Hello everyone, it has been a little while but I wanted to fill you all in on my adventures over the Christmas break. I decided to go up to Falls Creek for a few days to do the 7 Peaks Domestique Series, three days of riding up four of the seven peaks in the series. I am still struggling to find time to train so I went up with quite a bit of trepidation as to how much pain I was in for over the three days.
The first climb was Falls Creek, 30km of climbing is hard in anyone's book but at the start of the ride I noticed the temperature on my Garmin telling me it was a cool 42.6 degrees. This added a whole new layer of pain on top of the actual climbing, just trying to keep cool was taking it's toll on my body. The first twenty kilometres went by reasonably easily but the last ten kilometres was soul destroying. I was telling myself that I had no business up there in those hills and that I needed to just get in the car and drive home with my tail between my legs. I finally managed to finish the climb and get my 7 Peaks passport stamp for proof then I started climbing the rest of the way up to my hotel room. I figured I would stay the night and go home in the morning.
Falls Creek
Falls Creek
Two Down
The next morning however I woke up feeling reasonably good so I thought I would take a crack at the next mountain, Mount Hotham. Another 30 kilometre climb here but with some steeper ramps than Falls Creek has and a few descents thrown in to really mess with your head. After grinding away for so long to gain all of those vertical metres it is heartbreaking to just throw them all away on a quick descent knowing the whole time that you are going to have to climb them all over again. Towards the top of Mount Hotham the surroundings really open up to a moonscape type environment, the crosswinds up there are just brutal. I was struggling to stay upright and not get blown all over the road. The Hotham climb is split up into three distinct ramps with flatter sections in between, the first of these ramps being a section called "The Meg". This was the spot when I started to doubt my decision to ride again, I was really hurting already and still had most of the climb to go. It didn't help when I saw one of the Domestique Series organisers Andy van Bergen come past me on this section in his big chain ring seemingly doing it easy. This scenario kept going for the rest of the climb, telling myself that I was a fool for even attempting these rides with my severe lack of fitness. But I kept on going with the thought of reaching my goal of completing all seven peaks this year. I barely made it up to the top for my passport stamp then had to ride back down to Mt. Beauty where I parked the car.
Mount Hotham
Mount Hotham
I went straight to get some food in Mt. Beauty and then went down to the river to cool off and soak a bit. Again the internal dialogue was that I needed to just get back in the car and drive home but the food and the soak made me feel a bit better so I went to the start of the third climb, Mount Buffalo. Only 22 kilometres of climbing here and apparently one of the easier climbs in the seven peaks series. Easy is a very relative term, it killed me too, but it was a beautiful climb and again I finally made my way up to the top and collected my stamp. I must have looked pretty bad at that stage as people were asking after my well being with very concerned looks on their faces. I was an absolute mess, and yes, yet again I was telling myself to drive home and give up.
Mount Buffalo
Four Down
Lots of food and a good sleep can work wonders, I got up the next day thinking that I could just drive home via Omeo instead of the Hume Highway, and since I was going past the start of the last climb anyway I might as well give it a go and see how far up the road I could get before turning around and going home. Dinner Plain was the last climb of the three days and is also the longest, 42 kilometres. There are some long descents on this climb so the average gradient is relatively low, but considering the length of these descents it means that the road gets up to about 12% gradient in some spots. OUCH! I was cursing my decision to do this last peak, but again I just ground away on the pedals and slowly made my way to the top for my fifth of seven stamps in my passport.
Dinner Plain
Five Down
After getting my stamp I started to work my way back down the "descent" of Dinner Plain, I was OK on the actual downhill sections but when the second of the three climbs on the way down came up, I was finished. I was telling myself that I just needed to get back to the car in any way I could, since I had ridden up all four peaks I figured I was allowed to take it a bit easy. I had three separate people offer me a lift back to my car, yes I still looked that bad, but I needed to complete this under my own steam. So I reluctantly turned them all down, they were all cyclists as well so they understood what I was going through and cheered me on as they sped off.
I somehow managed to get back to the parked car at Omeo and went straight into the river to cool off and start to recover. Wow, I had never been through anything like this before, I know that I could usually ride all of these peaks without too much trouble but to do it without any fitness and in these temperatures I went further into the "Pain Cave" than I have ever ventured before. I made it out the other side though, so I feel absolutely terrific that I did complete the climbs, my confidence to tick off the last two peaks is right up there at the moment. With only Mt. Buller and Mt. Baw Baw to go, I have done both of these climbs before so at least I know what I am in for, LOTS of pain and some gorgeous roads, I can't wait.
If you are interested in joining us on the last ride in this years Domestique Series up Mount Buller then follow this link for details and to register for the ride.
- Brad.
You are right, the Omeo descent has way too much climbing in it.
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