Rocky Mountain High Ride

This entry is part 10 of 18 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #52

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Tim Stolz of the MADCAT ride committee likes to name his rides after musicians and songs. No matter what heights were achieved by the John Denver Rocky Mountain High Ride, it was always going to be hot.

Corn hill Road, just below Mt Buller village.

I use the Goldilocks Classification for riding weather: Papa Bear is 25 degrees plus; Mama bear is 11 degrees or less; and Baby Bear (just right) is 16 to 24 degrees. With temperatures predicted to tap out in the mid-30s for both days, the forecast for the Rocky Mountain High ride was definitely in the Papa Bear class.

The solution?

Get some altitude.

The higher you go, the lower the atmospheric pressure, the air mass expands, and voila!, the air gets cooler.

With that in mind the route was designed to get some height quickly to avoid the ‘sunburnt country’ stuff.

Nine riders were slated to take part, but club secretary Rob Haines (aka Guru Bob, Robbo, and The Robster) was a last-minute inclusion.

He’d nicknamed his DRZ ‘The Chicken Chaser’ – because he keeps chickens – and it had been serviced that week and returned to him at the last minute. He decided to sneak out and ride the early stages of the first day despite risking the displeasure of his wife who insisted he had family commitments.

Also a late inclusion was founder and president, Ian Ribchester (aka El Capo, El Presidente, Rib, or Ribeye) who joined the ride until lunch on the first day to extract the last bit of wear from his rear tyre before replacing it for an upcoming 12-day trip around the backroads of Tassie.

So it was 11 who climbed into the sauna suits and hightailed it out of Yarra Junction, 55km east of Melbourne, just as the temperature was getting into the lower end of the Papa Bear range.

Darren Foster, Dean West, TIm Russell, Stephen Coop, Graham White, Damian McGrath, Bryan O’Donoghue and Ben Hercus.

Easy start

The opening part of the ride covered the first two-thirds of the ‘some-of-us-have-done-it-so-many-times-we-could-do-it-in-our-sleep’ Acheron Way, onto Feiglins Road, then wound its way through to the liquorice strip of Marysville Road. At Marysville itself we jettisoned The Robster, then ran north along the east side of the Cathedral Range.

This was intended to be part of the route for a ride several months beforehand, but had been aborted when Mother Nature wreaked havoc and laid a bunch of soon-to-be-firewood over the road at far too regular intervals. On this occasion it was an easy ride on an essentially two-wheel-drive dirt road in temperatures that sat snugly in the middle of the Baby Bear category.

So far, so good.

Ze plan, she voss vorkink!

Craigs Hut, built in 1993 for the film The Man From Snowy River, was a truly speccy find.

Hot & spicy

The Thornton pub crooked its finger at us with leafy shade for the bikes and a hearty lunch. A blast of heat as we walked out couldn’t dampen our spirits and we headed for Eildon and Jerusalem Creek, while president El Capo sidled off home.

A dusty road out of Jerusalem Creek had a steepish and rocky section which gave a few of us racing-heart moments, but eventually led us back to the Eildon-Jamieson road which was negotiated handsomely by everyone. A delay halfway up to fix a bent gear shifter underscored how hot it was as we swore and cursed our way through what should have been a much easier task.

By this time the temperature had moved emphatically into the Papa Bear range.

Ze plan, she voss vorkink not!

An uneventful trip to Jamieson on the squiggly black line ended with a dash to Mansfield Holiday Park at around 4.00pm, and we arrived more fried than a piece of KFC.

Lake Eildon, from atop Skyline Road. 34 degrees with no breeze.

Light wait

A plunge in the pool was the curtain-raiser to a fine evening, and a desultory approach to setting up camp on a beautifully manicured grassy area was followed by a rush to the microbrewery next door for beer and pizza. Damn fine pizzas they were too, even down to the jalapeño one which had diners feeling the sun was coming up in the backs of their throats.

A balmy night, too hot and too early for bed, saw Tim (not the author, the other one) and Ben blast into town and return with topboxes laden with beers, red wine, ice, chips, and various other glow-in-the-dark confectionary. As we settled in, a fair
maiden, with a lamp she’d just purchased and couldn’t get to work, descended on our group to enlist our help. To no avail.

Sir Galahad (heavily disguised as Dean West) examined it, mucked around with it, pronounced it ‘mort’, and administered the Last Rites.

We went to bed soon after, separately and severally…in case you were wondering.

Leafy shade for the bikes during lunch.

Short circuit

Hot sun on the tents ensured early risers the following morning.

Despite the warm evening, there was a heavy dew which vanished, ghost-like, as the temperature rose. We broke camp and motored the two kilometres to Brew for an epic brekky.

Brew has been an institution in Mansfield for at least 45 years. I recalled hungrily smashing hearty and healthy fuel there after a weekend’s skiing during the late-1970s. While it may have passed through several hands, it remains out-standing to this day.

We rolled out of Mansfield in a tight convoy to the foot of Mount Buller, and then took the dirt of Stirling Road up to what the locals affectionally call TBJ (Telephone Box Junction).

The temperature was 18 degrees as we headed onto Circuit Road which runs around Mt Stirling to Mt Buller and becomes Clear Hills Track. The sun was shining, the air crisp, and all agreed there really was a god. The well-maintained road is access for both fire and forestry, and it led to a photo opportunity mentioned by The Robster when I got him to run his gimlet eye over the route.

Craigs Hut, built in 1993 for the film The Man From Snowy River, was a truly speccy find. Blue hues filled our vision as our gaze wandered north over the ridgelines of several ranges, and the hut, small in stature and hardy in nature, was set in a meadow above the snowline and surrounded with summer daisies, granite boulders, and tough and tortured snow gums. It was pure, unadulterated magic, well worth the sphincter-tightening 10-minute side trip off the main track.

Bryan, using his two-day growth as an air filter.

Hot stuff

We rejoined Clear Hills Track and the loose gravel disappeared. The corners flowed, the camber was perfect and the pace quickened. Suddenly everyone was Toby Price…if only.

By the time we reached the Mount Buller village, Baby Bear was sated. He put down his spoon and let out a satisfied burp. But what goes up must come down, and where Mt Buller had been at 1600 metres above sea level, we bolted back to Mansfield – at 321 metres ASL – for lunch. The mercury rose sharply, and after a hasty pic we were back on the bikes to at least give evaporative cooling a chance, no matter how hot the air.

Papa Bear was getting angrier by the minute as we departed for Bonnie Doon and Skyline Road, now at 34 degrees, with no breeze, and the dust hanging heavy in the still, hot air. Our skins were wrinkling like anaemic prunes inside our suits.

There was a truly breathtaking view over Lake Eildon from very high up, but stops were kept brief because of the enervating heat.

The fast and flowing Circuit Road.

Exhausted

We arrived at Eildon just before 3.00pm, and with the prospect of another couple of hours of heat and dust back to Yarra Junction via Snobs Creek Road, the soft option won everyone over and we black-topped it to Healesville via the Black Spur, where icy-cold drinks in frosted glasses were enjoyed at the iconic pub.

After a farewell kiss and swearing undying love to each other we dispersed to our respective warrens, Papa Bear incandescent with the mercury at 36 degrees.

Thanks to Damo for an outstanding job leading his first ride and congrats to all the MADCAT first-time riders: Brian O’Donahue, Graham White, Tim Russell and Darren Foster. If success has many fathers, and failure is an orphan, then everyone’s contribution to this ride ensured it was never going to be the latter.

Casualties:

• One bent gear-shift lever (soon fixed), AND
• One heat blister when one Tim handled the hot exhaust on the other Tim’s bike (a painful rookie mistake I’ve made more than once).

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