Shut Up Legs
Down Under Member
I revisited my favourite mountain again today, for the 10th time in 6 years. I'm on holidays until January 26th inclusive, so plenty of time for cycling.
Unfortunately, due to an 8 day stay in Perth, Western Australia, to catch up with relatives, my legs found this ride harder than usual, but I managed it and got home in one piece (no thanks to some Australian motorists).
The Vitalstatistix.
Here's the route, elevation profiles (in metric and imperial
), and summary.
One datum missing from the above table is that yesterday I weighed about 80.5kg and today after the ride it's about 78.5kg.
Bonus! Yes, I know: dinner will sort that out quickly enough, but it shows that if you ride often and far enough, the weight does tend to drop, and since extra weight --> more calories expended climbing mountains, this is a good thing.
The Trail to Warburton.
The photos below are thumbnails, so just click them to see the larger version.
The trip goes from Ringwood North where I live, to Warburton, which sits right next to Mt Donna Buang (see the above route map). Warburton is at 160m elevation and the summit of the mountain is at 1260m, so it's quite a climb, especially given that the average grade is about 6.5%.
I got up at 5am, left home at 5:45, then rode 16km of highway to Lilydale, where the 40km unsealed Lilydale-Warburton Rail Trail begins. This is quite well known around here, and is quite a nice trail to ride, with a fairly smooth, hard-packed surface. Due to hardly any rain recently, my bike got very dusty, which is why I took the 15kg touring bike instead of the 8kg road bike, even though this means the climb up the mountain is tougher.
Here's some photos of the rail trail on the way to Warburton.
The above bridge, which I referred to in a previous travelogue post as "The Long Bumpy Bridge" is now "The Long Not So Bumpy Bridge", as it's been resurfaced
. It's still bumpy, but nowhere near as bad. I can do about 20km/h on it now, where before I had to slow down to about half that speed, the bumps were so bad.
Warburton.
I got to Warburton by about 8:30am, and left about 8:45, after a brief break. My bike as I said was very dusty. Here's a picture of the bike I used, and the Upper Yarra River in Warburton. It's so clean up here, too, nothing like the murky, nasty-looking brown colour you see closer to Melbourne CBD.
There is a 15 image limit per post, so more in the next post.
Unfortunately, due to an 8 day stay in Perth, Western Australia, to catch up with relatives, my legs found this ride harder than usual, but I managed it and got home in one piece (no thanks to some Australian motorists).
The Vitalstatistix.
Here's the route, elevation profiles (in metric and imperial
), and summary.One datum missing from the above table is that yesterday I weighed about 80.5kg and today after the ride it's about 78.5kg.
Bonus! Yes, I know: dinner will sort that out quickly enough, but it shows that if you ride often and far enough, the weight does tend to drop, and since extra weight --> more calories expended climbing mountains, this is a good thing.The Trail to Warburton.
The photos below are thumbnails, so just click them to see the larger version.
The trip goes from Ringwood North where I live, to Warburton, which sits right next to Mt Donna Buang (see the above route map). Warburton is at 160m elevation and the summit of the mountain is at 1260m, so it's quite a climb, especially given that the average grade is about 6.5%.
I got up at 5am, left home at 5:45, then rode 16km of highway to Lilydale, where the 40km unsealed Lilydale-Warburton Rail Trail begins. This is quite well known around here, and is quite a nice trail to ride, with a fairly smooth, hard-packed surface. Due to hardly any rain recently, my bike got very dusty, which is why I took the 15kg touring bike instead of the 8kg road bike, even though this means the climb up the mountain is tougher.
Here's some photos of the rail trail on the way to Warburton.
The above bridge, which I referred to in a previous travelogue post as "The Long Bumpy Bridge" is now "The Long Not So Bumpy Bridge", as it's been resurfaced
. It's still bumpy, but nowhere near as bad. I can do about 20km/h on it now, where before I had to slow down to about half that speed, the bumps were so bad.
Warburton.
I got to Warburton by about 8:30am, and left about 8:45, after a brief break. My bike as I said was very dusty. Here's a picture of the bike I used, and the Upper Yarra River in Warburton. It's so clean up here, too, nothing like the murky, nasty-looking brown colour you see closer to Melbourne CBD.
There is a 15 image limit per post, so more in the next post.
) About halfway up (in both distance and elevation gained) is Cement Creek, which I think is well-named, because the last few kms of road leading up to it has a higher grade, with a few bits exceeding 10%, so you need a large, full cup of cement (aka HTFU soup) to manage it. 
The views here (and for the rest of the climb) are spectacular, though: so leafy and green. 
I forced them to walk me up the 30m high observation tower, so I could take these photos of the surrounds of Mt Donna Buang.
The cafe is in a nice location, surrounded by lots of trees, and with a nice rear verandah area.
