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Short of turning this into a cycling blog, though todays riding was something that had to be written up. Once again we started out from Box Hill and headed through the suburbs of Blackburn, Nunawading and Mitcham. At Vermont, we once again joined the Dandenong Creek trail, though this time, instead of heading south, we continued east.

Passing through the suburbs of Heathmont, Bayswater and Boronia, the trial is reasonable though nothing overly special. It’s when you hit The Basin that things really start to change. As you can see in the photo below.

At this point we had already riden 20km so we stopped for lunch at a bakery at The Basin shops. The chilli pie I had was very tasty, quite a decent little bakery actually. After lunch we commenced our climb up along Mountain Highway. This road actually has quite a gentle grade, I recall reading somewhere that it’s approximately a 1 in 8 gradient. So I didn’t even have to do it in my lowest gear, completing the 7.5km climb to Sassasfras in no more than 40-45 minutes (without stopping). It was quite a peaceful ride with hardly any traffic, perhaps partly because everyone was home watching the Grand Final.

We continued along the Mt. Dandenong Tourist Rd to Olinda. This road had a little more traffic on it and we still had some climbing to do. Despite eating a banana back at Sassafras, I felt like a sugar fix. Though to my disgrace there is not a single bakery in Olinda, the place is obviously far too up market. None the less, we had a very nice descent down to the Mount Dandenong township where I was able to find a bakery. I was a little bit offput by the fact that their food was all wrapped in plastic, still the mint slice I had was quite nice. While sitting outside the bakery I noticed where the road was going up to the Mt. Dandenong “Sky High” lookout which we had almost gone straight past.

We had a little more climbing to do once again before we did reach the lookout, at 633 metres above sea level. Unfortunately the views were rather hazy (see below). Still we had an awesome descent back down to Kalorama, reaching 66kph myself. The views across to Silvan were much clearer.

The descent down to Montrose was rather disappointing. It may have been steeper than Mountain Highway though it wasn’t steep enough that we could gain some decent speed. At almost 50km we decided to take the train home. It didn’t seem that far into Mooroolbark, unfortunately getting there as we just missed a train! Fortunately it was only 20 minutes to the next one (as opposed to half an hour during the week).

We ended the ride at 54km total distance and an average speed of 16.6km/h. Not bad when it includes a mountain climb!

P.S. I promise to write about something that isn’t cycling real soon.

It’s been another mostly uneventful week. I have kept up the riding, bringing the total to 130km in the last fortnight. Though the best day of riding was Monday, where I did 45km to Jells Park and back, along with Daniel, a mate from my last TAFE course.

We set out from Box Hill at approximately midday, heading east along the creek to Blackburn Lake. After leaving the Blackburn Lake Sanctuary we mostly cut through side streets to get through Nunawading and Mitchem and then onto Heatherdale Road (which amazingly has bike lanes on it). We then headed south, joining Dandenong Creek in Vermont, which takes you through Koomba Park, a regional park which somewhat resembles the Yarra Flats park near Heidelberg. We then went along a track behind the Whitehorse Recycling and Waste centre where we stopped at a fairly unusual looking lookout tower, although most of the view was obscured by trees. We then continued along Dandenong Creek to Shepherds Bush.

The bird life around Shepherds Bush (and probably all along Dandenong Creek) was truly amazing. As we came in past the sporting ovals there was a large flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and I also spotted Galahs, Willie Wagtails, Blue Wrens, Rosellas and many other species.

Arriving at Jells Park some time after 1pm having riden over 20km, we rode around the lake (where there were also Pelicans and other wetland birds), before stopping for lunch at the restaurant. While waiting for lunch I used the WiFi feature in my new phone to check up on the weather as it was one of those days where it just seemed like it wanted to rain. Though after looking at the radar we were satisfied that any showers that were around would be insignificant. As it turns out we didn’t get hit by any rain at all.

After lunch (approx 2:30pm) we had another 20km of riding to do in order to return to Box Hill. We left Jells Park through Wheelers Hill, following the Scotchmans Creek trail. Although at this point it is more of a bike route with no remote possibility of any creek nearby with the number of hills we had to climb. There were some moderately steep climbs in there as well through the Wheelers Hill area (hence the name I suppose). The route through the side streets, however, was very well sign posted; until we got to a new housing development near the Monash Freeway that is, requiring use of the Melway to get to the start of the actual Scotchmans Creek trail.

We then only followed the creek for just over a kilometre before turning off at Valley Reserve. We then cut through Mount Waverley, stopping briefly at a small park between High Street Road and Highbury. We then crossed over Highbury Road before hitting the backstreets of Bennettswood then across Burwood Highway before taking a short path towards Station Street. We took a few more back streets through Box Hill South and we were finally home (sometime after 4pm).

We had just completed 45km (averaging 16.4km per an hour; not including any stopping time), without riding on a single main road, riding all the way from Box Hill to Wheelers Hill and back in a loop, all along side streets and bike paths.

Edit: I’ve made a map of the route we did that is now available through Bikely (excluding some diversions where we got lost, etc).

Well it must be spring. Not least because the weather has been getting warmer, though the daffodils have been out (and have mostly died off already), birds have been swooping my head while I’ve been out cycling, while some birds have also been nesting right outside our kitchen window (though I think that may have been the mother bird that flew into the kitchen window at great impact and died today).

Today I didn’t make it to TAFE and it was a nice 21˚C so I ended up out riding my bike instead. Had the bike paths to myself just about, while I cruised along at an average speed of 20km/hr for 28km. Not bad after a winter of practically no riding.