THE HOT AND COLD HILL RIDE

Another exploratory ride by Jon, Mike and Jurgen; always on the lookout for a new route. The temperature at the start in Emerald was 5.5deg. The ride on the downward stretches to Monbulk, with wind chill factor must have brought the temperature down to zero. Why didn’t we wear proper full gloves? Frozen fingers were incapable of changing gears. Ironically when a hill came on approaching Monbulk it was welcomed. A rare phenomenon. It was a way to warm the body but unfortunately not the fingers yet. The next stretch to Silvan dam along  the busy Monbulk to Lilydale road was relatively flat and almost pleasant to ride along except for the near misses from the constant traffic. Now came the never ending uphill climb along Silvan road to Olinda. Up, up and up it went. We were sweating. A cool breeze would have been welcomed – so would a coffee, but there was nothing suitable in Olinda. So we decided to go downhill to Kalorama. Once again on this descent our tits and fingers were again freezing off. The sweat from the climb a few minutes ago had turned to icicles. We badly needed a hot coffee. Nothing doing at Five Ways nor at Kalorama, so more downhill along Olinda Creek road back to Silvan reservoir through the cold forest. We badly needed another hill to warm up. “A hill, a hill, my kingdom for a hill” was in our thoughts. It wasn’t until we got back to Monbulk that we had our coffee. Sitting in the sun was a rewarding experience. From there it was back to Emerald via The Patch. All said and done, it was a great new ride for us.

Jurgen

"Bloody hell did we climb up from down there" !  

We're happier heading down !