| Kinglake has some of the best riding anywhere. Hilly and silly, try the Steels Creek - Kinglake ride if you like XC action. |
Riding in Kinglake is always very honest. The hills are big, long and at times, never ending. But the benefit of Kinglake is what happens when you get to the top. The downhills are unbelievably fast, the trails clean, except for the odd bearded bushwalker and worth the climb 100 times over. As any cross-country rider will tell you, half the fun is the climb. Testing how strong you are against the hill and your mates is what cross-country is all about. The Steels Creek ride is awesome for all these reasons. The ride started from the car park at the end of Steels Creek rd, which you get to by going through Yarra Glen, turning off onto the Kangaroo Ground rd (Symonds St) and then turning into Steels Creek rd about 3 Kms along. We started from the car park at the end of Steels creek rd on the right, just before the part where it is cut off to cars. Go through the gates and take Steels Creek road that winds all the way up until you get to the top where you reach the Heidelberg / Kinglake rd. The road is now overgrown with small trees and other crap and its way up the Steels creek gully and is beautifully calming - no shit! Not hard either-about 20 minutes of gentle climbing in middle chain ring. A good warm up. Once at the top, you cross over the road (to the north side) and start climbing up the trail that leads to Kinglake Township. Let's call this track, Brands Hatch - but more of that later. A couple of tough pinches make this fun, and you know that it will be good going back down. About 1 km later the trail hits the road again and you cross back over, before turning right into the Jerusalem Creek track. But don't go too far down it, or you'll be climbing your arse off again to get back up. Turn off left about 500m in and you'll find an excellent loop that takes you to the Kinglake - Healesville rd. This is a walking track but is very cool to ride. Lots of very technical bits with greasy tree roots, wash outs and off camber single track. There's also a very nice creek to fall into. It's only short, possibly a km or so, but great fun. You get out of this track and back to the K/H rd by going through the car park and following your nose. Once you hit the road, turn left and go into Kinglake. If you're hungry, stop at the milk bar - excellent pies and other stuff that is bad for you. Now the real fun starts! You go back down the road to St Andrews, but stay off to the right side where a single track winds along. About 2kms down the road you find yourself back to the spot where 'Brands Hatch' trail came out. Turn right here and hang on. After a few little pissy climbs you start powering down one of the fastest and best smooth windy tracks ever. It is like being on a racetrack - hence - Brands Hatch. Watch it the end though, because it gets tight and drops off, and plenty of people have poleaxed themselves with a bit too much speed first time. Once you get back to the St Andrews road, instead of going back down the Steels Creek rd, cross the road and on the right go through the gates and head up the Everard track. This follows the ridgeline towards Christmas Hills and has an extremely fast and long downhill section, with two or three medium climbs. I completely buggered a rear wheel on a log doing this a few years ago. The erosion washouts add fun and when you're doing 60 -80 kph in big chain ring and peddling as fast as you can, don't fall because it'll really really hurt. I'll give you that tip. About 5kms in, there is a walking track that takes off to the left. I don't think it's got a name, but you can't miss it. There's a sign saying no riding, but I think they are referring to motorbikes (aren't they always?) Take this track down. It is where the fat lady sings. Once on, you traverse for about 500 meters on a tight single track. This is quite technical, and fun. You then hit the mother of all downhills. Turning left, you go down a rock strewn single track that descends for about 2-3 Kms, all the way back to the car park on Steels Creek rd. Sure, it has a couple of small climbs, but mostly it is a straight down, #### off, in your face decent. It has logs to jump, massive ruts to avoid, and ends with a near vertical (OK, so I'm exaggerating) 200m section which is off camber, rutted and totally wak! And just in case you do loose control at the end, there's a big fence to smash into. Your hands will ache from grabbing your brakes, no shit, but if you run V - Brakes, take off your gloves and gram the front rim. They'll ache more then, because you'll just have given yourself 3rd degree burns. The whole thing takes about 2-4 hours, depending on how fit you are. If you're totally unfit, don't bother, 'cause you'll tear yourself a freshy on this one. But anyone with a reasonable level of fitness could do it. Call VICMTB if you want more details on this ride or any others. Cheers Diets. |