A Friday Ride

[Cormanus]

[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z5L5SB6CRw2M.kapOCRuwUR-U&usp=sharing]Link to map

Brisbane lies on a plain on the banks of Moreton Bay and the Brisbane River. To the north and west of the city are modest mountains—hills, really by US, European, NZ and Asian standards, but the best we’ve got. They are favourites of Brisbane riders as they offer generally good road surfaces, not too much traffic and respite from straight. I’ve written about most of them before.

Friday 26 February promised to be stinking hot—mid 30s Celsius, almost at the point where riding becomes unpleasant. Nonetheless, sanity dictated that a ride was in order. Living temporarily in the city meant getting out; but making a bit of an effort would balance the flat, straight bits with appropriate rewards.

So I set off in an anticlockwise loop that would take me north over an old favourite, Mt Mee. From where I’m living, it is not long at all until the worst of the city is behind and the road winds gently through the eucalypts.



And the distant mountains come into view.



Pretty soon I’m through Samford and Dayboro and winding my way up the southern slopes of Mt Mee. The road surface is not wonderful; even so, at 60 kph, the speed limit is generally too low. Still, it’s a good challenge trying to ride through some of the tight curves pretty much at the speed limit. I need more practice.

The Pitstop Café offers commanding views of the valley below. I enjoyed them with a cup of coffee and a scone.


Looking south south east into the Brisbane Valley. The city is on the horizon just outside the left of the photo. I didn’t take a picture because the heat made it too hazy to make a zoom shot worth while






Bikes at the Pitstop. Someone loved the MT01


The MT01 went past me after a while and shortly after vanished completely. I hope he was simply a much better rider than me and took to the twisties on the northern side of Mt Mee with gusto

Instead of following the main road from Woodford to Kilcoy I took the prettier, more heavily speed limited but interesting Neurum Road.


Finally managed to get one of those mirror shots to work

Neurum Road runs along the top of the eastern end of the Somerset Dam, part of the water supply system for Brisbane. It is also designed to help with flood mitigation in the downstream Brisbane River Valley. In January 2011 a serious downpour landed on top of heavy rains in December and an already full dam. The flood mitigation didn’t work as well as planned and Brisbane was badly flooded, causing the inundation of 20,000 + homes and in excess of AU$2 billion in damage. At the wettest station in Brisbane, 354 mm of rain fell n January; of that, 112 mm fell on one day. The average monthly rainfall for January at that station is 123 mm.

As an aside, the town about 9km from where I live recorded 855 mm for January 2011, more than three times the average of 236 mm. It was wet that year.

As I rode by in 2016 the level was down a bit.


The level of the Somerset Dam is falling.


In this picture, taken from the west of the dam, you can see the line between the dam surface and the tree line. The gap represents a good deal of water.

I decided it was too hot to stop in Kilcoy; as I’ve yet to find a café that would make it worth while, so I pressed on. It’s a pretty ride beside the dam until one reaches the hamlet of Somerset Dam. Nature required me to get off the bike for a moment.




Of course the facilities and the shop in Somerset Dam are separated by a distance too far to walk; by the time I’d eaten a meat pie and drunk a bottle of water, I had to leap on the bike for a relieving dash down the street before returning to the shop for petrol.


The Australian meat pie with tomato sauce—a great staple


In the moment between relief and returning for petrol

Then it was on to the fast and pretty road alongside the Wivenhoe Dam (into which the Somerset Dam feeds). I have thought of it as boring, but the more often I ride it, the more I appreciate the aspect and the sweeping curves. I paused to take a palindromic milestone shot.



Then it was onto the Northbrook Parkway, past Red Cedar and White Cedar (see [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=7979]this earlier report and up the glorious twisties to the top of the eponymous mountain into the welcome shade provided by the trees beside the road.



Then it was back down the oft-reported Mt Nebo Road and back to Brisbane. There’s a view of the city in the background of early (but now gentrified) housing as I approach home.