Snowy Mountains TD Training Ride - Day 3

DAY 3

Waking up to the dulcet tones of my phone alarm I bounced out of bed and ate breakfast while packing all of my bits and pieces onto the bike. I went with the International roast coffee kindly provided by the motel, proving that I am no coffee snob. It also saved me 30 minutes by not having to wait for the local bakery to open.

It was only about 40km(24mi) from Batlow to Tumut but I was wary of what that 40km might entail. The lady at reception had told me last night that it was all downhill to Tumut, however she would have been thinking about the main road, not the adventurous route that I would no doubt take.

I pedalled out of this pretty little mountain town playing tourist as I gently warmed my legs up.

The route took me out of town via the Batlow showgrounds and the golf course.

Everything about the first few kilometres was very picturesque. There were wombat holes in all of the roadside embankments with little muddy paw prints all over the road, leading back into the entrance of the hole.

I was winding my way along a quiet country lane that before long came to a gate. It was the entrance to an apple orchard and someone's farm. I didn't realise there was private property on this route so I pedalled slowly with the intent of saying hi to whoever I saw and explaining what I was doing. Of course asking permission to proceed was my intent. I passed the shed and saw nobody. No dogs barked but I could hear a tractor out in the orchard. Everyone was at work,

 The road dropped down to a gate and back onto Crown Land so I pressed on. No harm done.

Through the gate the trail dropped down and down. There can only be one result when a trail drops steeply. Yep, a creek crossing. 

This one was almost knee deep and at 7:30am, bloody freezing. I had a quick look for a shallow crossing point but there was none so it was off with the shoes and socks to walk the bike through. My toes were numb within 20 seconds.

The trail then began to climb and climb. It was rideable but slow going and I was soon very warm from the effort.

Just as I was beginning to think that this 40km was going to be a real slog I popped out at the top of the hill at a plantation forest. The road turned left along the forest road and I was speeding along again. 

What I had done was climb to the top of a ridge line, then begin to follow it along. I got my first hike-a-bike in for the day and took a Coke break to appreciate the view. I could see the forest just outside Batlow in the far distance. It is always nice to see progress being made.

The road was fast and flowy along here, not unlike South Boundary Rd in Brisbane Forest Park. By powering down the drops and keeping my momentum up I could crest the rises. This kept my average speed up for a while.

The ridge top opened out to views over Blowering resevoir. Stunning views  abounded and from a different angle for me. I have seen the dam from the eastern side plenty of times but there can't be too many people who see it from the western side. Ken Warby set the world water speed record of 511km/h(318mph) here in 1978.

The trail was getting rougher and steeper with a few episodes of pushing uphill. There were some sketchy downhills that required some judicious braking and hopping of ruts while in the drops. Fun stuff but fraught with danger if I stuffed it up.

Then I came to a descent that there was zero chance of riding on a loaded tourer. So, in a first for the trip, I walked down the hill. Photos never show the slope but it must have been over 35% down.

I was then dropped out onto the dam access road, an old 60s era looking seal. There was a blocked off section of road, so guess where the line on the gps went?

The hum of a sealed surface was music to my ears as I soon saw a sign that indicated Tumut and hence morning tea, was a mere 7km(4mi) away. Once I jumped a few fences and poached some sweet, secluded Snowy Mountain Scheme blacktop that was.

 Looking back toward the hill I had just descended, I could make out the fire road that I walked down(small scar, on the left about mid way up).

Once in Tumut I hit the local bakery for some food. No, not some food, a lot of food! I love this bikepacking. It is a licence to EAT! The first pie didn't even touch the sides.

I lubed my chain in front of the local court house for the first time since leaving Canberra, two days earlier. 313km on Ride Mechanic's new blend of chain lube was pretty impressive as I had dragged the chain through a creek this morning too.  I don't think you can buy it yet as it is still in the testing phase but it looks very promising for Long Rangers.

Tumut in Autumn is beautiful and it was hard to drag myself away from my sunny position out front of the bakery but time was ticking. Quiet shire roads was the description of the next 30km(18mi) or so.

I passed the trail head for the Hume and Hovel trail, an early European explorer's track from the 1800s.

This gate marked the end of the sealed road and a return to dirt. It must be a flash resort as I saw empty wine bottles littering the roadside, not the usual beer stubbies.

The road eventually came to a bridge across the creek and a gate. Through the gate and to the left and I was heading for some one's farm house. Private property again.

The trail went over those hills in the background

Well, it was a gazetted road, the Stokes Hut Trail but it went through some one's property. As I approached the sheds a couple of young guys walked over toward me. I stopped and said 'G'day". They asked me where I was going and I said "Wee Jasper". They said "Where? Wee Jasper is that way" pointing off to the northeast. I went on to explain what I was doing and we had a great chat. Their mother wandered over to chat and it turns out she was from Toowoomba originally, so we were virtual neighbours. They said it was fine to continue through the property and gave me an appraisal of the trail conditions ahead. "Watch out for wild dogs" one of the boys warned me, "they chased us out of there last time we went for an explore". Great, now I would be watching over my shoulder for wild dogs all afternoon. After a good 30 minutes chatting it was time to say goodbye and pedal on. I wished I had got their names.

Through a couple of gates, then a lift over a locked gate and I was back in Kosciuzko National Park. I didn't realise it extended this far north.

The trail along here was very pleasant being reasonably smooth and quite grassy in places.

 It followed the Goobarragandra River along for quite some time, crossing the odd rivulet that ran into the river.

Until I came to the main crossing point. This was wide, fast moving and cold. Off with the shoes and socks and straight across. No time to dally.

I stopped on the other side to munch the salad roll that I had been carrying since Tumut. All the while keeping an eye out for dogs. I really wish he hadn't mentioned the wild dogs as it made this whole afternoon's ride slightly edgy. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

You may be able to see my sunglasses in the photo above. They are on the front bag between the orange aero bars and the green of the stuff sack. See them? Yeah, well I didn't! That is where I left them when I pedalled off.........The track went steeply uphill, which I pushed up. As I crested the ridge 5 minutes later I realised that my sunnies were gone. Bloody......! I grabbed my Spot tracker off the bike(remember the dogs?) and trotted back down the hill to find the sunnies. Of course they were right at the bottom so I got to climb the hill again but at least it was easier without the bike!

The trail slowly climbed. Then it went straight up the mountainside! I could see from the contours on the gps that it went up and up. I was immediately reduced to pushing my bike at a crawl. This was fine as I have been doing the training for this. I was eventually reduced to pushing my arms out and hence the bike forward one arms length, grabbing a handful of  brakes, then stepping up the hill one step to repeat the process again. It was that steep!

Looking at my gps trace, it took me 50 minutes to climb that 405m(1330ft) hill. I felt fine at the top and had not taken any rest stops on the way up but I think I may have sown the seeds for sore Achilles tendons tomorrow. I sure was glad to see this bush gate at the top.

The track become forest road which alternated between smooth clay and cobblestone rock. the clay was awesome because it was dry but the rock was reminiscent of the horrible road into Batlow last night. Clearly, it was there for when the clay was wet..and to slow me down. I didn't take many photos through here as I was trying to make good time. 

The gps trace kept turning up little used tracks that were stick and bark littlered like Black Jack trail had been on day 2. This slowed me down a lot and sapped my sense of humour. This was one of the better trails.

I eventually came to a turn on the gps that didn't exist. Meaning that the actual trail on the ground turned left. Naturally I followed the trail before noticing a few hundred metres later that the gps said I had to go straight back there. I backtracked to that point but there was no sign of "Brindabella Road", only bush. I zoomed out the map scale and noted that if I followed the trail I was on, it joined another trail that I could used to backtrack to Brindabella Rd. It was now getting dark so I put Plan B into effect and it paid off. I dropped out of my "track" onto a major forest road, then backtracked to where I was supposed to be. A glitch in the gps track I guess but it had me scratching my head for a few minutes.

Being on a major forest road improved my pace, as did turning on all of my lights. I passed by the edge of a huge clear cut section of forest right on last light. It was spectacular!

I had no idea how far it was to Wee Jasper from here so I just put my head down and pedalled. It was dark, there were kangaroos hopping around then I began to drop off the hills. 

My speed shot up to around 40km/h and I was flying! I crossed a cattle grid that denoted the Tumut/Yass Shires and the road improved markedly. I then saw some bright eyes in the beam of my lights. Bright and twinkly like a star. What sort of animal was that? Foxes are orange, spiders are pink, kangaroos are red, sheep are green but what was white? Then my lights illuminated the little bulldozer. It was a wombat! Cool, as I had never seen one in the wild before. I then began to pass dozens of them. They weren't concerned by my presence at all and made little effort to get out of the way. I tried to get a photo of them scurrying across the road but I was in serious danger of pranging into one so thought it best to keep both hands on the bars.

Leaving nature's little bulldozers behind and dropping down a series of tight gravel switchbacks I again had the brake levers pulled in to the bars. After 10 minutes of this white knuckle ride I popped out onto a flat grassy area to the sound of running water. The sign announced Micalong reserve campground. There were a couple of RV/caravans there with a roaring fire so I thought "stuff it, I'll stay here". While short of my goal, Wee Jasper couldn't be too far along the road anyway.

I quickly set up camp and ate dinner, some sort of lamb with olive concoction but I wasn't that hungry. My RV neighbours invited me to sit by the fire. I thanked them but decided it was best I get some sleep.

My stats for the day were 131km(82mi) in 9h 05m moving and 2980m(9780ft) of climbing. I felt ok with just a slight twinge in my calves. 

It proceeded to get very windy that night and sleep was hard to come by as I fretted about whether the weather was changing for the worse. 

Tomorrow would tell.................

Snowy Mountains TD Training Ride - Day 2

DAY 2

 I slept pretty well, in spite of the cold night, being woken a few times by herds of wild horses trotting by on all sides of my tent and more worryingly, wild dogs howling on the distance. I awoke feeling quite refreshed despite what I would estimate to be a 6/10 quality sleep. 

Upon emerging from my tent I was greeted with a stunning sight. All of Long Plain was laid out before me, shimmering in it's covering of frost. My tent also got in on the party, being frozen solid!

 While my sleeping gear aired on a nearby branch and my water boiled for my quick oats, I set to sorting out my front tyre-gear clearance issue.

On the last service where I had the aerobars installed, I had requested that my bars be lowered by one spacer, about 1cm. This 1 cm(just under 1/2in) was enough to lower my clearance. I loosened off the bolts and raised my bars by that one spacer again. Hopefully this would do the trick. After trying to dry my tent in the bright, weakly warm sunlight, I looked at the time and it was almost 8:30am! Time to get going! I stuffed the still wet tent into it's bag with the plan to air it out when I was resupplying in Cabramurra. I should have thought of this half an hour earlier! Curse that mild O.C.D. and my need not to put gear away wet!

 Bumping along Long Plain road my legs were feeling pretty good. 123km(77mi) and who knows how much climbing(3100m or 10 200ft it turns out) was less than I had hoped but I did get a late start yesterday........just like today......d'oh!

 I soon passed the turn off for Long Plain campground. It looked to be sheltered in the trees and hence, from the frost but this is the direction I could hear the dogs howling from so I was happy with my choice of camping spot. 

 I was well pleased to see Rules Point and the sealed Snowy Mtns Hwy. I was due to ride along the highway for a while before turning off onto Wallace's Fire Break. Steve Watson,the organiser of the Monaro Cloudride and evil genius behind the route had told me that the fire break can be soggy if wet and I was seeing plenty of water in the table drains alongside the highway. Wallace's was just a way to keep me off the highway and seeing how I was behind schedule I saw little point in flogging along a muddy, slow fire trail for several hours just to cover 17km or so when there was a perfectly good, quietly trafficked highway alongside. 

 I was soon at the Kiandra turn off to Cabramurra. Kiandra was a gold rush town back in the 1800s where many a prospector lost his life in the harsh winter conditions. Today, almost nothing remains of the town.  Cabramurra on the other hand was built to house workers on the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric scheme that began in the 1950s and was finally complted in the early 1970s. It is also Australia's highest town.

 I climbed for a few kilometres before rejoining my route with a left turn onto Kings Cross Rd toward Mt Selwyn. Here I crested 5000ft above sea level for the first time.

My brother and I have ridden our motorcycles across these mountain roads many times but as road bikers, we were unaware that these dirt roads even existed. It was like discovering these alps for the first time and my spirits soared again! 

 A few easy kilometres and I was rolling down into Cabramurra.

I spread my tent out over one of the picnic benches to dry then strolled into the shop to fill up.

In hindsight, I should have ordered first, then spread my tent as I was now caught behind four elderly folks who couldn't decide what they wanted. Tick, tock, time is distance to me. What didn't help was the fact that the bloke behind the counter looked like a deer in the headlights and would have been more at home twirling spanners on a dozer in the bush. He was totally flustered when I also ordered a coffee, taking his order book to five! I tipped him over the edge by asking if I could fill my Camelbak from his tap which was right there in front of me. He told me to wait while he dealt with all these orders....... 

 Finally refilled with coffee, juice, pies and muffins and my tent nicely dry, I rolled out(well struggled back up the hill actually) about 50 minutes after rolling into town. Not a bad turn around after all. 

 As I began to descend toward Tumut Pond Dam, one of the Snowy Scheme dams, I noticed that there was still frost on the roadside in the shade. It couldn't be more than 5C( F) at midday. Thank god it was a calm, stunning day!

 I bombed down the next few kilometres, dropping about 1200ft down to the dam then slowly grinding 1200ft and more up the other side.

 I soon came to my turn off, Manjar Rd.

This is part of the Bicentennial National Trail and I spotted the blazes nailed to a tree some distance off. Goodby tar, hello rough, rocky dirt.......and wilderness. 

 This was the section of the ride that I was most apprehensive about. It is pure wilderness and before the advent of sat phones and EPIRBS it was designated remote area for us aviation types, just like the scorched heart of Australia is, only these mountains lie between the most populous areas in Australia.

 Travelling alone, I REALLY didn't want to break me or my bike in here. 

 Bouncing along the trail, it alternated in passing through open countryside, then tall stands of gum trees via short pinch climbs followed by rocky, rutted descents. 

This was hard going as my bike runs a rigid fork. This is suited to it's intended purpose, namely the Tour Divide Race but this ride called for front suspension at least! 

 Somewhere here I managed to lose my rain jacket off the back of my bike!  I would perish if stuck out here overnight without that! So, turning around, I tore back along the track to find it some 2km back. An extra 4km added to the total! 

 Stopping at the intersection of Manjar and Black Jack Rd I took in the vista across the plains to the west of the alps. 

My goal tonight, the town of Batlow, was to the west of the ranges and I began climbing Black Jack rd that way. West or Left. How smooth was this surface? Luxury! Then I looked at the gps screen. I was heading in the wrong direction! Of course, the trail went the other way, the rocky, rough way! Oh well, another 1/2km added to my total. 

No, of course, the trail is to the right here.....

 The next few hours consisted of pedalling up and down through huge eucalypt forest, the road covered with bark and sticks. They were extremely thick in some places.

My concentration was through the roof as I tried to maximise my speed on the downhills while trying to dodge roots and derailuer eating sticks in the mottled sunlight that was managing to filter in through the massive gums. At least my gear wasn't rubbing on the front tyre any more. I however,  felt like I was stuck on an exercise bike and I wasn't making any progress.

 I checked my overall position on my map and I was less than half way to Batlow with the sun starting to sink in the western sky. Bugger! There was a section where this never ending rough fire road turned onto a sealed road, before turning north again onto forest roads.

I thought "screw this, I am going to follow (the much longer) sealed road as I can't take any more of this beating". Then I started questioning why I was going slow. I was carrying extra survival gear that I wouldn't be carrying on The Divide. I questioned my legs next. "Ok guys, with all this gym work you are as strong as you have ever been. What gives?" The answer to what gives was that I had been holding back, spinning easily on the climbs and generally saving my legs in case I "blew up". Well, no more. I cracked the whip and began to power up the climbs. Not ragged-arse xc style but solid, purposeful pedalling. The road even helped out with sections of smooth gravel.

 I was pleasantly surprised that my legs responded and responded well. I kept this pace up until the sealed road then thought "lets take a look at what the road through Bago Forest looks like". If it looks snotty, then I will take the seal but if it looks good the 30km(19mi) to Batlow shouldn't take long.

 At that turn off the road looked excellent. I fitted my headlight, a Lezyne Power Drive that I was trialling. I stretched a bit, then headed into Bago Forest. The next 20 or so kilometres were on excellent smooth clay road and I made great time. This is the sort of road the BNT is made for!

 Exiting the eucalypt forest and entering pine plantations just on dark, the road turned to cobble stone rock that almost rattled my teeth out. The last 10km into Batlow was a misery as I was tired and being pummelled by the road. Add to this some brake searing descents where I had the levers pulled back to the bars and you get the picture. I had done so much braking today that the pads on my BB7s needed adjusting several times but I wasn't stopping to give them one more tweak now! 

 I had a funny experience just out of Batlow. I was belting down a hill, staying well left to try and find a smoother line amongst the cobblestones when a rabbit came belting up the hill, straight at me! I don't know if my lights confused him but he zipped by at full tilt, going the other way and missing my front wheel by less than a foot. Almost a perfect head on smash to end my day! 

 Rolling into Batlow, population 1700, I was going to treat myself to a bed inside tonight. I soon found the appropriately named Apple Motel and was checked in by a friendly and inquisitive lady. "You are on a bike, ...now?!" meaning why was I riding in the dark. To which I replied the obvious "well, you just have to keep pedalling. You can't just put your foot down a little more". 

 Next door to the Apple Motel(an excellent little motel actually) is the Batlow RSL. I rocked in, strutting my bike gear and proceeded to order half the items on the Chinese menu. Hole filled, I wandered back to my room for a shower and stretch. I also caught up on 2 days worth of messages as this was the first mobile coverage I had had since leaving Canberra. 

 I had covered a respectable 148km(93mi) and who knows how much climbing.(another 3000m or 9800ft apparently)

 My bike was performing flawlessly and the new 2.2 tyres, a Specialised Fast Track Control up front and a Maxxis Ikon, this time with EXO sidewall protection, out back were providing some much needed volume to help smooth out the ride. I think I was running them at too high a pressure(30psi) though for these trails. Mid 20s might be a better pressure to try so I let a calibrated finger full of air out of each end after the pummelling I took today.

 I went to bed setting my alarm for first light with the intention of getting on the road by 7am. I wanted to make Wee Jasper tomorrow and I wasn't quite sure what lay ahead of me. One thing that was certain, on this Cloudride route, expect it to be harder that it needs to be and you won't be far wrong.......