TRIP: Six Foot Track MTB, Return trip from Megalong, Sun 16 Sep 2007
PARTY: Dan, Jademond, Steve
Piccies will start appearing here:
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/daniel.james.ryan/0709SixFootTrack
The three of us started out a bit after 9am in the wrong spot somewhere on Megalong Rd, so we just followed some track I found in the street directory and used a bit of good ol "well the sun rises in the east, right, so this way is probably south" to meetup with the 6FT. I'll be imprecise here due to the perpetual nature of information on the internet - lets just say our eventual route involved getting yelled at by an old lady.
Anyway, once we met up with the 6FT, we began a leisurely jaunt through farmland with views of the Megalong Valley. However, there was less leisure and less jaunt involved when we were accosted by some fence that you have to drag your bike over. There were also lots of lovely moo-cows and gee-gees which wandered out of our way to give us and our shiny contraptions plenty of room to trundle through. As we approached the descent towards the Cox's River the track turned into single track and it had enough fun bits so that one of us was lucky enough to rip their bike shorts.
Although we were getting used to being on the wrong side of the law, we grumbled past the no-bikes-please suspension bridge across the Cox's and instead got our feet wet several hundred metres further down at the campground. The track here turns into fire trail and you are faced with a 800 odd metre climb up to the top of Black Range. This is where, you know, the men were to be sorted out from the boys or the metros or something like that. We failed valiantly to reach the pluviometer by our designated turn around time of midday as you know some of us wanted to be back in Sydney for afternoon tea and biscuits or something - or rather some of us were cruising and some of us really couldn't be effed. This is a bummer as looking back at the profile ( www.sixfoot.com/course.php ) we probably only had about 100m of vertical to go. However, no one was tempted to be a smartarse and complain that they didn't get a good workout.
The descent back down the fire trail is pretty steep, and so by climbing it first one gains the advantage of knowing where to not fall off the edge, or at least where to start looking if the head count starts to vary. Of course, everyone had to have a go on the suspension bridge on the way back - taking your bike across this would be as fun as putting lego pieces in your eye. A good fraction of the single track back to Megalong is unrideable in the uphill direction unless you get the 20 in-a-row stair bunny-hop perfected.
We stopped for some apple pie on the way home which was well received but it cost $8.00 + 10% weekend surcharge, so the place where we got it isn't going to get a plug. Overall we did 49km, including up and down the steepest rideable parts of the 6FT which took us 6-1/2 hours including a little more faffing about than required. 'Twas a warm day with clear skies so if you were inside organizing your cd collection in spectral order or something you were a muppet.
Thanks to Jademond and Steve for a great day in the mountains.
-dan