Saturday 5 April 2007 - Mooney

Ah, Mooney, how we love ya!

On a rescheduled *Saturday* not Sunday ride, we arrived at Mooney as planned around 7.45am, with a slight chill in the air but nothing worse than that. The day promised good things, and we were not to be disappointed... returning to the cars around 1.30pm.

These shots show just how pretty Mooney was looking after the recent rains, and how wet!



Rees, Stephe, Doug, Brian and John made the ride (seen here at the dam at the beginning, and at "The Bucket" at the other end).



Brian was hot out of the gates, given that he hadn't been on a ride for four weeks because he was busy gallivanting about Europe (making one of the early hills in excellent style), but all the food and wine soon caught up with him. This video is harsh (being walloped on the very turf on which he was once king!).

However, to be fair, when we'd made the initial climbs, and then decided to travel on to The Bucket (why on earth did we do that?), Brian was the only one who made the hills - which was a pretty spectacular effort. Just check out this profile for a perspective on just how many big hills The Bucket represents!

Doug, of course, was the nearest challenger to Brian's climbing domination (hampered by chain suck) - Rees, John and Stephe content to walk when the hills went vertical.

At least everyone got to enjoy the downhills (even John's fairly embarrassing reflector laden beastie)!



An excellent 30 or so kilometres, everyone of them either scenically or technically beautiful, and even worth the extensive pain caused to our drive trains... (it's probably worth noting, as we returned wet and happy, Smartarse Creek cleaned us all up, just to show that it could!).

Photos, videos, profile, map and satellite shots are up here...