Domestique 7Peaks Series - Mt Buller 22nd Feb

1966800 10151929766131003 1362078317 nIts been a pleasure to be back on 200 mts above sea level, home in Forrest.
Spending the last 3 and a bit weeks on Mt Buller, well...lets just say a recovery ride means riding down the hill and getting a shuttle back up.

Last weekend thanks to Nth East Tourism, The Climbing Cyclist and Hells500 crew and Mt Buller Resort management a very amazing event was held at the base of the mountain.
A full road closure from Mirimbah Ticket box all the way to Mt Buller – a heavenly climb of around 15km.

What was more amazing was that this gig was FREE! The crew make enough money out of the sales of their Hells500 kits, socks, hats etc...and support from local councils to give this opportunity away for a fat zero!
As I was staying on the mountain anyway, and knew that I would be serving these latte sipping roadies at The Corner Store Buller post event, with a full road closure, and costing me zip, I was in.
I have to say, after doing the Gravity 12hr at Bright the weekend prior my legs were not feeling the same zip as my purse was. No matter, its a climb and you can really only go as fast as you can and besides its not a race!

So on Saturday afternoon at around 1pm on 22nd February, I rolled down the mountain on my roadie, and got a tiny pedal in afterwards, about 3km beyond the start.
Upon arriving back, it was on! Not the ride but “have a chat” with about 200 people I knew or those that knew me.
Ahhh...what a nice social event.
Free yummy chews from Winners too.
The organisers even introduced me to the 450+ riders down on the grass and got me to give a word or two on the mountain biking here at Mt Buller.
The people that do these organised 7peaks “on masse” rides are just so friendly, so happy, chilled and totally worthy of joining the MTB brotherhood /sisterhood of Love.
Loads of stealth looking bikes, with mega kit matching going on too.
Good people, good looking people too!

1796581 10151930015326003 2020237596 nAfter the intro, the briefing etc, we could just make our way up.
Any pace, chat, go hard, sit on a wheel, ride 5 abreast, whatevs.
Noiyce.
So after a few kms of chin wagging I found my happy pace, tapping away with medium breathlessnes.
Still many chit chats though. People saying “hey how do you ride for 24hrs?” Well mate, just keep pedaling! If you told me to keep riding this hill for 24hrs, well I would, and I could, it may not be pretty toward the end, but its all in the head.

I finally reached the top, happy to get that out of the way, because my social pace did not stay that way in the last few kms, where I suffered like a dog and went hard.

My time is not amazing, I am not a mountain goat, I am not a breed of the skinny climbing crew, however I still knocked a minute off my best time on the climb, so that will be good enough.
More importantly, everyone, I mean everyone, were the kind of people I would want to hang out with. 450+ roadies joining forces to create one big ride with a smile.

And of course The Corner Store Buller did prosper hugely with coffee and food sales as well as other bits and pieces. I am certain these roadies will come back and ride mountain bikes too, if they havent already.

Thank you Andy van Bergen and Matt de Neef for your heart and soul that you put into these amazing little (big) events.

Check this out, Matt did ride the MTB

http://theclimbingcyclist.com/mountain-biking-at-mt-buller/

And just today (Fri 28th Feb) Andy did what they call “everesting” climbing mt Buller enough times to be the same as climbing Everest!
And whilst he is not doing that he is working hard with Cyclingtips

http://cyclingtips.com.au/