Tell us about your rides this weekend! Are you doing any interesting events? Or have you switched to winter sports?
Rowan and I decided to make this a 3-day weekend by taking Monday off, and we're working on the 7 Peak Alpine Ascent Challenge:
http://www.visitvictoria.com/Regions...Challenge.aspx
Saturday - rain was predicted all day today, but when we set off on the first climb (Falls Creek), it was actually quite nice ... relatively cool, mix of sun and clouds.
The climb started immediately out of Mount Beauty, but wasn't too difficult for the first half (16 km) to Bogong ... a climb of course, but a few descents to break it up. The second half (16 km) was a steady climb to the top. And it got cooler and more overcast as we climbed.
4 km from the top, it started to rain ... a cold rain. And about 1 km from the top, the wind started to blow and drive the rain across the road. Fortunately we were close to the top then.
We got a stamp in our passport booklets, then carried our bicycles up a long flight of stairs to a restaurant where I had two large mugs of hot coffee, and Rowan had a latte and a hot chocolate. And we tried to warm up. After sitting around for a while watching the wind and rain, we decided to start going down.
We made some clothing adjustments and began the slow descent. The clouds had rolled in, and we were in a thick rainy fog for several km. We finally got out of the fog, but it continued to rain all the rest of the way down, so it was a bit of a slow descent.
I should have changed clothes entirely because I was quite chilly by the time I got to the bottom. Rowan, however, was fine.
Stats:
Distance 32 km (up)
Rise: 1300 metres
Grade Average: 6%
Grade Maximum: 10%
All that, and no walking. I cycled all the way to the top! There was a time the only way I could have done this climb would have been to walk most of it.
We saw several other cyclists around ... there were 4 others at the top of the climb with us when we got there, but I think they were all doing different things. It was nice to see other cyclists going through what we were going through.
Tomorrow ... we'll see what's next.
I've just started going through the photos I took on the way up ... clicking the photo will take you to my 7 Peaks set of photos.
This was probably about 10-ish km up the climb ...
