There’s nothing quite like an audience to make you nervous for a first attempt at anything — both of Jo’s parents came outside to watch us take off down the very steep driveway! We departed without ignominy, and took off down the hill with frightening acceleration. I’m still not entirely used to guiding 140kg of bicycle and riders!
Out to North Lorne and back for a warm up, another very wide u-turn to turn around, then right across the traffic to commence the ten kilometre climb up to Benwerrin on the Dean’s Marsh road. Much the same as last Sunday, we just picked a low gear and trundled away up the hill — unlike last week it was pleasantly cool in the forest, with no other riders or traffic.
Three quarters of an hour later we stopped at the top, hoping to relax in the shade and rest. The local march fly population made it difficult to relax for too long — 2cm long evil black things buzzing around like demented wasps, threatening to bite holes through half-inch steel plate… Any attempt to stand still for very long would quickly degenerate into a mad hop-on-one-leg dance with hands flailing in the air to drive the flies away. For some reason they seemed attracted to the suede toes of my shoes, I think I killed around ten in five minutes!
Off along the dirt road through the forest, paying careful attention to the inside of the corners and the gravel patches — I had no wish to unceremoniously dump the two of us onto the ground! In some ways the road was in better condition than the sealed road, fewer potholes and far less traffic — until the local 4WD enthusiasts drove past in a cloud of dust.
Rejoining the sealed road on the Erskine falls road we could either head straight back to Lorne or detour down to the falls. The last few times we’ve headed straight back, this time we turned left towards the falls — and down the precipitous hill through the forest. Too steep to be enjoyable, I was riding hard on the brakes most of the way down, knowing full well that where the road ends, you head straight into the car-park! I know now why so many tandems have drag-brakes, those slopes are scary with that weight.
There are two choices at the car-park; a two minute walk to a lookout to view the falls at eye-level, or a staircase of over 250 steps down into the forest to the pool at the base of the falls — we chose the quick walk around to the lookout! The rain earlier in the week meant there was plenty of water going down the falls.
Now for the hard part! I did a quick lap of the car-park to try and get the bike down into a low enough gear, then Jo hopped on for the assault on the hill up and out — crunch, crunch, crunch — the front derailleur refused to drop the chain onto the granny ring and we quickly ground to a halt. A quick flick of the fingers and we had the chain onto the ring, but now to try and get back on and start, heading up the steep slope. With a mighty wobble we managed, on the second attempt, and puffing and blowing succeeded in making it up the first of the two steep sections before having to halt in the shade under a tree. Then back on for the second section, the top coming much quicker than either of us expected. From there it was a wonderful down-hill run into Lorne, sweeping through the forest at around 50 km/hr and barely needing to touch the pedals at all.
There are two options from the outskirts of Lorne; either down the precipitous slope to the sea-front, around and back up the hill to the house, or up and down the nearly as steep undulations of Polwarth road, and not quite as far to climb back to the house. The first option would give us the grin-factor of riding through the middle of town, the second is a slightly easier ride — we chose the second.
A loud pop from under the back tyre as we descended Polwarth road, neither of us had any idea what I’d run over — hard on the brakes to avoid running up the back of the 4WD on the steep hill. Through the stop sign and into Richardson boulevard, both wondering how far we’d manage to get up the hill, and whether we’d be able to change onto the granny-ring in time. It didn’t matter, the back end went all soft and at first I thought Jo was wriggling around, then realised that we had a flat tyre. Off the bike and walk it up the hill to the house, possibly the best possible place to have a puncture! Whatever it was that I’d run over had put a snakebite into the rear.
About forty kilometres around through the forest, it felt almost as much hard work as ’s ascent of Mount Buffalo!
