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The “Joy” Of Climbing A Hill On A Bike
Great Article: "The “Joy” Of Climbing A Hill On A Bike"
Foolish mortals, we cyclists. Like Icarus, we ascend toward the sun, not so much on wings of wax and feather as on hope and spirit, and we never get there, not even close, though from time to time we stumble into luck and clutch at the soft cotton hem of clouds. Is it our arrogance that makes us climb these hills? Curiosity? Our hunger for strength, dominion, and a ripping downhill?
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There's nothing quiet as satisfying as powering up some rocks. I remember when Ditty & I found this section at Menai:
We charged it with delight
Out of interest, yesterday I was at the Dam and with a couple of people who needed to go back and have a second go at the rocks down past the golf course. So had a chance to have a go at riding up them backwards. Of the two sections, the lower is pretty much impossible, but cleaned the upper first go (well - 90% of it - close enough
).
I've always said we should have 'ride it backwards' days at the Dam, but as there's no official one way flow there's obviously no chance to reverse it.
The Dam is pretty quiet midweek. That'd be the only opportunity to get a 'clean' crack at it backwards. How about calling it: 'A ride for The Sick - cough cough' lol
PS I've never ridden Menai, the rocks in that pic look great!
Dropped a water bottle accidently in the fire trail downhill and only noticed after heartbreak hill. There is a nice rock drop off on the right (when descending) when coming down heartbreak hill which is something only possible riding in reverse. I wonder what else there is we haven't noticed?
Is that just after the bottom of a nice long fire trail that starts in a muddy motorbike section and goes down to a little creek?
If so i love that downhill bit. In the dry it is sooooo quick.
BB
Night time is always a good time to go backwards.
I have ridden the Dam a couple of times at night in reverse. You can see the lights from any oncoming traffic a fair way off, but usually there aren't too many people. There were three sections that I couldnt ride (the bits with the wooden slats - one near the hydo lab and the other near the golf course due to the small drop offs at the top - and the bottom of the 19th hole) but I reckon with practice its probably all rideable and with the work that's been done it will be even more rideable than when I did it. Post a ride Rob
Anyone done McPhail's firetrail in reverse?
... I want to.
Google 'McPhail's firetrail' and look what the first hit is
http://nobmob.com/node/2387#comment-20407
I did it in the "normal" direction ie: downhill, and was blown away by how steep it was. It resembles a black ski run and it had my brakes literally cooking.
Here's my GPS
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=...
Massive respect to anyone who manages to ride it back up.
Had a fun loop around the Dam tonight. There was lots of traffic, don't think i've ever seen it so busy. There was quite few groups riding around in reverse. I've never seen this being done in the past, have they been reading this thread I wonder?
I guess its up to me to advise against riding Manly Dam in the counter/anti-clockwise direction (i.e. the "wrong" way).
Manly Dam is the busiest mountain bike track in the biggest city in Australia. Except on weekends you wouldn't consider it busy because everybody is going in the same direction - you only ever see those riders who are significantly slower or faster than yourself.
I rode the Dam yesterday (wednesday) at lunchtime and encountered 4 riders going in the opposite (wrong) direction. I did a double loop and I actually saw one bloke 3 times (mate - that was a good effort!). The laws of probability being as they are I crossed each of those riders in a tight section of the track, one pair of riders apparently believed they had right of way(!) but luckily I saw them in time to avoid them. I saw no other riders going the correct way, but I expect there were a few.
If you ride the wrong way, you will encounter every single rider on the track and have to avoid them, and every single rider on the track will have to avoid you. Chances are that at least one of those riders isn't fully in control at that exact moment.
It is just a dumb idea.
I'm fortunate enough to ride when I want so I'm out pretty much every day riding Manly Dam. During summer, it's absolutely dead. I'll ride Monday - Friday during the day and never come across anyone, only a few sun baking snakes.
This is more or less typical most middays although due to the track drying up after the wet spell I've been seeing a lot more riders out during the day. Yesterday was a freak day with the Hyrdo carpark almost full. This was a complete surprise and not the norm.
Basically, I'm always surprised to come across anyone during my ride. I haven't come across anyone riding reverse so the situation hasn't come up but have come around blind corners at the back of the golf course sniggle and almost run into walkers.
I'd say go for it if you really want to, do it at night or midday during the warmer months (excluding weekends of course), no one out there except for me from my excessive experience. Only dodgy areas would be coming back through the sniggle along the golf course, especially the rock roll downs. You know you're going against the flow so you'll be more prepared to move quickly out of the right of way, and if you really want to be courteous, whack a bell on your handlebars and make some noise coming through tighter sections.
Say hi to me, might even turn around and follow you. Gets boring out there alone.
Say there are 10 riders on the Dam track at lunchtime on a weekday.
If all 10 riders ride the same way, chances are they will never see each other and they'll have the illusion of being the only lonely rider out there.
But if 5 riders go the "wrong" way then each of those riders will encounter 5 riders going the normal way - 25 incidences of "rider on rider" in opposite directions. If 20 riders did this, there would be 100 interactions: the interaction rate rises as the square of half the total number of riders (the soon to be famous: Cambo's Law).
It doesn't take a lot of imagination does it, to see where this would lead?
A better option: there are loop trails in the U.S. which change directions on Tuesdays and Thursdays (but they have serious signposting and only one entry point to the loop).
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disclosure: I ride the Dam 5 to 7 times a week, and usually I never see anybody either