Craigieburn Luge Dracophyllum Cheeseman Taboggan shute

early early sunday morning, 6.30 to be precise, i lumbered my gear across town to opposite my old highschool on Memorial Ave... jumped in a car with a guy from work Harry, and headed out of town. One other, a guy called Al, was in the car, and another car with three others (Paul, John? and ??) were also travelling... out to Craigieburn. Stopped and put mine and Harry's bikes on Paul's car, left Harry's at the Cheeseman gate, then continued on to the Craigieburn Rd. parked up.

kitted up, and started riding. nice clear sunny day. beautiful conditions, hasnt rained up there for quite a while, so the tracks were dry dry dry... Headed up (granny ring) to Lindon Saddle, beech forest singletrack, the best..., 830m odd to 1140m or so, then "the Luge", descent, beautiful, rooty, twisty, fun, down down down as much alt as previously gained. then up (middle ring) Broken River access road to top (~950) of Dracophyllum Flat track, flat tack down that, even better, more open, faster, with pops and dips, one very close call with a tree, i was heading right for it, but braked and leant with finesse avoiding it beautifully. then it turns hard right and down the side of a steep gulley, gotta get the speed riiiight off as there's a very loose section right at the top that would shoot you out into air air air then trees trees trees... awesome wee descent down to 'the' Broken River (at 800m contour) with a log bridge (dont think you'd wanna ride it). then gnarley steep, granny ring, wee climb out up to Dracophyllum Flat... nice wee blast across this, and into more forest, through a clearing or two. the track would be hard for the untrained eye to find in this bit altho there is the odd marker about (more than last time apparently), then into forest again, across a stream (Cuckoo Creek) and up up up a nasty wee granny gear climb (800m to 920m) that blew me juuust before the top. then across the edge of the bush and clearing to the Ice Skating rinks below Cheeseman.

then we went up the Cheeseman access Rd to the "middle hut", climbing from 950 to 1300m. dunno how long it took, but it was solid, much of it was in the lowest granny possible, to the point where i was going numb in my feet and bits of my legs, just from the slow solid spin spin spin grind grind grind... then a traverse followed, across an old track line, minding out careful like for the Spaniards... then an off piste descent across trackless (follow the cairns) tussock and daisy strewn landscape, down a ridge, and into the bush, where the track hung a right, and down... steep as they come, ass nearly on the back wheel, just holding on... managed not to skid much, the taboggan track, one hunk in the middle unrideable, almost difficult to even walk down with the bike, but the last bit down to the road was wicked, then below the road it continues down to the Ice skating rink, steep and shutey. nice. then we coasted and sped down the access road out to Harry's car... probably about 3 hours riding. over a kilometre of altitude climbed, with about 1200m of descending over roughly 25kms...

home in time for Fat Freddy's Drop at the Cheap as Chips gig... nice.

Eventually, there's gonna be a connector through from Cheeseman road to Castle Hill Village. i cant wait for that, and the opportunity to get a group together, get a bach in the village, go up early, ride right through to craigieburn skifield and back most of a day probably, then party up for the evening. nice.