Castlemaine To Daylesford

My last post was a me whining about my knee and I didn't mention the awsome ride that would have been Castlemaine to Daylesford. My riding buddy and I left my place at about 7:30 and headed north to Castlemaine. We got there at about 8:45, used the public connivances, got suited up for the ride and headed off towards Daylesford, using the directions in "Off Road Cycling Adventures. It didn't take us too long to make our first wrong turn, but not to worry we were soon back on track.

After a bit of riding we got onto some single track, and it was good single track at that, nice and flowing and up and down hills. After a little bit of this the track went along side a water race, so there was about 1m of track, water race on one side and a steep drop off on the other. This was made even more challenging by the small shrubs that you could ride through, be you couldn't see the ground, lost of fun.

After about 30 minutes of this we then came across a sealed road, which we were on for all of 100m, then back up some rocky fire trail, which soon enough turned into single track. It was about this time that we came close to the Dingo farm. It must have been feeding time because there was a lot of howling coming from that direction. We took a moment to take in the sound then pressed on.

In this section of the ride was where we came across some ruins, it was kinda funny to think people lived way out in the middle of no where so long ago, but at the same time we came across these ruins we could hear mining machinery working. This contrasted the old and the new.

After a bit more pedaling we came across a small town, went through this and I think we started going along the Telecom track. This is fun flowy track with a few gotchas to watch out for. The most notable was a drop off with a tree at handle bar height right at the bottom, which luckily I saw in time. My buddy called me a whimp for walking down, but after he spotted the tree and after a challenge from me he soon backed down.

Then next thing of note was Vaughn Springs, this was where it all went pear shaped and we became very navigationially challenged. You have to get off and walk down into a gully and across a creek, we did this bit, but where we got it wrong was we should have turned away from the next bridge we came across, just like it saids in the book. We didn't do this, we crossed the bridge, track didn't go anywhere really. So we went back. Then after a bit of head scratching we decided just to follow the dry diggings trail markers.

We did this for a while hoping to see something that was in out directions, but nothing was in there. This didn't matter so much because we were riding and it was fun. We stopped and had some lunch at which time we decided that we'll ride until 2pm then turn back. Back on the trail and my buddy realizes that he left his sunglasses where we had lunch, but we pressed on and we got them on the way back.

Riding seemed to be getting harder and harder, I couldn't work it out, I thought I must be getting tired, but I plugged away. 2pm came and we turned around and it became apparent why I was finding it hard to ride. We were going up hill. Gravity gave me a new lease of life and we flew down to the bottom of the gully that we were working out way up.

The ride back was uneventful, but it was a hard slog, I was getting low on food. But we made it back to the car at 6pm. This was 9 hours, 70km, 3 litres of water and 690ml of GU and a fun day . Then I had the drive back to my place, which we stopped for some dim sims to break up the trip.

Dodgy Knee

About 2 weeks ago me and my riding buddy attempted to ride from Castlemaine to Dayleford, following the route in the book Off Road Cycling Adventures. Anyway after a few wrong turns we got a bit lost, decided just to follow the bit of single track we were on. Just by the by it was a nice track. We decided that 2pm was a good turn around, so when that time came we pointed our trusty steeds in the opposite direction and rode back.

On the way back my knee started to feel a bit sore, I thought this was just because I'd been riding for 5 hours. So I gritted my teeth and pedaled back. I got back to the car, got off my bike and my knee felt fine, 9 hours in the saddle, 70ish km all in all a good day. I took a day off and rode to work on the Tuesday, knee started hurting about half way in, same story on the way home. So I decided not to race Dirt Crits and rest until the weekend.

We decided to do a road ride so on Sunday I set off for Frankston. First hour the knee was fine I felt good, felt strange to be back on the skinny tires though. Then the knee started hurting again, first a little bit, then no pain, then a little bit more. This continued for a while, then it became almost impossible to get up hills. I had to go down to granny gear for little rises. Again I struggled home, laid on the couch and iced up my knee.

On Monday I decided to go to a physio. The news wasn't good, he thinks I've strained a Medial Ligament and I have to rest it. That means no BMC Classic for me. He thinks my pedaling action caused the strain. I've got some corrective exercises to do and I go back next week to get my advice. I just hope I can start riding to work again soon.