Walhalla, Australia - a ride and 2 barbies

Of course, that's barby like "put another shrimp on the barby, mate!", aussie for bbq. You can imagine my shock when I found out that aussies don't even use the word shrimp. They would say, "put another prawn on the barby, mate!". Whatever. We had a barby dinner and a barby breakfast up in the beautiful hills of Victoria. Walhalla is an old mining town with huge, beautiful eucalyptus trees. Think Downieville with lots of humidity. The scenery was stunning.

Mark woke me up in the middle of the night - 7am - to go ride the old railroad grade that was now a hiking trail. Apparently this was the end point for a hugemongous hiking trail that stretched all the way to the Aussie capital of Canberra. We clipped in from the cottage and grunted up the paved road that took us to the trail head.

The trail started at an old gold mine


It was very cool traversing across the hillside. Every now and then a view of town would come out. Once again, the fantastic scent of the trees was quite...dare I say magical? That and the pristine morning air, before the heat and humidity set in...there's something about riding early in the morning...I always hate getting up but once I'm out on the bike it's fantastic. And every time it's deja vu.


The trail wasn't so crazy, but that's probably good since we were both half asleep. Eventually we had to bomb down a crazily steep fire road to the Thomson river. From there we continued on another rail grade, slightly more difficult. At the end, we pedaled back on the road and had our aussie barby breakfast - eggs and meat.

I look surprising good so early in the morning...


Mark shreds


Aussie beauty, mate

G'day Mate!

On a recent trip down under, I had the good fortune to stay with the Hewitts, who did me up right - bikes and a bed and some good home cooking. Having bikes meant we would get in some rides, and our first ride was to be at Lysterfield, just east of Melbourne, where the Commonwealth Game mtb race was held. This was a new purpose-built mtb area (I love those), with maintained trails, a pretty cool shop, and some fun riding.


My steed for the week - a Norco Fusion. Something like 130mm of travel front and rear, it would roll over any kangaroos who ventured in my path. Our ride for the day was with Rob Eva - Crocodile Rob - of SRAM Australia. Lucky bastard could ride here from his house.


We did see kangaroos on the trail, but more importantly, it was fun, sandy singletrack and lots of it. Being in a eucalyptus forest, the scents as you rode were unbelievable. Like riding through an herbal mist. February being the end of the Aussie summer, Rob was fit as fit and basically tore our legs off. But it was still pretty fun.


After we left Rob, we went for a picnic on the lake. Good family times.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in Belgium

No riding = no blogging, and since the rains melted the snow and thawed the ground, the mud has taken on epic proportions, a life of its own. At any moment I feel it could ooze out of the fields and forests and completely cover Belgium.

So, I take this opportunity to update some old posts that I missed. Like making a proper introduction with my main bike here, a Spot Single Speed. Not a new Spot out of Boulder with belt drive, this is an original Michael Golinski Spot from Vancouver. MG was one of the first to get out there with steel single speeds, and has himself raced in multiple SSWCs. He was also an early proponent of sliding disc mount on the rear. Smart.


I absolutely love this bike. So much fun to ride. It's a tad small and could probably use a complete re-build, but it's hard as a rock and has served me well. Probably better than i deserve.


The Spot chainguard - I am currently running a 32x16, good gear for flat flat belgium. My trails have some small, tiny little climbs, so this works just fine. I had a 17 on there before and that was good in the mud, or in the winter.


I love bikes in general, but then there are special ones that give you a funny feeling in your tummy. I would take a bullet for my Spot.

Meanwhile, back in Belgium....

Has been below freezing for a while, and I've been lazy. Finally, enough was enough, I got off my ass and onto the bike. Here is the trailhead near the house:


It was an ok ride, in the snow in the Lummen Loop (aka, the Halen Loop). Traction for the most part was pretty outstanding! I actually ran into 2 cyclocrossers on the trail, it seems I wasn't the only one with cabin fever.

Spain - the motion picture

A re-cap of the action in video.

Spain - el final

Last day. We had to check out and point the car north, so we made the rather huge effort to get up at the crack of eight and get in our biking clothes. The restaurant wasn't even open for breakfast until 9 - I love spain. It was cool and crisp but the sky was blue as can be and as we pedaled up the road climb, the splendor of waking up and getting on the bike before noon became increasingly apparent.


Today's trail was absurdly titled "el moabo", because the british authors of the book thought that anywhere with some slickrock bits must be just like moab, utah. Well, it wasn't moab but it was, for me, the best trail of the week. If it had been 3-4 times at long it would be world class. But as it was, dodging in and out of trees, little drops, steep sections, and, yes, nice patches of slick rock...it was dreamy.


I think if you stayed in el chorro for a week and rode this trail a few times, learning all the corners and lines, it would be a whole bowl of fun.


A deceivingly long and steep road climb then took us up to the top of a mountain where, surprise, there was a huge concrete resevoir. Must have been quite a job putting that in.


But the views were stunning, the weather was clear as a bell and it was well worth the climb. On top of all that we got the longest descent of the week, starting out flowy in the trees, but after a few switchbacks turning to steep, loose, and very rocky. Right down the face of the mountain. This is what seat post quick releases were made for. Unfortunately Peter did not have one of these, but he made it down ok. For me, it was nice to get a long, fast descent in before heading back to the flat lands.


Which is what we did next. 24 hours later we were in snowy Belgium. Doh! But the trails of southern spain have only offered a glimpse of their secret treasure. I'm sure I'll be back. Possibly soon if this weather continues.