Thredbo – Anzac Weekend 2016

Thredbo – Anzac Weekend 2016

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Since it was the end of school holidays combined with Anzac day, Angus and I thought it was a good opportunity to have a last ride on the mountain  before it closes for winter on the 1st of May. Craig Martin was coming down after work and another mate Chris Curtis was also riding this weekend who I was keen to catch up for a ride with. I used to ride cross country at Lake Parramatta with Chris but have not ridden downhill with him.

We left home about 430pm and had a quick trip being a Thursday, stopped for the obligatory Maccas, this time at Goulburn and then stopped again at Cooma to clean the windscreen and stretch the legs. 

Slight rain had activated my rain sensing wipers smooshing all the bugs that we ran into on this balmy autumn night to the point that it was becoming difficult to see properly. It was 28 deg.C when we were stuck in some traffic on the M7 and about 20 deg. C when we got to Goulburn at about 7pm. 

I wanted to have good vision for what I knew was waiting for us on this unusually hot night as we approached our destination of Kosciusko National Park. In fact we didn’t have to wait that long as the first roo jumped out on us somewhere between Berridale and Jindy.

From then on it was like a video game, Angus was spotting for me calling out roos in the darkness of the paddocks and ones lurking in the shadows on the side of the road. Then we hit Penderlea and all hell broke loose with deer running everywhere. I slowed down untill we got into the park proper where the terrain was too steep on either side of the road for them to be a menace.

We made it to Thredbo safely in the end and went to sleep about 11pm. I was woken about 4am with heavy-ish rain. 

I got out of bed at about 630 to re-check the weather, the rain had eased but the BOM forecast didn’t impress me so I took a few photos and turned on the laptop.

 Not the best thing for mountain biking.





I can see a Cascades breakfast coming on !

Mid Morning Update

The mornings weather didn’t improve but the rain did reduce to a slight drizzle 
We were worried the weekend was a write-off however I was assured by Craig Martin that the rain would produce some “hero dirt”

So we headed to Cascades and had breaky as expected 

As an experiment I wanted to attempt a blog update via mobile device

Being Google affiliated Blogger does not support the browser on my iPhone – kel surpris 

So I used my work phone a Samsung Note running Android and it was an absolute pain in the arse and made my breakfast get cold. Long live Windows. I will need to get a Microsoft Surface.


Eggs Benedict is my weakness



No bikes on those lifts

We finished off breakfast and went over the bridge to check out VT. ( Valley Terminal)

There was no one in sight, the first person I bump into is Old Mate the chef from Avalanche Cafe, cheery as usual. Then we walked up to the lift concourse and again it was empty so it was back down to the bike shop to talk to Dan.

I asked about the track conditions and luckily enough he had just ridden and opened the Flow track. He said it was a bit greasy in parts but OK. I immediately purchased a new back tyre a Maxxis Minion DHF 26 x 2.5 57 DUR (nice and sticky) since mine had been given to me by cousin Dibble about three-quarters of a decade ago and had gone hard like a piece of chewy from under a school desk and all the centre knobs had ripped off. The new one had the consistency of brand new bubblegum, just what the doctor ordered.

We headed back to the van and fitted the tyre and geared up. The rain had abated and the track had a chance to dry out a bit so we we looking forward to a ride. The temp was still cool as there was no warming sunlight, even so we dressed lightly, Angus re-attached the bottoms of his MX pants and I put on some Skins and a thermal T-shirt under my DH jersey, summer gear basically.



In the end it wasn’t that cold and from time to time we were encapsulated in the clouds which saturated us in a fine mist.




A few runs necessitated a re-fuel so back to the van for some home cooked health food.


After lunch the sun came out and we set up the GoPro on the chest mount.
Every time I use the GoPro it involves a bit of experimenting to get the angles right and it always seems to be pointing at the ground. It is hard with the chest mount to get the aim right particularly since your body position changes when you bend over etc if affects the view angle. The fish-eye lens also makes things look further away and if you are following someone riding a bike or skiing you have to be right on their back-side to get good video.

This one is an old Hero2 HD and takes video in 1080P at 30fps and 720P at 60fps so I’m not about to upgrade in a hurry. However, I was talking to some Thredbo locals in the pub last night and one mentioned that the Hero2 is fish-eye and the newer ones have a normal  lens that doesn’t cause that problem. I don’t really want to upgrade, notwithstanding Angus’ cheap $99 Jaycar GoPro copy gave up the ghost so he may inherit mine if I deem a better device is required for this type of filming.

I had to chop the footage into two segments to upload it due to 100mb limit