Got out for my
Wingello ride a little later than planned but an 8:30 start should still have given me enough time to get the 50ish km loop in, just with lunch a bit later. I'd managed to find a strava segement of the stage and uploaded it to the Garmin so that I hopefully wouldn't need the trail map that was in my backpack just in case. So I parked just down the road from the station, had a bacon and egg roll then loaded up the course and headed off. Before long I was travelling down the dirt road into Wingello State Forest with the Garmin giving me a reasonable idea of where I was heading. I had noted on the map that in a couple of places there where a few turns close together but generally they got me to the same place as long as I headed back towards where the Garmin said the course was.
That was all working fine as I had a small detour on the way in but soon found myself heading along the marked red trail which I was to mostly follow for the first half of my lap.
Having elected this ride over Graham's offers I was informed I'd miss out on the dead wombats and wedge-tailed eagles today. Well, there where no dead wombats to be seen but some holes around the place looked suspiciously like homes for some live ones. No eagles either but there was plenty of other bird life around, including a massive black cockatoo that was big enough to be an eagle as well as several lyre birds around early in the day. The lyre birds in here are a bit different to the ones encountered when out riding on the road. Instead of disappearing into the bush when they become aware of your presence these ones seamed to have a habit of either running across your path or running along the trail in front of you.
One of the detours off the red loop appears on the map to be a shortcut. I wondered why early on the course does an extension to then take a short cut a bit later when surely it would have been simpler to just follow the red loop. The answer was a section called The Wall. This is on the shortcut and is the only part of the course I was unable to successfully ride. As the name implies it's a steep climb with a sign issuing the challenge "The Wall. Will you ride it?". Well, I tried but it beat me. As I started up the climb it didn't take long before the rear lost traction, slide a little sideways and I'd lost all momentum. With it being too steep to start up again I walked a little further to a water bar and had another go at continuing to the top. More weight over the rear this time. Too much though as the front started popping off the ground and I wasn't quick enough to adjust and get the balance right and I again found myself stopped part way and having to get off and walk. Have to see if I can do any better next time.
After that detour it was back on the red loop again for a while, as it takes fire trails to join sections of single track together. One thing I was hoping to get out of the ride was a reasonable idea of trail conditions to have a better idea of what to do about tyres and pressure. I was seeing plenty of hard packed surface which suited fast rolling tyres and high pressure but then there where sections of looser stuff. Rocky descents, sections of fire trail covered in leaf litter and sticks with only a single track line being clear and other areas of sand. However, the further I road the more I was convinced that the ideal for the day would be to run as higher pressure as I was confident of making it through the looser sections with. With my lack of skills that would mean significantly less pressure than I'm sure many others will get through with.
It was an enjoyable ride continuing along the red loop until I finally reached the point where I would turn left instead of right to head off on the second half of the lap. It was a short section of unmarked trail before I would follow the yellow loop for a little, taking a couple of detours and then heading back off onto the unmarked trail. I came to the first arrow of the yellow loop fairly soon but the Garmin was telling me I needed to be going down a closed road instead. Not to worry, I'll follow the yellow for a bit and should see the course again soon enough, or so I thought. The distance to the course was getting larger and there where no turns to head me back in the right direction, or so I thought. As the distance to course on the Garmin kept growing I eventually came to the point where it was time to stop and look at the map. Not many of the trails where named on the map but I'd come to an intersection of the yellow and blue loops so looking at the directions the tracks ran there was only one point on the map that fit. By the map, following the yellow would have me back at the trail head fairly soon so I figured I'd go back there for a quick break before working out how to get back to the second part of the lap to check it out.
As I followed the yellow markers things weren't making sense. I was approaching and then crossed my course from earlier and then was heading in the wrong direction. It was time to bring out the phone and have a look where I actually was. I was close to the trail head but the arrows where sending me a longer way. I instead noted the turns from the phone then headed back and was soon at the trail head. After my break I was about to get the map out when I noticed the map on display on the noticeboard. Decided it would be a lot easier to just ride over and look at that one rather than get the one out of my pack. It proved to be a good decision as the map on the board was one showing current track closures and detours in place. The closed road was indeed the one I needed to go down to do the second half of the lap and was also cutting off a main section of the yellow loop. As a result the yellow loop had been completely redesigned which explained why following it wasn't getting me where I thought it would. Good lesson for the future, check the board for closures and detours at the start of the ride.
Checking the map, most of the second half of the lap was closed for harvesting so I decided instead to do a lap of the red loop before heading home. In the end my 50ish km planned ride had turned into 64.5 and I was pretty stuffed. That's only a little past the half way distance of the Fling though, it's certainly going to be a tough day out in a few weeks time.
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Damn this 3rd week of having a cold/chest infection sucks. Today would have been great for a ride.