75.63km / 4:28:31 / 1066m / 16.6°C

A fantastic warm spring day with hardly a breath of wind, people everywhere out and about on their bikes — a great day Bike Network’s

Out towards the Dandenongs, I’ve given up on Ferntree Gully road and the aggressive speeding drivers, especially out towards Knox, instead followed the Scotchmans Creek track up through Mount Waverley then Waverley road down to Jells Park — with the mandatory speed run down from the Police academy. From Jells Park hunt around to find the Dandenong creek trail & follow it upstream, getting lost as usual, consulting the phone map, a bit of guesswork, detouring through part of Upwey & eventually finding The Basin. It might be longer & slower this way, but its a much more enjoyable ride.

Then change down gears and off along the Basin Olinda road, climbing, climbing, climbing on the gravel road up through the forest.

A whiff of smoke & distant CFA siren came through the trees at one point near the top, a careful look around and I continued on my way. A minute or so later I could hear the fire engine, but well off in the distance and nothing more came of it

Rested for five or ten minutes in a park in Olinda, sipping water & snacking, then down the street for a coffee. Call in it at the first coffee shop I could find — Storehouse Roastery — for a very tasty coffeeneuring macchiato — hmm, must remember how to spell that correctly. Enjoyed it enough that I bought a bag of their coffee to take home, and only just managed to squeeze it into the frame bag

Off along the Ridge Road towards Mount Dandenong, turning off … and up … at the side road to Mount Corhanwarrabul which I swear I’ve never heard of before. Fantastic views out to the north and west then off down Zig-Zag track and other gravelly tracks down through the forest! Far too steep to be easily ridable on my bike and my tyres, 20-28° slope according to the profile afterwards, and just loose enough that I was always on the verge of losing traction with one or other or both tyres. The brakes squealed the loudest, I slithered with one foot out dabbing my way down the worst sections, paused at a few of the hair-pin turns and talked to the trail-runners & hikers heading up, but eventually made it to the bottom at Doongalla Picnic Ground without falling off or crashing into the tree ferns

From the picnic ground back to The Basin was an ordinary gravel road, albeit with plenty of Sunday picnic traffic, then the trip home a near reverse of the trip out, following a slightly different set of the Blind Creek and Eastern Freeway bike paths, a loop around Jells Park and the ‘orrible climb up from the park to Wheelers Hill

Clear sky, 17°C, Feels like 16°C, Humidity 45%, Wind 2m/s from SW - by Klimat.app

Riding 704th day in a row, including my 2020 cycling challenge;

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