The long awaited Tour de Brew – Part VI is finally here! It’s the wrap-up edition, and I’ll try to keep it short and sweet!
We repeated the climb up Smuggler’s Notch that we did the first day. Despite the miles and elevation gain I’d put in my legs the last few days, I was feeling quite good, and was no longer intimidated by the mountains. We had a solid ride up, and reveled in the scenery and pain. Outstanding! At the top, I debated continuing down the other side, but the wet roads and lack of confidence on the tight switchback made me unsure. Matt decided he didn’t want to do another climb, and since I was on the fence, decided not to descend alone. We turned around and started to fly down. However, near the start of the descent, Matt pulled over, so naturally I followed suit to see what was up. He had a ‘knocking’ sound on every rotation of his rear wheel, and it was a bit disconcerting, especially at those speeds! We looked it over, but couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, so decided to continue! Closer to the bottom of the descent, Matt had a bit of a scare as some idiot driver turned left in front of him as he was descending at 80+km/hr. He had to slow, but not too much, and luckily stayed in control. What inspired the driver to turn when he could have waited a few more seconds and had the entire road is beyond me. Sometimes, drivers need to realize how easily they can kill cyclists! I was far enough behind the action to get a good view, but didn’t have to slow.
Overall, Monday’s ride was short, but great! 32.54 km in 1:18:31. We climbed 673m, at an average speed of 18.26km/hr on an average gradient of 5%, with a max of 11%. After the ride, we cleaned up, packed up, and headed back to Perth. It was a fairly uneventful trip back, and we were all exhausted!
Over the course of the entire trip, we managed to get in 245.44km of riding over 9.5hours. Total climbing was 3875m! For all of us, the trip contained the biggest, steepest, and longest climbs we’d ever done. A great learning experience and a whole lot of fun! Personally, it was the best riding experience I’ve ever had, and I’m fairly certain the other guys would agree! Naturally, plans are already being discussed for TdB 2012!