Get Lost

This Saturday just past saw three brave cyclists (Grover, McKenzie and Lovelock) venture into the unknown pastures in Melbourne's far outer suburbs.

Departure: 1100 hours
Objective: Get Lost
Target: Unknown areas skirting Warrandyte-Ringwood Road

We have some regular roads that are well off 'the beaten track', they snake through Eltham, Research, Warrandyte, Park Orchards, Wonga Park and the surrounding areas. A bit of bike path here, a few gravel sections there, basically; it ain't beach road. No traffic lights, minimal cars, maximal enjoyment.

Well, we decided to take it out a bit further, Croydon, Croydon Hills, Warranwood (Warren where??) all made it onto the itinerary. Basically, if we saw a road that we hadn't ridden down before, we had to ride down it. Easy, and deceptively fun. Using a bit of intuition we managed to loop up some new roads and get nearly 2 hours of fun riding all bar a short 500 metre stretch on the Maroondah Highway.

The real fun came not from bombing up gravel paths, sprinting up 20% hills, being graphically embarrassed or ravaging the Warrandyte bakery; no the real fun was simply riding on roads we had not ridden before.

Beach road, Dandenongs and Kinglake have been done to death for me. Old adages never lie, variety is indeed the spice of life, and my new found playground of roads will surely spice up the training as I ramp it up over the next few weeks.

So go on, get lost the lot of you.

It's fun*.

*JONATHAN LOVELOCK @ BLOGSPOT hereby accepts no responsibility for any cyclists who suffer dehydration, starvation, mugging, maiming, or any other injury/disease/unfortunate occurrence as a result of being displaced in an unknown area. The recommendations given above are in no way representative of the VIS, Bouwmeester or anyone associated with Jonathan. Jonathan recommends you speak to Tim Holding for sound advice on venturing into unknown areas.