Posted by Sometimes choosing a ride can come about because of the complicated alignment of a whole number of thoughts into a single great idea … like this one.
Sometimes though, a ride can just come about when flicking through google earth imagery on your phone and suddenly see a connection of paths and trails which look really interesting …
And that’s exactly what happened this morning …
Kim and I were up at Green’s Beach so she could run in the Convicts and Wenches race (25kms) and although I had originally planned to go for a paddle or a ride, the enthusiasm had left me after a night fighting ants in at our nights accommodation at Beauty Point Tourist Park and I had decided that a morning just lazing around on the beach and supporting Kim in her race would be a lot more enjoyable than doing any exercise myself.
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| Where’s Kimmy? I’ve just realised that I missed the opportunity to call Kim my wench all day! |
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| Not Kim … these be wenches |
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| and they’re off … |
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| Out along the beach .. |
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| … and 20 minutes later they all come back again |
The initial section along Green’s Beach to Kelso was a ripping good time … lots of hard packed, easy to ride, sand riding to start with, but then once around the first headland there were some fun ‘mystery’ sections of slippery rocks and seaweed which you just had to go at at speed and hope you got to the other side …
… which fortunately I did (have I mentioned lately that I love my 29er?). Just before I got to Kelso itself I hit a soft boggy section with thousands of crabs …
So I opted to push my bike along the upper coastline rather than create crab puree all over the beach until I found a track up off the beach and into into the shack town …
From Kelso it was an easy ride along the bitumen back out onto the main road which we had followed into Greens Beach which I followed south for a while before heading out on the longer detour loop around Clarence Point … which to be honest I wouldn’t overly recommend or not recommend… it was just nice … but really it was just more kilometres to cover with nothing special to see … though I did get some company for a couple of minutes …
Returning back out to the main road again it was only 50 metres to the Badger Creek turnoff and a fast easy 10km gravel road section out to Badger’s Beach itself …
Where I met a fellow cyclist and found out that pretty much all of the 25km runners had already been through and so it was time to set off along the beach and try and catch up.
It was gorgeous riding …
From the end of the beach it was a short rock hop and bike carry up to the road (from where the competitors got to follow a much more scenic route around the foreshore which is off bounds for cyclists) and a quick ride back to Greens Beach where I arrived just in time to get changed, throw the bike in the back of the car and take a photo of Kim as she crossed the finish line …
All up my little ride was about 34kms and took under 2 hours at a pretty cruisy pace with lots of stops for photos etc.
To be honest if you make your way out to Greens Beach, a walk out around West Head would probably be more worthwhile, but if you’re looking for somewhere to go for a loop on the bike … well I enjoyed it.
T'is a nice ride JD. My sister and her partner have a 'shack' at Greens Beach and J and I have ridden this very route. The 'fatties' loved the sandy sections along the back beach and around Kelso to Greens.
Cheers
AB