Bike SA 2013 KI - The Corrugated Course

The view from the top

Mr Carl and I managed to creep out of bed fairly early, partially due to the excitement of getting started and partially because an 80km off road day is a fairly big day in my mind. We were a little disorganised, the pack up skills we perfected on the outback odyssey were a bit rusty, however we were soon on the road. I tend to take a while to warm up n the morning, my legs often refuse to co-operate until they've spun through about 10km, so facing that nasty 12% hill within 2km of the start really woke me up. I'd like to say it got easier, but it really didn't and I was extremely jealous of all the people who had more gears than I did! 

Road improvements

Complaints aside, we made it to the top and enjoyed the view while catching our breathe. At this point in time we were still on sealed roads and it was easy to motor along on the cross bikes, as long as you dodged the potholes. This was actually one of the few sealed roads we encountered that was in poor condition, however I suspect that may be because it only lasted about 7km. As Hazeline had mentioned the day before, it would get better once we reached the unsealed section - and it did.

A particularly pretty flower

 


The CX bikes were really in their element, cruising along effortlessly, and much to Mr Carl's pleasure, much faster than 10 km/hr (roughly the average speed we travelled the odyssey at, including stops). However, I was determined to play the tourist and get lots of shots for the blog, so I stopped frequently to enjoy the scenery, whether that was a particularly pretty flower or a spectacularly framed view. 







One thing that stopped us both in our tracks was when the road appeared to run straight through a lake! It wasn't really a lake, but due to recent rains, both sides of the road were flooded, providing an opportunity for some beautiful, reflective shots. We later found out that much of southern KI had been flooded and the annual tour route had been revised to account for this.

An unexpected lake

  

East lake

West lake

The lighthouse keepers view

Mr Carl admiring the view

Eventually we made it down to the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse, which was our morning tea stop for the day. I am convinced that a cuppa always taste better after a bit of hard work, whether that be working in a shearing shed, gardening or flying along a road on a bike and this cup of tea proved no exception to that rule. It is moments like these that really make bike touring so enjoyable, sitting somewhere a little off the beaten track, enjoying a cup of tea and a fine view. And the view at Cape Willoughby was magnificent, well worth the ride and the hills. I'd even go so far to say it was worth what we went through later on in the day, which is a big a call as you'll soon find out.

Cape Willoughby Lighthouse

 
Mr Carl and I wandered around, taking in the scenery before heading back out on the bikes. We'd come down a wonderfully fun hill on our way into the lighthouse and now faced the uphill slog that we had seen other riders undertake as we flew past them. Surprisingly this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be (anything would have been better than the first hill of the day), the hill was quickly summited and we were on our way. Thankfully we turned west before we had to ride up the other hills we descended on the way to the lighthouse, though if I had known what was ahead of us, I may have preferred the hills!

The fun ride down

Devil's Kitchen

 

Left now

Initially the left hand turn led us onto a nice, cruisey road, a bit undulating and a little sandy in patches but a fairly pleasant ride all the same. We appeared to be riding through farming country and were treated to a mixture of green paddocks, farmhouses and the odd lake, though I'm not sure if these were just due to recent rains. 

It's dead!

We also had a slightly heart stopping moment when there appeared to be a rather large snake on the side of the road. Being cautious we stopped (this had nothing to do with the sandy road surface of course) to see if the snake would move. As it appeared somewhat sedentary in it's habits, which was surprising given the amount of flies around it, we inched closer. It was then that we realised that the flies were there for a reason and the snake was one of KI's many road kill victims. Having established that we were safe, we rode a little up the road to take pictures and let on coming riders know that the snake was dead. I'm guessing that Mr Carl and I are perhaps more observant than others as most people seemed to reply with "what snake?"!


 

East West Road in one sentence

It was shortly after here that we turned onto East West Road. This is where the villain of the day makes an appearance in the form of corrugations, sand and unending undulations. I probably would have happily traded my CX bike for Contessa here, no questions asked, though by all accounts those that did have suspension and more gears fared little better than we did. The conundrum that we faced was that you needed to go fast over the corrugations to minimise their impact, cautiously through the sand so that you didn't fall off, have enough gears or power to get over the undulations, carefully brake on "safe" sections of the descents so that you didn't face plant into a pile of sand and on top of it all, stay on the correct side of the road and carefully go around other riders.

A much nicer road

I don't think anyone got through this section easily, it was the real challenge of the day. I only walked a small section, on a rise where the only clear patch was on the wrong side of the road and I didn't want to chance someone coming the opposite direction. Mr Carl had the only flat of our trip on this section and if I was honest, I was pretty happy to have a break while he changed the tube. You'll notice an absence of pictures from this section, the surface required too much concentration to look around and enjoy the scenery, which is a bit of a shame as from what little I did see, it was a fairly unique, dry habitat that was very different to the other areas we travelled through.
 

More pretty flowers

 
We endured East West road and made it down safely to lunch at Browns Beach. Everybody was a bit shaken up, including our coffee van and mechanical support, both had driven along the same route we had ridden and commented that it wasn't really much better in a car!

The weather had cooled by the time we left browns beach and we were a little worried about rain, so Mr Carl did his best impersonation of a freight train along the next section of sealed road and we flew by everyone! Everyone that is except the orange caboose (aka Ron), a very powerful guy on a mountain bike who managed to hook onto the back for about the last 5km before we turned off road again. This was the first of many times Ron joined us on the Adelaide Cyclist Express (apparently Mr Carl and I earned a bit of a reputation for flying past people and as we were both wearing our Adelaide Cyclist kit on the first day, everyone decided we were the Adelaide Cyclist Express), and he was amazing and cheerful company every time.

Browns Beach

I suspect the off road route into American river wasn't as bad as it felt, but after East West Road I felt every bump. The cloud had come in by now and it was cooling down, providing little opportunity for good photos. Eventually we made it to American River, thankfully before the rain, and managed to find a spot for the Taj in a patch of weeds down the back of "The Shed". Actually the weeds provided a very soft surface for our tent, kinda like medieval bedding, or at least that's what I told Mr Carl when I picked the spot!

Dinner was held in a mixture of "The Shed", a marquee and the veranda and everyone enjoyed a good feed. Apparently the barman was very surprised by the capacity of much of our crew to consume wine, admittedly I was too, I had one cider and I was done!

Farm houses

Grasshopper and Karen provided the weather and a the obligatory dinner joke (Karen has a knack for telling jokes with a very straight face, and it was only because of my outback odyssey experience that I knew what she was up to). The weather report wasn't fantastic, with rain on the horizon, so Mr Carl and I were a bit unsure whether to take the sealed or unsealed route the following day. We decided to leave that decision to the morning and headed off for a good nights sleep.

Random lake

My favourite picture of the day!

Strava data for the day