Round the K - December 2012

Also down for some riding this weekend were Brooke, Eliza, Marty, Cam and Milly who did the Thredbo to Khancoban return ride and Marina who did another road ride and wonderfully fed many of us on Saturday night. Thanks for the fun weekend all.

Early in the ride Ryan realised he was still too sick to sensibly try and finish (similar to my Feb 2011 experience) so turned around (and loaned Bleekie his back wheel which helped him out. As we left Adaminaby Rick also realised the pace we were doing (trying to catch the next group to some extent) was a bit too much and decided to turn around for a less hilly 200 KM ride for the day.

Near the end of the loop Bleeksie found he was in a similar situation to me last December and struggling with Tom Groggin, fortunately Brooke had driven out to see how we were all going so was able to rescue him and take him back to Jindabyne.

Everyone else finished the ride which is a pretty damn impressive effort and we all had fun. Chris obviously did not think 320km and 6500m of climbing was enough, so he had camped up at Charlotte Pass, rode down to meet us for our 5:15am start time (surprising many of the runners and crew out doing Coast 2 Kosci that morning) and then rode back up at the finish, thus he did 400KM and 7200m of climbing, I wonder if he uploaded his ride to Strava?

fullsize The 5:30am group rolling out of Jindabyne fullsize After fixing his broken chain Bleeksie realised his bike that had been in the shop all week for some work had a bald tyre and he could not risk the whole ride on it. fullsize Fortunately for Bleeksie Ryan was too sick to keep riding fullsize So we had a wheel swap fullsize A lot warmer than last year and being a bit later in the morning we enjoyed the morning ride to Adaminaby. fullsize Aaron fullsize The bunch beginning to warm up in the sunshine fullsize Chris doing more riding then the rest of us (and more turns on the front) fullsize Aaron and Chris looking strong fullsize Paul felt the need to try this ride out with us. Good fun. fullsize Lovely day for a little ride hey Aaron fullsize Looking forward to breakfast in Adaminaby fullsize And here we are approaching the big fish. fullsize Some 3fidi riders were enjoying the fun as always fullsize This is 100km in when Rick decided to trun around, Nathan gave him some details and caught up to us again. fullsize Paul taking every advantage he can to try to stay ahead of brief stops some of us had fullsize I was trying to get the sense of the corner in photos fullsize Mostly trying to get action shots from the middle of the bunch fullsize I think it worked pretty well. fullsize Even though we were using the entire lane.

fullsize About to see the open views as we approach Kiandra fullsize The Australian alps have some great scenery and riding fullsize I liked the colour of the light and the stark trees by the road here fullsize Nathan doing long turns again. fullsize Self shot attempt. fullsize Stretched out down the road, soon to turn off toward Selwyn and Cabramurra fullsize Quick stop for morning tea fullsize Aaron getting ready for the ride down to Tumut Ponds fullsize Wheeeeeee fullsize Crossing the Dam fullsize Starting the first real climb for the day up to Round Mountain fullsize Bleeksie up in some real Alpine scenery fullsize Bleeksie and Round Mountain fullsize Another great road for a ride fullsize And a fun bunch to ride with fullsize Thumbs up from Bleeksie fullsize 30 KM, mostly downhill coming right up, lunch at Khancoban here we come. fullsize Matt, Roland and Seb at lunch already fullsize Ed was on the ride, he went on a post lunch mission to finish early too, Andrew H wasn't here so I wonder who will sledge who this week. fullsize Beth about to take a group photo

fullsize Murray Power Station 1 fullsize Without bike in shot now fullsize I was a bit ahead of Bleeksie and well behind the others this year at this sign so took the shot with just my bike in, not so far to go, lots of climbing though. fullsize My Geehi photo (see 2011 and 2004) for the previous versions of this one. fullsize This is one of the more spectacular rides in Australia I think, a huge variety of scenery, here is Bleeksie in some lovely Austrlian bush. fullsize Tom Groggin, water refill (I had some of Nathan's water on the previous section, drank half a bottle here and took 2 full bottles (830ml each) up the climb, I had to refill them both from empty half way up at Leather Barrel creek) and get ready to climb. fullsize Nathan went on a climbing mission, the Strava record for this climb to Dead Horse gap is 55m, his friend Andrew did it in 1h5m the other week. Nathan did the climb in 1h9m after doing a fairly hard hot 260km already. fullsize Biking Bethany and The Seb on the climb fullsize Beth did a great job on this ride smashing out one of the harder road rides around. fullsize My shadow and I fullsize Dead Horse gap, it is almost all downhill from here. fullsize Beth and Seb approaching fullsize We still had to wait a few minutes for Aaron who had been looking after Bleeksie earlier in the climb fullsize It got dark as we climbed toward Renneg's gap fullsize Seb and Beth topping the last slightly hard climb of the day fullsize Aaron's head light coming this way fullsize Aaron moves so fast he is blurry? fullsize It could be light or lack there of but lets go with the first idea. fullsize Seb and Beth after a long day on bikes.