And for my next trick…

…I shall attempt to ride up Mount Donna Buang this coming Sunday.

All 16.61 kilometres of it at 6.2% grade. It has an elevation of 1,250 m (4,101 ft) and it snows there in winter. It’s the closest mountain to Melbourne where you can go skiing in winter. I’m thinking it’s going to take me between 1.5 – 2 hours to ride up (and that’s being generous).

If I can do this, the 145km Great Ocean & Otway Classic Ride should be a breeze. Uh huh, right. I’ll just keep telling myself that.

I think Master Yoda has it right on this one: Do… or do not. There is no try.

6 Thoughts on “And for my next trick…

  1. hamishm on February 23, 2011 at 17:00 said:

    As a Donna regular I have two comments;

    1. It’s 17.5km not 16.61km. So don’t be disappointed when you’re not there at the 16.6km mark.

    2. The steepest part is the kilometre or so before Cement Creek, which is at the 7km mark. There’s a fork in the road there and it’s flat briefly. Once you’ve made it there the hardest part is over and you CAN make the summit; it’s just another 10km that are not too tough.

    Good luck. It’s a beautiful ride.

  2. hamishm on February 26, 2011 at 17:30 said:

    The scenery is great! There’s a carpark with natural spring about 3km from the top. Enjoy the ride.

    • lauren on February 27, 2011 at 00:51 said:

      At this rate, it may be the weather gods who have the final say.

      • hamishm on February 27, 2011 at 23:03 said:

        Not a great day for it today. I went up just before Christmas, 4 degrees at the top and raining all the way. Miserable descent too. Early Saturday would’ve been ideal.

        • lauren on February 28, 2011 at 09:49 said:

          It really, really wasn’t. We saw three hardy souls, two descending, one climbing while we were driving up. We weren’t the only ones with bikes on the back of cars either. It was simply too dangerous to attempt it, especially with two riders who had never even seen the climb before, me being one of them.

          Hopefully there will be time to schedule in another attempt before the gate gets closed.

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