BurbleChaz

The Melbourne Cup was won by a horse, again. I'm certain it's a fix. Every year I bet on a pig, and I've never even placed.

Rather than suffer the hordes of howling hoorays, we loaded up our bikes and headed for Lysterfield Park

We tried a new route to get to the freeway. By going across the Bolte Bridge we hoped to avoid the usual whiplash while crossing six lanes of maniacal drivers. Unfortunately, my attention wavered as I took a poor-quality picture of the city, so we missed the sign saying 'For Lysterfield, move 17 lanes left in the next eight feet".

Fuzzy pic that caused lane-change issues.

After a bit of quick navigation, and a planned detour via a shopping center, we got to the park. It was still cold, grey, windy and miserable. It usually is, here. We saddled up and rode to the northern end of the park. I turned off and rode some silly bits as The Sensible Person kept her climbing to a minimum.

Once we'd added all the potential energy we could, we turned round and rode about 5kms of single track together. Downhill. I jumped some things. Neither of us crashed - not even a little bit. The Sensible Person displayed skill, restraint and talent. I'm hoping that she won't post all the pictures.

We got back to the car, recharged our water bottles, gubbled some chcolate bars, and rode across the dam. Faced with the climb on the other side, Other People decided that they had had enough. I promised to keep my playtime down to 45 minutes, and snorted off uphill.

After the short climb, I was feeling warm and comfortable, so I opened it up a bit on the flat trail along the lake. I entered the first corner at about 35kph, descended towards the next turn with power on, entered at well over 40, and then went through one of those compressed introspection sessions:

• TOO FAST!!!
• BRAKE!!!
• (rear wheel slides sideways)
• Stare at oncoming tree with horror
• BRAKE!!!
• (front wheel slides too)
• (release brakes, wonder how much this crash is going to hurt)
• Lean hard, add power, make it round corner.
• Stop. Review past life. Weep with relief. Get passed by two small girls on 'My Little Pony' bikes. "Mummy, why is that man kissing his tyres?"

Eventually, I hauled myself up to the start of the competition track. This was used for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

From here, it looks easy

After about a kilometer of swoopy fun fast track, it all got a bit rocky. Jumping is fun. Drop-offs can be amusing. Hard, vicious climbs over technical, rocky terrain are better than caffeine and beer combined. Vertical plummets over raw granite, however, are a taste I have yet to acquire:

Vertical Plummeting

So I dropped 150m over 3km of lovely, swoopy single track.