Wednesday was a great day, crisp and clear and perfect Winter weather, so a quick burble on Bexie was in order. But, as I noted in my ride report, a longer ride was in the offing and I managed that yesterday. A quick look at BOM indicated that the weather was going to be cold but there was no rain predicted so I set off early. I was thinking of another Putty run but I changed my mind and decided on an Oberon ride instead.
It was 9° when I struggled out of bed so I knew that it was going to be warmer here but probably that or even less up in the mountains so I dressed accordingly.
Now, as with every Winter, forums and Facebook groups are filled with “expert” opinions on how to survive riding in the Wintertime. Having ridden for over 40 years including 20+ years through Canberra Winters, I feel that I am probably qualified to add an opinion here. There are no secrets, just tried and true procedures and the most important of these is LAYERS.
So I started out with thermal underwear. The little pores in thermals trap the heat escaping from the body and preserve them close to the skin. Next a roll-neck skivvie and then a winter-weight sweatshirt. ALDI socks, the long ones that come nearly up to your knees, are fantastic, complete the clothes with a winter-weight jacket rounding it out. I thought about my wet weather pants but you have to stop somewhere. Because layering also adds bulk you can get to the point where the exclusion of cold is overpowered by the lack of comfort and flexibility. The only other addition is the one that riders so often ignore. A balaclava (silk preferably because it doesn’t add bulk). Your head receives a disproportionate amount of blood supply because your brain lives there, so you need to keep it warm AND stop it radiating heat. A balaclava meets both requirements plus it also seals the otherwise exposed neck region.
I wore my mid-season RJays gloves and they proved more than adequate. On a couple of very cold sections I turned on my heated hand-grips for a short period but, apart from then, my anti-cold precautions proved to be excellent.
Winter riding? It really is
I lit out while it was just dawning, 0615. Amazingly the roads were packed with traffic so I spent most of the first hour duelling with homicidal maniacs in Ford Ranger utes before they all turned onto the freeway heading to Sydney and left me alone on the backroad past Picton heading to Penrith.
As expected, it was cold, around 8° and I gritted my teeth for Montpelier Drive. And, as expected, the road has taken a hammering from the recent rains though local councils do appear to be hustling to repair the worst sections. I didn’t fill up before I left as I knew I had more than enough gas to get to Silverdale where it is always the cheapest. I had a great run into Penrith where I knew I’d have to run the gauntlet of people heading to work; it wasn’t near as bad as I expected.
Popping out the other end I was left all alone all along the road to Richmond and even the run through the town was surprisingly quiet. Bells Line of Road is a beautiful road somewhat spoiled these days by ridiculously low speed limits. The twisties as you climb the mountain are fabulous but, a 60km/h speed limit and a couple of speed cameras does tend to dampen the enthusiasm. Fortunately for me, dropping a couple of gears and keeping the revs well up, combined with the half-a-V8 engine noise and the mellow burble of the Staintune makes it seem like you are going much faster than you really are and almost compensates for having to ride it at stupidly low speeds.
The run up through the fruit orchards is a mish-mash of speed limit changes, indifferent road surfaces and the aforementioned 4WD ute drivers. It’s only once you hit the top at Mt Tomah that the road starts to really make sense. What follows is a constant roller-coaster of fast corners and constant elevation changes. And it goes on and on and on. You are constantly climbing and dropping and the number of overtaking lanes make the job easier if you happen to encounter a caravan or two. I didn’t, actually and I seemed to mostly find myself IN the slow lane with some local who wanted to go WAY faster than me blasting by in the fast lane.
I’ve always wanted to stop and admire the stunning scenery at the top of the road and never had the opportunity to do so. However, trying to find a spot where one could safely stop on a motorcycle soon became a problem. Not only were the verges still quite boggy from the rain but the drop-offs from the road surface to the verges were ridiculously high. I eventually found a spot but the photographs were pretty disappointing.
The bush is slowly recovering from the bushfires which is also encouraging. A little further along I saw a sign to the Mount Banks scenic picnic area, whoohoo. I turned off thinking that the picnic spot was going to be just there. It wasn’t, though I could see the spectacular sandstone cliffs across the valley.
Not that I got much time to look. I was too busy concentrating on the increasingly narrow gravel road, rutted and patchy from the rain and heading downhill at a terrifying rate. I was in near-panic mode by this point and there was nowhere I could turn around and get out of there. I never was a competent dirt bike rider and a 200+ kg road bike on road tyres being ridden by and old fart with a dodgy left shoulder was probably the worst scenario possible. I rode the rear brake like my life depended on it (I’m convinced it DID) until I came to a clearing that gave me space to do a 56-point turn and get pointed uphill.
Fortunately, the spot chosen did give me the opportunity of getting a couple of photos of the scenery though neither of them give any clue to the grandeur of it.
Once turned around I made my way gingerly to the top, finally reaching the bitumen and mentally kicking myself for being that stupid. I note, looking at Google Maps this morning, that the picnic area is temporarily closed. I don’t know how much further down the road it is from where I stopped and turned around, I’m just glad I didn’t go.
Back on the hard stuff, I made good time to Lithgow and through it and out the other side to the Great Western Highway. A quick right turn about 10kms out of town brought me onto the road to Jenolan Caves which also becomes the road to Oberon.
It was a little disconcerting to be encountering warning signs about ice and snow on the roads so the enthusiasm was tempered just a little until I got the lie of the land. The signs were right. A great run up out of the Cox’s River valley was accomplished a little more carefully than usual as the road was covered in huge patches of melted snow that had then frozen in place by the previous night’s low temperatures. A couple of little “warnings” reminded me of just how far from home I was and how was I going to explain to Hobbsie about a long-distance pickup if I misjudged the slippery surface. The road is also littered with road works, some of them still there from when I passed by last time and with little sign of progress of any sort. Mustn’t hurry things, it is the country after all.
Despite all this it is still a wonderful road which I had totally to myself after turning off the GWH; can’t really complain.
My favourite hipster café, the Monkey Bean Café, in the main street of Oberon, is closed, another is being installed in the building. So, it was across the road to far less salubrious take-away that proved again that you can’t judge a book by its cover. The food was great (and hot) and the hot chocolate was extra hot. A good thing, too as the ambient was 7° (much less with wind chill)
Calculating my remaining fuel meant that I didn’t have to fill up, my existing tankage would last me to Goulburn some 148kms down the road. The road from Oberon to Goulburn is a real mix. Pretty straight and fast till you turn off at Black Springs, then narrow and twisty right through to the river crossing at Abercrombie. But what a great road this section is. It’s narrow and there is barely a straight bit on it. It constantly rises and falls with a multitude of 75km/h right hand and left hand, dropping and climbing corners without hardly a rest. Even allowing for the continuing presence of old snow in some sections, you barely need to slow from the posted speed limit for the whole way.
Dropping into the river crossing usually signals the end of the party for the road on the other side of the river is indifferent at best, narrow, pot-holed and without any speed advisor signs or fencing to prevent an errant motorist from falling into the valleys on each of its sides. Imagine my surprise then, when beginning the climb out of the causeway I was greeted with a newly-widened and newly-sealed climb out of the valley. It was fabulous and continued for miles until I emerged on the tops to do the long run into Taralga.
While not as interesting, the road is still peppered with fast, flowing corners and a multitude of elevation changes. Care is required as the council hasn’t got around to repairing this bit, but it’s still highly enjoyable.
When you get to Taralga you know you’re getting close to Goulburn and, even though the fuel indicator was blinking one bar left, I knew I’d be right and so I was. 325kms on the clock by the time I filled up and set out on the grind back up the Hume. As always, I cut out at Marulan and came home the back road through Tallong, Wingello and Penrose and then down Macquarie Pass and home.
I pulled in around 1515, 567kms for the day in almost exactly 9 hours.. Slow in terms of point-to-point but I had stopped a lot and the plan always was to get some happy snaps as well as enjoy the ride.
My warm clothing had served me well, at no time did I feel uncomfortably cold. I might do another Winter ride soon, but I’m going to recover from this one first.
