Cyclic Navigator @ Wombat Forest

This is essentially a rogaine for mountain bikers. Large map, 30 controls with different points values, and 3 hours (or 6) to get as many as you can.

I was going to call this post "Dead legs" because less than 2 minutes into it, I knew I was in trouble. My legs were empty! I'm not sure whether to blame last week's ride (unlikely), Friday's Pump class (maybe), or Saturday's digging in the garden (back and shoulders maybe, but not legs). Dunno. They eventually warmed up after half an hour, but I took a lot of walking breaks on the hilly bits. I finished early, after 2 hrs 45, for 24 kms. I'd hoped to do closer to 30, and I know some of the gun riders will do twice that.

Controls of interest:

#20: if you look closely at the map, you'll see that #20 isn't coloured in, even though there's a pink line going through it. That's because I went screaming down the hill, got to the intersection at the bottom, and wondered where the control'd got to. I'd obviously missed it at the side of the road somewhere, and I was NOT going back up that hill to find it.

#3: water feature. There's two parts to this one. The first "feature" was a large muddy puddle which I decided to ride through fairly fast. The front wheel decided otherwise and I got spat off the bike. By some miracle, both feet unclipped (first time in clip-in shoes), and all that happened was that I landed awkwardly across the bar. All good.

The second "feature" was a few meters further on. A large creek crossing/ford. This is on a forest road, so I figured the surface must be okay, even though I couldn't see it as it was over a foot underwater. Ride through slowly, getting deeper and deeper. Suddenly the front wheel stops, and MY FOOT IS STUCK in the pedal! Oh shit! I fall over, and get completely drenched. Bugger. Map is wet, gloves are wet. Shoes and undies are wet (euuch!).

As I emerge dripping from the creek, I see another rider in the distance by the control. Clever girl had left her bike on the dry side of the first mud puddle, and walked around. "Around"?? Oh bugger - there was a fallen branch and a leafy dam/platform just a few meters upstream. *sigh*




This is the top half of the map only (because that's all I got to). Scale is 1:30,000.