atlasmountainrace

Festive 500: two days: two rides ✅

Macquarie Pass switchback, photo courtesy of Ian

Randwick Cycling member, Ian Morrison, shares details of his unsupported ride from Sydney to Canberra - and back - in just two days!

The December Festive 500 coincided conveniently with the peak of some endurance training I was deep into. I'd worked the first few days of it so had some catching up to do and Sydney to Canberra was a ride I'd been interested in. With a bad habit of making hard things more difficult, a there-and-back sounded like a good way to tick a few boxes.

I saw a window of opportunity, threw caution to the wind, and threw some plans together on Boxing Day. The weather had looked agreeable but the wind threw back at me in the form of mostly head winds both ways.

Day one was hot and we all know what happens when you don't sunscreen under a lightweight jersey (rookie!). Macquarie Pass was a ride I hadn't done and it was a highlight, with the Robertson Pie Shop being the cherry on top. And yes, I did have a cherry pie.

The route took me through Marulan, Tarago and Bungendore for other snack and water stops and the least favourite part came in the form of 30km of unforeseen choppy dirt road, which I routed around on the way back. Every mm more than 28c would have made an improvement.

I visited Capital Brewing in Canberra for some seasonal sports drinks and carbing up. If I'm honest, there was some time spent looking for an easier way home but I convinced myself that if I rode halfway, there was a train if I still wanted it, in Bundanoon.

I slept like a log and set off in the dark again. The sit bones only protested for the first few minutes but my bike complained noisily like a backpacker's hostel bed all day. The temp was way colder (11 degrees) than originally forecast and a little bit of drizzle had me questioning why I hadn't thrown even a gilet into my saddle bag. Another example of the pitfalls of haphazard ideas/planning.

Fortunately, it didn't get any worse and a T-shirt stuffed down my lightweight jersey did enough. A rain shower came through as I was finishing my Robertson Pie Shop encore and it got cold again really fast. Fortunately the temperature down the escarpment in Wollongong was showing 6 degrees warmer with a southerly to push me home. So I bit the bullet and shivered my way down the pass and enjoyed the familiar roads and tailwinds from there.

I was really glad to log the back-to-back 300km days with no mechanicals of the body or bike.

I'm hoping to make it to the start line of the Atlas Mountain Race in Morocco on 3 February. It's 1,302km [editor: +20K elevation], fixed route, unsupported, single-stage cycling race and follows gravel, single and double track and old colonial pistes that have long been forgotten and fallen into disrepair. Though I'll need to be doing bigger efforts, over more days with less sleep, this Canberra ride gave me just a little more confidence.

Ian Morrison, preparing for the 2023 Atlas Mountain Race, covering 1,302km and over 20,000m from 3-11 February, in Morocco.