http://www.adbmag.com JANUARY 2018 | 133Tumut and was heading east up into
the Brindabellas in the hope of making
a route to Canberra. Remarkably, they
met in the middle of nowhere in the
mountains and after comparing notes,
quickly realised two heads were better
than one and before you could say
‘east meets west’, the Canberra-Tumut
Ride was born.
For the past dozen years, the ride
has been a mainstay of the ACT
DSMRA’s calendar. It’s rightly earned
must-do status and every year the likes
of Daley, Cambrell, Lonergan and their
trusty lieutenants up the ante by
cutting new sections of track.
Oh, and every now and then Mother
Nature plays her part, too: like in 2009,
when it dumped snow for hours on the
Saturday atop the Brindabellas and a
freezing pack of riders eventually
made it down to Tumut just before
dark. The next day a rebel group
refused to get back on their bikes to
tackle the freezing conditions, and
hired a bus to get back to Cotter where
their cars and trailers were waiting.
If you want action, this ride will
deliver it.TRAIL ODYSSEY | DSMRA CANBERRA-TUMUT RIDE
Remarkably,
they met in
the middle of
nowhere and,
before you
could say ‘east
meets west’,
the Canberra-
Tumut Ride
was born FOLLOW THE LEADER
With threatening skies, conditions
were plenty cold for the start of this
year’s C to T as the full-house pack of
65 riders set off. Not even half an
hour later we were high up in the
mountains among the clouds and
mist but, fortunately, heavy rain held
off. The ground was wet, though, and
so greasy, thanks to snow falls in the
weeks before that had melted and
pumped up the moisture content of
the forest floor.
With a flu-ridden Daley leading the
way, and dropping three cornermen
on each intersection to thin the pack,
the speed varied, as flat tyres,
crashes and an injury kept the
sweeps on their toes.
The riding, as always, varied
between fire trails and all those tasty
sections of fresh-marked singletrack,
before we plunged down a long and
greasy, brake-boiling descent to
morning smoko and refuel on
Brindabella Road at the
Goodradigbee River crossing.
Then came a couple of trips
through a veritable ‘Snotsville’ – a
section of forest the DSMRA boys
had dubbed the Marijuana Farm,
because of the ‘crops’ in there.
Here, the ground was even more
super damp and super slick and,
while the front runners had a
reasonable time of it, the poor
bastards at the back and the tail-end
sweeps, copped snot to the max!
Traction, grip and drive were very
rare commodities and it took ages to
get everyone through.Pete White’s Husaberg arrived with no spark This rear tyre arrived with no airPeter Daley did a lot of the donkey work