Bumpy Lake Manchester Ride

Waking up to the news of another epic gun tragedy in a country where just this week a few States were ‘umming and arring’ about banning guns from workplaces just makes you so angry. So angry you just have to punish some hills to calm the blood.

I almost cancelled today’s ride cause mum is visiting and today was gonna be busy but then got a rush of blood to the head last night cause Shirts was like, “Just do a shorter ride – DER!” and then he doesn’t even show up! He is certainly a man of mystery.

But luckily Tom and Benny made it and we set off to Lake Manchester — north of Ipswich — on Tom’s suggestion.

And it was a bumpy ride all the way. Lot’s of shitty little hills, many that were fucking steep.

Plus Tom seems to be a magnet for dirt roads which mean you have to really, really concentrate of the road, trying to avoid the big rocks and finding the safest lines but trying to keep the bike straight.

The View from Mt Bill Cosby

Tom: “There should be more dirt roads in Queensland!”

At the end of the Lake Manchester Road — which incidentally had a very, very sweet and straight downhill where I broke 80km/hr — was this old building and a mango tree, but no lake. It seemed you had to go down this rutted and narrow and steep dirt road so we collectively said, fuck it, and turned around.

Then we turned right into Kholo Road which we hoped led to Ipswich. This road went on forever and had many bullshit pinches and never seemed to be heading towards civilization. I started wondering if we were lost.

But then we arrived at the Warego Hwy and all was well. After a pastry at some bakery we skipped through the ‘Switch and at Riverview we jumped on this brand new bit of bikepath. It was nice and smooth, but it kept crossing roads and at one point becoming a footpath. It was just too fiddly. I think we’ll stick to our usual route next time.

Benny got a flat outside the Correctional Facility, but we needed a rest anyway.

Just Tom wandering around kids play equipment.

Then Benny shot off to do a Mt Coot-tha on his way home — he is a machine that boy — and me I road with Tom a bit just so I could get over 100kms. When I got home I was the kind of hungry where if you just tap your stomach all your insides hurt.

BUMPY!