Well that was the plan: take the train from Melbourne to Wangaratta, then ride the Mountains to Murray rail trail from Wangaratta to Beechworth (25kms approx), stay the night in a local pub & then hit out on the Six Hours In The Saddle XC event (I chose the 3hour alternative) at Beechworth. With all things considered I would finish the race at about 3:30pm, which would give me 3 hours to ride the 25kms back to Wang to catch the 6:30pm train back home.
But, it rained.
A lot.
So what happened?
Rode to Southern Cross station from home, where all the country trains depart from in Melbourne, the bike went in the rear luggage carriage & I took my seat with everyone else. I basically took with my just a 30litre backpack with my bare minimum of gear, 2x biddons & strapped the tools under the saddle. I brought lights with me just in case but they were in the backpack. The backpack weighed about 13 kilograms which doesn't sound much, but by the end of the 2nd day after the 50th km that pack was a whole world of suffering.
Rain was forcasted for the weekend, but it was really nice at home as I rode off. Showers started to flicker across the train's windows about 20mins out from Wangaratta (Wangaratta is a bout 3 hours from Melbourne by train), by the time I alighted from the train at Wang (abbv) it was - raining. I opted to hold up at a local cafe, Velo-something near the Wang station. As the rain didn't stop, I put on all my wet weather gear, polished off my 2nd ristretto & hit the rail trail. The trail out to Beechworth is an old rail line converted to a shared path, well signed, sealed & pretty much dead flat for 20kms. There are toilets & rain water- drinking water every 15kms approx. The rain changed to passing showers out on the trail & I got swooped by maggies in the space of 100mts of each other, bastards.
At Everton, about half way tot Beechworth there is a fork in the trail, right the trail goes onto Bright & beyond a=for another 60kms, but taking the left trail takes you up a constant climb (unrelenting) for about 15kms before it gets close to flatting out. Around this point there are also MTB singletracks off the main trail, called 'Flame Trees, which are signed & directional. My original intention was to ride them, but I totally underestimated the amount of rain they had in this area & I could see how the singletrack disappeared under standing water at the low points. As the main trail is a converted train line, cuttings & embankments kept a steady gradient & water off the trail.
The scary thing was I got into Beechworth at dusk, at least 2 hours after I assumed I would get there, this was because of the cafe stop in Wangaratta & the number of stops at the trail facilities to shed a layer or wait out the worst of the downpour. I stayed overnight at the Transwell Commerical Hotel a single 1x room for $50 for the night.
Beechworth was a buzz with the people in for the event the next day, there was an early sign in at Bridge Road Brewers pub, where it was packed & I grabbed some dinner. Spoke to a few riders I knew of other events but I was pretty tired & headed back to my room for a long nap, it was about 10pm by then.
During the whole night it rained, a lot.
Next morning I woke up to rain on the window & rain on the roof. Got up, geared up & when downstairs to scare up some breaky.
I was determined to ride this event regardless of the constant rain, although I had misgivings on what the ride back to Wangaratta would be like if I got all my riding gear wet and muddy without an option to change for the train.
My race start time (for the 3hour event riders) was 11am, by then the 6 hour riders were already out on course for 2 hours as I rolled up. It was still raining, a lot.
I watched the riders coming through and many of them were out there to 'make the distance' as if pacing was now a minor goal. Riders coming through coated in wet mud & bikes grinding through the loose sandy mud from the course, none of this looked like it was going to be fun.
It's then I made the decision to pull the pin & get away from this place. I rode into Beechworth & stocked up on food & hot coffee for the ride back to Wang. I had time on my hands now, but the weather was bad, I was planning on doing this in stages, as I found that 10~15mins stopped at the trail shelters gave me an opportunity to dry out from the body heat of riding. The ride back was easier as it was all downhill until Everton. Stop there & the rain stopped, so I shot off for Wangaratta. Little did I know that the overnight rains had flooded areas of Wangaratta & the rail trial was under a few feet of water in places, so the diversions took some time to work out.
Jumped on to the train & back home.
Would I try this again? If the long term forcaste was "No Rain" then yes, but we'll see in 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment