I got out for another ride on Thursday and it served to illustrate just how crazy this Summer has been so far. Here we are, with almost two months of the season done and we have so far had only one day when the temperature has been above 30 degrees Celsius. Yes, I know, I shouldn’t complain and, seriously, I am not. But it IS supposed to be Summer and I AM supposed to be experiencing lots of hot weather and seeing lots of blue skies. Neither of these have been apparent so far. There has been almost constant wet weather with most days seeing rain at least for some of the day.
Well, that’s good for honing the wet weather riding skills, I guess but it is limiting in other respects.
So, on Thursday when it got to mid-morning and it HADN’T rained, I thought I’d head out. Nothing fancy, just a loop over the highlands and back home before the weather changed. But, rather than just do “The Lap” I decided to change the route, do the run in reverse and add in some roads that I hadn’t ridden for a while. The experiment was certainly a success and showed up just what effect the continuing wet Summer has had.
I headed south to Kiama, nothing odd about that but then I turned towards the coast and took the run down the Seven Mile Beach road through Gerroa. Now this road is fast (after you endure the 80km/h speed limit from Gerroa to the Berry turn-off) and is pretty lightly trafficed. What it is NOT is smooth and, to be fair, it never has been. But the constant rains have certainly given it a work-out along with the holiday traffic. Since it is, at best, a “B” road, I can’t see it getting too much attention from the authorities whose unspoken agenda is always, “If we let the road deteriorate, people will have to drive slower and so we will contribute to lowering the road toll and save money at the same time.” Such is the weird way that bureaucrats think, if, indeed, they do at all. And, no, I am not going to get into a discussion on how poorly maintained roads contribute towards road crashes.
Before I got to the Shoalhaven Heads turnoff, I cut west and took the great little road that comes out at Berry. There’s not much in the way of corners but the road is rewarding for being a “B” road with a 100km/h speed limit and lots of elevation changes.
Getting through Berry these days is a doddle compared to what it used to be like when the main street was the Princes Highway. The by-pass has funnelled all the trucks and the holiday-makers out onto its smooth and double-laned delights and left the street relatively peaceful.
At the end of the main street, I negotiated the confusing roundabout (why do traffic “improvements” usually end up being worse than the intersections they replaced?) and headed straight ahead up the Berry Mountain Road. I’ve ridden this road many times but not for a while and not in these sorts of conditions. I took this route because I didn’t want to go all the way to Bomadery and then up Cambewarra.
As expected, the conditions were sketchy in the extreme. Not only was the road surface mostly wet, it was mostly covered by bark from trees, leaf litter and gravel that had washed onto the road from the steep sides of the road. Added to this, the rain and the traffic has really pounded the road and dodging all of the above, PLUS numerous potholes and wash-aways demanded 100% attention. It is a tight and technical little road and not for the faint-hearted. Needless to say, I was glad to get it done and, despite all that, it is always worth doing because of the sensational views across the farmlands as you start descending the northern side.
At the “T” intersection, I dropped back out onto the Kangaroo Valley Road between two cars and started heading north. I noticed almost immediately that the car behind closed up quickly and that it was a dark blue BMW sedan. Spidey senses told me it was HWP and so it proved to be. It didn’t worry me because I wasn’t going fast anyway but I had to laugh because he followed me all the way through the town, out the other side and all the way to the overtaking lane going up Barrengarry where he gassed it up and promptly disappeared. I watched for him thinking he’d probably gone ahead to hide in the bushes further along and nail me anyway but I didn’t see him and he’d have been pumping a dry well at any rate.
The run up Barrengarry was nearly as sketchy as the Berry Mountain stretch though wider and more open, of course. The road was covered with litter, potholes aplenty and dry and wet patches interspersed with no warning as to when they changed. Softly-softly all the way back to Robertson and back down the Pass and home.
Every now and then it’s good to take a punt and ride when you know the conditions aren’t going to be great; it sharpens the senses and polishes up the skills that are needed to ride in these sorts of conditions.
All the same, though, I sure wish that Summer would arrive.
