Ride Recap: Success at last, our first attempt at this ride was thwarted by snow 2 years ago this same weekend. The weather didn’t look too promising in the week leading up to the ride but thankfully the weather people smiled on us and we had rain in the days prior to cut the dust and sun all day while riding.
The morning started early with 20 riders and 17 machines at the morning safety meeting at 7:45am in a brisk wind and on their machines ready to go shortly after 8:00am.
The route wound its way along roads, trails and past lakes, viewpoints and recreation sites throughout the day.
There were two 45 minute stretches of FSR riding to transit to other trails, we’d like to cut these out but Graystokes Park means no cross trails connecting separate riding areas very easily.
After putting up with the extended road sections riders were rewarded with a great climbing trail up McAuley Creek to the Aberdeen Plateau. The final stop of the ride was at Edwin Lake then home to staging for a total start to finish time just under 10 hours with 240kms covered.
Kudos to all riders for an excellent job doing leapfrog on the corners, not a single lost rider or missed turn all day long! For such a long ride it was uneventful with no mechanicals and everyone had enough fuel for the entire ride.
View and Download the Epic 250 GPS Track
8:00am Start Sunday September 27
We last tried this 2 years ago but were snowed out. Let’s see if we can make it happen in 2020, it’s a crazy year so why not!
This ride is not for everyone, here’s what you need to know to participate in this ride:
- Ready to ride at 8:00am sharp!!!
- You must be able to ride 65kmh minimum on FSR stretches
- Your machine has to be in good mechanical order
- You must bring enough fuel to go 250kms
- Be prepared for fewer/shorter breaks than normal club rides
We will be turning riders away that aren’t able to meet the criteria above.
Ok, so you’re up for the ride? Read on then!
Starting at 8:00am Sunday, September 27 from the bottom of King Eddy FSR in Coldstream. It’s a long ride so we need to start early, keep up a good pace and we’ll still be late in the afternoon getting back.
Ride difficulty is upper intermediate due to the speed, nothing greater than intermediate level difficulty obstacles along the route.
There will be a mix of trail and FSR with extended sections of FSR which is unavoidable on a ride this length. Consider bringing ear plugs because one section is 30+ minutes of FSR done at cruising speed (65kmh minimum) which gets a bit tiring on the ears.
Bring food and drink for a full day on the trails. Breaks will be short and they won’t happen very often so bring something you can poke down quickly. We will pass a number of recreation sites with outhouses for those in need of facilities. Remember we’re still in COVID times so everyone must keep a safe distance from others throughout the day.
We reach 6,000ft elevation along the route so bring cold/wet weather riding gear.
Ride Route – this isn’t 100% accurate as it has been simplified to reduce the number of waypoints but is a pretty close approximation of the 250km ride route.
Download the GPX file and bring your GPS or download a 3 month free trial of Gaia GPS App to your phone to track the ride.
Please get in touch if you have any questions by email at [email protected]
Rides and events are open to everyone, we encourage new riders to come out for a couple of rides to meet club members, find new trails and get a sense of the club before joining.
