Date/Time
Date(s) - 24 Oct 2021
Category(ies)
- Grade 4 Medium-Hard
- Leader: David G
- Phone: 0432 632 142 after 7pm
- Participant numbers:10 max
- Final booking date:
This ride is a loop around Beechworth, through the historic Woolshed valley and along Reedy creek, which was part of the gold rush in the 1850’s. It is nearly all on gravel road.
The first 6km or so (up to Beechworth) is on a very quiet farm lane, but it is quite steeply up, with much of it at a gradient of around 7-8%. For comparison, the Everton to Beechworth rail trail is about 3.5%. My GPS tells me that I was going about 8.5km/hr on this bit last time – it’s steep!
At this point we are done with the uphills, and head out of town toward Everton. After a couple of km we’ll take a side road and leave the bitumen again.
We’ll follow the top of the plateau north before we start a steep downhill to Woolshed road. We will need to cross Kangaroo crossing, which is a concrete ford with Reedy creek flowing over it. For this reason, if there has been much rain the week before, I’ll substitute this for an equivalent ride (difficulty/distance) around Beechworth/Stanley.
The next 15km are ‘undulating flat’ along Woolshed road (there are no real hills), and we will stop along the way to read the historical plaques. We’ll also divert down to Reedy creek here and there, eventually arriving back at the start.
When I’ve done this before the traffic has been quite minimal, but I would like (and expect) the group to be on ‘good behaviour’ and ride as a reasonable group, move over to the left to allow cars to pass etc.
There is either 504 or 684m elevation gain on this – my GPS mapping and Strava aren’t agreeing. Either way, it’s pretty decent for a ride of under 40kms, and nearly all the elevation is in the first 10km (we’ll get it over and done with first up).
In terms of bikes, you could do this on a road bike if you aren’t concerned about your tires with the gravel surfaces – I can’t recall any particularly rough sections although if it’s muddy then it mightn’t be fun. A hybrid-type bike would be absolutely fine, as would any mountain bike.
The bottom line for this one is that personally I’m not a super-fast roadie cyclist – on this one I’ll probably bring my mountain bike, and I’d like to dawdle a bit and look at the scenery. However, the last climb on this ride is beautiful, but it is a serious climb. So if you can handle the Beechworth to Everton climb (or similar) quite happily, or you spend a reasonable bit of time out mountain biking the countryside whatever, give me a call. But if you get to the top of the Everton-Beechworth climb and you’d hate to do anything worse, then I’d recommend sitting this one out.