Five of us ignored the intermittent rain yesterday morning, gave up waiting for Piker Pauly, and went and rode "The Bomber Run" (from the ORCA book) at Gembrook. I think it's the longest ride in the book, measuring in just under 50km (plus detours).

Since there's so much debate about bikes and riders on Saturday's Sydney ride (which sounds like an off-road CM without the cars), I can authoratively say that the those present on our ride were:

Me - Bare Al H/T (that used to be a sh*g*n) with TACed Judy
Rich - FSR with Z1
Dave - steel Norco with Z3
Graham - Bonty with (tragically) bent rigid Bonty fork
Duncan (token non-listee...still holding out) - speccy AIM with Judy

The ride started out along the same nice singletrack that starts or finishes the other two Gembrook rides in the book. In this direction it's climbing, but it's an enjoyable gentle climb. I would probably say otherwise if I were ever to try it after riding for 3 solid hours. It was trying to rain, but I was too hot in my rain jacket. I bagged the jacket, which is where it stayed for the rest of the ride. Bipolar shirt and thermal top was a comfortable combination.

The first 5 or 10 km were mostly singletrack, generally climbing, but nothing too ugly, and kinda fun. Lots of sticks on the track jumping up and getting jammed in drivetrains and wheels - there seems to be something about Gembrook that makes sticks grow in a certain way, making them perfectly shaped weapons against passing bikes. It rained properly for a couple of minutes, but not long enough to get the jacket out again. The patches of blue sky got bigger throughout the day.

Just as we came out at the start of the first dirt road descent, Duncan's rear derailer took a big bite on a stick, which bent the derailer hanger into the spokes. Some manual realignment fixed it, and he adjusted his limit screws to block the high and low gears as a precaution. It was at this point that we became aware of just how shocking Duncan's new chain lube was, to be known from this point onward as "That Horrible Sticky Shit". Apparently it's a cheap motorbike chain wax, which he was trying on all his bikes (motorised and treadlies) as an experiment. Turning the cranks with the bike on it's back, it felt like somebody had injected blu-tac in his bottom bracket instead of grease. If you flicked the chain off the chainwheel (you wouldn't want to touch it any more than necessary because it was so sticky), the cranks would spin beautifully. He thinks he got some Horrible Sticky Shit in the jockey cog bearings too, which didn't help. A bike badly in need of a good degreaser and a sensible lube.

The descent was just steep enough to spin gently in top gear. There were corrugations on the insides of all the corners, which were a good test of suspension tuning. Rich and I swapped bikes to confirm that my air-sprung Judies were doing a considerably better job than his Bombers, although his rear SID was soaking up a hell of a lot more bumps than my TIG welds ;-). FTR, I'd changed over that morning to the heaviest rebound damping available with the Total Air Cartridges, with minimal compression damping, and they felt absolutely superb throughout the ride. Total Air Cartridges rock. End of story.

Graham and I also swapped bikes, to give him a feel of a TAC Judy in case he can't find the new rigid fork he wants, and has to come over to the Dark Side. His rigid fork and big 2.3" tyre felt like a very precise suspension fork on gravel and little bumps, but I think I prefer having 85mm at hand when the hits get bigger. Rich got us slightly lost while I was on Graham's bike, but the "keep out" gate was only a couple of hundred metres from the junction, so we turned back.

Graham and I swapped bikes back when his knees started to give out on the next climb. We're about the same height, but his legs are longer and my seatpost is at minimum insertion when I ride it. My ankles were also glad to be back on a bike that fits. The climb was a bit of an annoyance, because it was boring firetrail and pretty long.

We stopped for food and rest at the top of the hill, which was about the halfway point, 25km into the ride. Rich noticed that his camelback was dry already. I didn't hear anything more about this, but I'm not sure if it was because I started seriously lagging on the climbs from here on.

Only a couple of hundred metres on we came out into the clearing under the powerlines. The cables are really, really low here (how close do you want to get to 500,000 volts?), and Dave kept getting electric shocks from his bike. I found this very funny, and kept skin contact with my metal brake lever to be safe. We followed a downhill firetrail that looped through the bush then back out into the powerline clearing, where I noticed Rich (out in front) riding really close to something dark and furry. I first thought it was a dog chasing him, but it was actually him chasing a wallaby down the track. I lost my line (and the plot) temporarily, and did a bit of gardening, Velociraptor style.

At the bottom of this hill, we turned North on to what started out as a wide clear rocky track, but didn't last long. The book gave it a name, which had something to do with Bunyips. I prefer to think of it as "That Bastard of an Slimy Overgrown Climb". I checked the map when I got home, and the track gains something like 420 metres elevation in about 5km. It was like a small tunnel, and we had to push our way through a fallen shrub every 20 metres or so. There were errosion trenches either side and crossing the track, making for some interesting cross-slopes, and the surface was hard slimy clay. It was a fun challenge for a little while, but I got over it pretty quickly. I walked most of it, and I have no idea what the others did because I didn't see them until the top. There weren't any fresh tyre marks side-slipping into the trenches, so I assume they were walking.

At the top of That Bastard of an Slimy Overgrown Climb, we headed west uphill for a while on a firetrail, then back down a fast sweeping firetrail to the powerline clearing again. Partly because my butt was starting to get sore, I practiced loading my front tyre through the corners, which (if anyone hasn't tried it) gives excellent traction and control, and allows you to carry speed through a corner you wouldn't normally feel comfortable with.

Back under the powerlines, Rich took a right turn down a steep, rocky, erroded doubletrack. It didn't look like the kind of track the book normally sends you down, so the rest of us were a bit reluctant to ride down and have to climb back up. I also though it would be funny to just stay at the top and see how long it would take for Rich to get concerned and climb back up. It only took a couple of minutes, by which time we were over it anyway, so we rode down. I had a dab when my back wheel got stuck in a trailbike wheel trench, and couldn't find my cleat to clip back in for ages. I hate that. The last bit of the track looks from above like a steep, smooth run-out ramp, and it isn't until you get closer to the bottom that you notice the bumps. They bounced Graham off line, providing us with the only stack of the day. Unexpected speedhumps on steep descents,
Scorecard: suspension forks 4, rigid forks 0 ;-)

A short sharp climb under the powerlines put us at the top of another sweeping firetrail descent. From here on, we were basically following the end of the middle-length ride from the book, which most of us had done before. There is a last minute detour which spiraled us around the carpark, and up a few extra hills, before we got back. It was worthwhile because it allowed us to run into a pair of eXtreem young lads who were following the book and were already lost, not 10 km into a 50 km ride, at about 5pm. Shiny new freeride duallies with risers, discs, flat DH pedals, and long baggy street pants. I pointed out to them that my computer was showing just on 3 hours actual ride time (not sure where the other two hours had gone), Rich showed them where they were on the map, and they set off again on their suicidal mission.

I wonder if they're back yet?

We rolled back into the car park, and didn't even bother hopping around like silly buggers on the logs. It was a good ride, probably worthy of sub-epic status at my current level of fittness (which is pretty crap, even by my standards). If I did one of them every weekend, things would probably be different. I don't usually have a bath in the morning, but the way my muscles were feeling this morning...

Mechanicals - Duncan's drivetrain eating a big stick, and suffering from That Horrible Sticky Shit
Stacks - Graham. The first time I've seen Graham come off (except for the time I T-boned into him when he was track-standing :-)
Flats - nil

Back to the bike page