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Wee jasper weather forecast8/31/2023 ![]() It was hard to get the smile off my face.Ĭlimbing out of Adjungbilly it was time to take off some layers as I got to the top, and I talked to some farmers on the road moving sheep. The countryside coming into Adjungbilly was superb, no doubt helped by it being spring, good winter rains, and my eyes being treated to expansive views instead of 10 odd weeks of just my suburb. I got there about 8:45am and 115km, the sun was well up at this point, and feeling had returned to my extremities. Eventually the road turned to gravel again and there were some rolling hills until the big downhill into Adjungbilly. I took a gravel shortcut to avoid a big drop and a climb back up, and then got back onto the primo bitumen for about another 10km. I went past the Bondo Forest camp at Argalong at about 7:30am and 90km, and there were a bunch of people standing around idling trucks getting ready for the work day. A pleasure to ride and a feast for your eyes. I later worked out there’s a bit under 50km of that sealed road, so you could do an out and back of almost 100km. Riding along this excellent big winding road, surrounded by pine trees, it felt like I could have been riding in Switzerland or Canada or somewhere, and it would be great to do it on a proper road bike. The road went for miles and miles like this, and I saw only two utes and two logging trucks. Wide, well marked, smooth, gentle corners and in good condition, I wondered what it was doing out here? I could only assume logging trucks. I could hardly believe my eyes then, when around the next corner the road became what would be considered a highway in many areas of Australia. Nobody really lives there, and people going from Tumut to Caberra usually go up and around on the Hume. It’s basically just a pine plantation from that point. I’d ridden Brindabella road before, coming onto it from Nottingham road, and as I got to that turnoff I was preparing myself for things to get pretty remote. No cars or people were out at that hour, only fools on bikes. Surprisingly wombats were the most common animal, but I rode through a herd of horses with foals, a first for me. From here the gravel roads were starting to get really good. It was about 5:30am and 55km as the sun started to rise and I climbed out of the Brindabella valley. The road up to Piccadilly and down into Brindabella Valley is reasonable, but it turned out to be one of the roughest sections for the day. I wasn’t too cold as I was working hard and going slow, but the fast drop into Brindabella Valley in the dark numbed the fingers and toes, despite the warm clothing. The climb up to Piccadilly was the highest point of the day, and from the Condor Creek crossing it’s about 10km at 5.6%. ![]() Near Uriarra Village it was 0º and didn’t get any warmer until about 7.00am. I left Kingston (Canberra, ACT) at 2.00am and it wasn’t too cold, but the further I went the further it dropped. I didn’t want to take too much clothing, but at the last minute I thought maybe I just should take a bit of warm stuff. I checked the forecast and it was going to be 4º to 25º, so a warm day and a bit cool at the start. The spring weather hasn’t been kind to the cyclist, so when a dry day opened up on a Tuesday I locked it in.ĭouble imperial century? The same distance as Unbound Gravel, but about double the climbing at 6000m. Too long for me to hold onto those pent up lockdown blues, so I decided to just do it myself. So a big 200 miler (320km) out and back in a day seemed the best way to guarantee some miles, and a couple of others were keen, but then the competing demands of long overdue catch ups with family and friends meant the first common date we could do was getting pushed out to December. In any case, things were pretty full as everyone wanted to get out of town as soon as they could. As lockdown started to ease in unpredictable jumps and steps, it became obvious that planning ahead with bookings was risky in case the ACT border didn’t open when they thought it would, whether Jugiong would be included in the Canberra bubble or not, and all that other lockdown uncertainty. ![]() The first idea was to ride out and stay the night at the deluxe accommodation at the Sir George Hotel and enjoy their good tucker. It’s a nice round 100 miles (160km), so a solid ride, there’s a great pub there, it goes where there isn’t much traffic, and about half of it I hadn’t ridden. Limited to only an hour a day to ride, and therefore stuck to a small radius close to home, I spent far too long wondering where I would like to ride as soon as restrictions were lifted, and Jugiong seemed to fit the bill. You can quickly forget what ‘Lockdown life’ was like.
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