Race From the Rocks – Tourist Class Delayed Version – Part 2

We rejoin Lachlan for part two of his personal attempt at completing the 2022 Race From the Rocks route. [Mattie]

Hand surgery in December and a road trip to Port Douglas and back in January restricted my cycling to LIIT (Low Intensity Intermittent Training) and some heat adaptation. So, I decided on another day trip to cover the next section of the RFTR 2022 course – Wagstaffe to Ourimbah – in early February.

For this ride, I was joined by an old riding buddy, Neil, who often seems to put his hand up for some of the more adventurous rides I plan. My wife thinks he’s a slow learner…

Wagstaffe to Ourimbah

We set off at 8.30am on 10 February, with a bike path and road ride up to Palm Beach for the 10.30am ferry to Wagstaffe. A steady 25kms and takeaway coffee from The Coast at Palm Beach got us there on time. Unlike the actual Race, the weather was perfect and we had an untroubled passage across Broken Bay, but I still opted for the “B Line”, the easier of the two routes through the central Coast that had been specified for the 2022 Race From the Rocks. 

After a quick look-in on some friends who live on the route in Killcare, we were off onto the first off-road section and the first serious climb. And our first navigational error. We missed a turn in the single track and put in an extra km or so before finding our way back on track and into some serious hike-a-bike. There was some nice fire trail and single track once we got up onto the ridge line.

We then plunged down into Kincumber, testing out the rebuilt hand and our bike handling skills on loose tracks that had copped a decent thunderstorm the evening before. We snacked in the shade outside Kincumber High before heading up into the hills again, with a steep road climb and then some more fire trails and single track on Kincumber Mountain. The heat was starting to take its toll on us at this stage of the ride, with only limited relief from another steep descent into Erina. 

We were now low on water and started scouting around for a tap. We found one outside the Six String Brewing Co, filled the bottles and doused ourselves in water. The thought of a craft beer was very tempting, but we knew we had to push on.

It Always Takes Longer Than You Think

The next climb was a killer. It was seriously hot (high 30’s) and the humidity was over 90%. Any illusions about getting the 3.49pm train back from Ourimbah evaporated faster than the buckets we were sweating, as we pushed the bikes over a rubbly electricity line fire trail called Toomey Rd. One particular hill was like walking on large marbles on a 20% slope. 

Eventually, we rolled down into Lisarow. We probably should have called it there and headed for Lisarow station, but I wasn’t thinking straight and pressed on to Ourimbah as originally intended, just missing the 4.48pm train. The hour’s wait did give us a chance to down a Gatorade and sausage roll from the servo across the road.

The air-conditioned train was pleasant relief from the heat. Neil sensibly bailed at Hornsby to head onto a North Shore line train and home. I carried on to Central, rode down to Circular Quay, ferried to Manly and then rode the 10kms back home, giving the KLites their first real workout for a while.

Total travel time 13 hrs. Riding time about 9 hrs. Total distance 187kms. Riding distance 78kms, including 40kms on the RFTR route.

Some lessons / thoughts from the day:

• That was a very hard ride for me on little preparation. It’s hard to know what is bonking from not eating enough vs just not having the legs in the first place, but I was absolutely stuffed by Ourimbah.
• I must remember to take and use insect repellent in summer. The mosquitos were so bad that we’d get eaten on the hike-a-bike sections and stopping meant a lot of slapping. This cost us – not resting enough, not eating enough and a few navigational issues. 
• The photo opportunities also suffered from the fatigue and mosquito dread.
• Neither my iPhone or my Garmin 830 had enough battery for navigating the full day, and the aging 5000 mAh USB battery I took got sucked up by the phone real quick. I was experimenting with using one or the other device (or both) at times for navigation, but stopped using the phone for navigation towards the end to save it for comms. The Garmin did record the whole journey, but only just. I’ve got to get better at device management. I’llcarry a 20000 mAh battery with two charging outlets in future and experiment a bit more with charging off the dynamo hub.