Yes.
I screamed like a big girl many times in the forest yesterday. Seemed like every spider was hanging around just to land on me, give me the fright of my life, then just jump off and watch me search my helmet/face/shirt/knicks/socks/arms/bike/water bottle. Remind me of this ad on TV...
On a serious note - Yesterday I rode possibly my favourite do-it-all mountain bike loop to try and clock up about 4 hours of riding. The EE loop has been a personal favourite since I was first shown it on a Wednesday Morning Ride nearly 7 years ago. The loop has been perfected over the years and due to the VERY hot weather yesterday I set off at 6am from Underwood to try and get the hot bits out of the way at the beginning.
Soon as I entered the trails I ran in Mark and his mate, and his son. My plan (as always lately) was to take it nice and slow for the entire ride - distance was my goal not speed. Mark invites me to join him on the choc budda loop on my way out of the forest... all of a sudden my HR is up at 165bpm and i'm sweating like a pig. Desipte feeling great I bailed on Mark and went my own way.
Nothing like riding in the forest - on your favourite loop - early in the morning - on a Monday - nothing but you and your bike. I use this ride when I need to get away from everything. Here's the loop in pictures.
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| Beautiful morning, ditched Mark and the boys and back to me, myself and I |
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| Straight out and through Cornubia Forest |
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| The climbing begins - some quiet back roads up to a farm |
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| The entry to the Eastern Escarpement - After this gate, it really IS all up. |
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| You can't actually see the top from here. The EE is very ridable at the moment, I suprisingly made it up this section. I didn't make the whole way though. I have only seen a handful of people complete this climb. |
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| Wonderful old shed half way up the climb |
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| Almost a 360 degree view to the bay, the city and the Gold Coast |
From this part of the ride it's 7-8km of awesome single track through the Karingal Scout Camp, then back home through the pony trails. LOTS of snake tracks around today, very scary following them for hundreds of metres... it makes you look twice at the next 500 sticks on the ground to check and make sure they arn't moving!
I've had 3 encournters with snakes on the mountain bike
1) Riding with Pete when a tree snake fell infront of us both.
2) Riding down grasstrees FAST, came round a corner and saw the tail of a carpet snake on the track... I bailed, fell into the grass next to the snake. This thing was almost 3 meters long!
3) Riding down a firetrail at Daisy Hill and just catching a glimpse of a brown snake as I ran over its body. I looked back and saw it fly into the air then scurry off quickly.
I'm glad number 4 didn't come yesterday.
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