1628, wrecked just one year later and ponder her story is a humbling experience, which I again recommend to everyone.

It was now time to meander back toward the city with the wind at my back. I always enjoy the ride back from Freo via the southern shore of the Swan River. The suburban roads are quiet and once you hit the bike path along the Kwinana freeway with twenty knots pushing you along it is almost like a downhill run all the way back to The Causeway and "About Bike Hire", the home of my mount for the day. Just on 60k in the legs and time for some more grub, then attempt to catch a reasonable nap before the "all night show" at work. Those 60k certainly help to send me off to sleep and have become a regular part of my routine when here in the west.

So I guess the answer to my original question is 2066 nautical miles!