Sunday 15 January – Acron Oval and back, via Oxford Falls and Redhill

A great ride, brought on at the last moment because of Doug’s need to be back by 11.30am – turns out to have been a Very Good Thing indeed.

We started at Acron Oval, down the drop, and up the interminable (albeit not real steep) climb on the other side. A handy warm up, in excellent mountain bike riding weather (mildly overcast, moisture about but not too hot or muggy). Across the road section to Oxford Falls, then down the track to the Aerodrome for some fun, and along the track to Deep Creek and then out on to Wakehurst Parkway (for even more fun, and a bit of ‘chasing the locals’). The climb up from the Academy of Sport was a challenge, and we probably didn’t execute it as well as we expected (although with flashes of brilliance from Doug along the way).

After a short break we meandered into the entertaining rock section of good old Redhill, and got some corny video shorts… We also found a new way along the track towards the “victory tree” which was fun.

The climb back up the singles track at Oxford Falls was testing on our fitness (Rees and Stephe bringing up a fairly consistent tail end!), but still a good bit of riding entertainment. As we made our way along the road stage to head back to Acron Oval, there was yet another time out for Stephe to play with his mal-adjusted rear brake all over again, and then on to the top of the drop. Unfortunately, given both Whisperer and Doug’s time constraints, we had to skip the superb singles track drop into the Cascades, and made our way down the much more mundane (but still enjoyable) fire trail.

Which left us with nothing but the huuuuuuuuge climb back out of the Cascades to the top (I don’t care what the GPS says, it’s a nasty old climb…).

A pretty solid ‘local’ ride, which may perhaps be improved by doing it by starting at the Academy of Sport (getting the big climb over in the middle, and finishing off with the delightful Deep Creek).

Limited pictures, and the corny videos are here. A couple of photos here for space filler: