I had a mixture of feelings when John Bird rocked up to join Werner and self for another adventure starting from Monbulk. Pleased because we needed John's navigational expertise and worried because of John's awesome form on his Abrahams Tank looking bike.
Our first climb out of Monbulk by Woolies was nothing compered to the warm up at Mcarthy Rd on the corner of Silvan Dan and that was nothing compared to what was about to come on Chalet Rd
I say Chalet Rd simply because on Google it shows as a road that connects Monbulk to Olinda. In reality it is an amazingly steep walking track that in terms of pain was never ending. Werner had already fallen prior to the track failing to decleat so was in no mood to attempt the impossible ride, As it was just walking with the bikes on the slippery clay like surface was hard enough. After much "cursing" the track finally emerged beside Hamers Arboretum. Taking in the altitude rich oxygen we did what cyclists should never do and that is give up our gain by descending straight back down to the Silvan Dam car park !. Here we used John's expertise to navigate along some lovely forest trails (why haven't we done this before) to the start of the Mt Evelyn Aqueduct trail.
Although short this is a really beautiful trail. Exiting the trail John gave fair warning (about 2 seconds) that we were soon about to turn sharply right right up a steep climb. The warning was heard by all except poor Werner resulting in crash number 2 ! Emerging near Mt Evelyn we "stretchered" Werner to the appropriately named Paschendale Coffee shop for some welcome recovery time
With John in charge we descended through back streets to Montrose and took lovely Glasgow Rd all the way through to the Basin where another climb took us all the way up the one in twenty. From here we descended by way of the Crescent with one final climb along Holden Rd to the Wall before a fast descent into Monbulk to complete an amazing days ride (46 kms and approx 1200 meters climbing)
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