INFORMATION:
For details abouth the Wingello State Forest trails go HERE.
The trail is part of the very popular Highland Fling which can be accessed HERE.
Route description and maps for the Highland Fling are available HERE
The plan to ride the Wingello trails was first conceived by Mat several months ago when he discovered that he was the only one who got a ticket for the super popular Highland Fling, which basically sold out in three hours while none his mates could get tickets. The prospect of having to do this 100km "monster" by oneself without your mates to cheer/hassle you is a truly frightening proposition. So to check out what the damage would be we decided to check out the trail beforehand by riding the Wingello part only of the Highland Fling, which is comprised of a 54 km broccoli loop through the State Forest. "The Fling" as it is popularly known adds an extra 27 km at the beginning and end of the State Forest trail.
 So after much delay and moving the date back and forth due to injuries, family, and non-committal attitudes, we finally fixed the date on a Tuesday, which was when the outback decided to dump one million tons of red dust on Sydney and once again we delayed to Friday. Finally, on the 25 September the stars miraculously aligned, Roman's shoulder after much procrastinating healed, Will's ulcer was okay, Bryan did not forget his seat! and Mat brought all the maps and we were off leaving Mat's place around about 7:00, after convincing Bryan to ride across town to avoid Sydney traffic, which was the hardest part of the trip. Things were looking up and we had all the powerbars and special electrolytes to get us through the day. The task at hand was to complete the broccoli part of Wingello state forest only, which loops from the central camp for 54km.
 By about 9:00 O'clock we were ready to leave the camp ground, which was deserted and as it turned out we would not see a single rider on the trail all day. The weather was perfect and the trail was very well marked and we only had to work out the little extensions to the standard trail to account for the extra distance for the Highland Fling. It wasn't until the first deep trough with the notorious Wall waiting on the other side that things started to get serious. The sudden steep ascent took everybody by surprise and it was time to really push on the saddle to stay in the seat. Will pulled ahead in inimitable fashion and past the ulcer pain-threshold to make it to the top in one hit. It was a wake up call for all of us, followed immediately by quite a few longish single trails with very tight corners and some tree squeezes thrown in for good measures.
 It was not until we hit the big downhill to the river crossing followed by the inevitable long and windy uphill, that Bryan's legs started to cramp. He fought valiantly and refused to complain but once it started at the 40 km mark his legs weren't listening. Pushing through the pain threshold ? Bryan - soon to be a dad - thought that he now knew what it was like to give birth ? We decided to cut the broccoli trail short and not do the outer limit extension which would have added an extra 10km to the trail. We had doddled too much, took to many photos, videos and generally had too much fun. Once we hit the long straight pine forest back to the camp ground, we finished the course at 15:00Pm in round-about 45 km of trail riding with not a soul in site all day. Wingello had been a great ride with a lot of possible variations. The well marked trail makes it easy to navigate even for us. The next challenge will be the Highland Fling.
Roman
08 April 2009
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Wingello State Forest Map |
