*Part 1* Link to photos <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Sg9ZV0l8A11hRYNwPCcz9_55vY4TH0X7?usp=sharing>
Late last Sunday evening the call came through. Someone was calling in sick and my partner would be travelling to a nearby regional town to work on Tuesday. Fortunately for me, that regional town happens to be the trailhead of a rail trail and the perfect spot for a bike ride. So we packed the work suitcase and the bike and set off on Monday night. On Tuesday morning I rolled out just before 7am. The morning was cool and misty. Within ten minutes I had acquired breakfast from the town bakery and hit the rail trail. The South Burnett rail trail runs for 80km through beautiful Wakka Wakka country. The first 40km, to Murgon, is paved, and my goal for the day was to get to Murgon and back to where I started, Kingaroy. After Murgon, the trail becomes dirt and continues another 40km to Kilkivan. It’s been open since 2017 following the success of the hugely popular Brisbane Valley Rail Trail which is slightly further south. Rolling out of town, I was surrounded by dog walkers, kids on their way to school, and joggers. After a few kilometres the general traffic faded away and the trail whisked me away from town and through gently rolling farmland. I was soon at the first town on the trail, Crawford, which was really not more than a school and a few houses. I passed through a few other small towns and ate my bakery breakfast in the old Wooroolin train station which had been converted to a shelter. This ride was the first really long ride that Jo (Appaloosa) and I were doing together. Our longest previous ride was 30km in a day, so 80km would be a real test of our relationship. I would also be testing out the new B67, which had proved comfortable around town, and was partially broken in already due to accidentally leaving it out in the rain to get soaked on its maiden voyage. But how would we fare for multiple hours? I tried adjusting the saddle angle a few times along the way. I’d started with it tilted quite far upwards but by 22km in this was feeling less than ideal. At Tingoora I adjusted it to be almost level which also felt wrong and I had the classic “falling forward” sensation. After 8km, which was luckily all downhill, I made it to Wondai, which is one of the largest towns along the trail. I bummed around in the park here for almost an hour, fiddling with the saddle angle again and trying to decide whether I should press on to Murgon. It was still pretty early in the day but I was feeling a bit saddle sore already. And there was the fact that I had lost 200m of elevation, which would need to be regained on the way back, and would lose more by continuing to Murgon. Being a rail trail, the gradients were very gentle (between 1 – 3%) but it was all uphill on the way home. At last I decided I would continue, having found an acceptable saddle angle (crazy how much difference 1mm this way or that can make) and the fact that I didn’t have any prospect of rescue until 4pm when my partner finished work. I was glad that I did, because the Wondai-Murgon section was my favourite part of the trail. The day was overcast, cool and lightly sprinkling rain. I was the only one on the trail, accompanied only by butterflies and the sweet smell of eucalyptus. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/0823085a-a06e-4389-b9af-021d3b123d3dn%40googlegroups.com.
