Paul Petch

Mountain biking at the Wharfedale Track

Watching the weather all week, a group of us on Vorb confirmed a trip to the Wharfedale track on Thursday. Zane rocked up with his 4WD van early yesterday morning and we all checked our gear, piled in and headed off to meet a few more there. The group had a few familiar faces from the last Craigieburn ride, as well as a few new ones…. which was great.

Put simply, the Wharfedale track was the most technically punishing singletrack that I’ve ridden ever! and it was absolutely fantastic! It had a bit of everything ….ups and steep downs, many many root gardens, rock gardens, river crossings, drop offs, hike -a- bikes (lots!), muddy climbs and obstacles….. basically the lot! The 30km singletrack adventure took us less than 4.5hrs (5 hrs with stops) from carpark to the hut and back which was a really good effort!

The company and trails were absolutely fantastic out there yesterday and Wharfedale is definitely one to do if you want a challenge. If you like wet root gardens, slippy rocks, lots of climbs and heaps of clambering over stuff with your bike….. with a real feeling of adventure then this place is spot on! What a fantastic day.

As well as the token photograph and food inhalation stops we also spent a fair bit of time clearing fallen trees and branches off the trail. Zane was well equipped and had obviously done this before, as we discovered at one obstacle when he fulled out a pocket saw and wood cutter! We later discovered that Zane spends alot of time helping to maintain/ build many of the local trails such as Port Hills and haven. Great stuff :)

We also had some fairly major stacks out there due to the wet and slippy nature of the tracks. Firstly Mike fell about 5feet sidewards off the trail into/ onto a large fallen tree and managed to miss all of the broken branches sticking upwards in the path of his fall! Those pesky wet roots that point “off” the track can be kind of tricky!

Secondly, Zane (wearing new cleats) failed to unclip after loosing his balance while crossing a small water crossing. The result was another sidewards fall some 5 feet into rocks on the river bed, still attached to the bike!

And finally my stack (yes it does come in three) was an epic one :) I dropped off a steep muddy chute to totally loose the front wheel… and after locking up I went arse over tit. Landing on my head I managed to roll out of it to then go off the edge of the trail to the right. Luckily the Cove and I were caught by an extensive collection of vines and foliage….with a 10+ metre drop below. I managed to bruise my wrist a little with some bruising on my knee… but that is about it. All three of us lost one of our 9 lives out there that’s for sure!

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Related posts:

1. Return to the Wharfedale Track
2. Mountain biking at the Kirwans Reward Track – Easter 2009 Part 2
3. Mountain biking at the Croesus Track – Easter 2009 Part 1
4. Wharfedale track meets the Wolf
5. First night ride at Port Hills

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 11:56 am and is filed under Bike Rides and tagged with brent, cove, epic, Trails & Rides, Two Wheels, wharfedale, zane. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.