Not being a “numbers orientated” rider — you know the ones: at the end of a18.7 k ride they head back down the trail just to round the distance up to 20 ks! — well me, not being one of those,  hadn’t planned anything out of the ordinary for the ride that would click over the 10,000 kilometres on my Giant Anthen 29er. As it turned out, however, the milestone ride was very memorable indeed!

Paul’s 1100 lumen bike light had never  been tried out properly so we decided to head out to Mogo Campsite at the northern end of the Old Great North Road (OGNR) late in the day.

Mogo Campsite

Behind the campsite you can take some narrow, rough single track which, after about three kilometres, joins the OGNR track proper. From there, it’s a mix of rock gardens and flowing, winding single track. Pure riding heaven! We arrived about 630pm , and, according to my calculations, we’d have about an hours riding to the end of the single track section. From there we could cruise down the 2 ks to the 1830 build Claires Bridge, where we could have a snack before heading back. This time of year, with the sun not setting till about 8pm, that would give us a good hour or so of serious night riding.

Somewhat surprisingly my calculations were a bit out. From Mogo Campsite to the junction was no less than 25 kilometres of intensive full on riding. What with a few stoppages for running repairs it was well and truly dark when we stopped for some Gel and Bars at the old sandstone bridge. The march flies had packed it off to bed (not without getting a taste of us first) and the mosquitos were doing the night shift. Being newbies at night riding we figured it would take us considerably longer to negotiate the rough track on the way back. Not surpassingly, we were right.

Thankfully noticed this one before any serious damage was done!

The darkness made us feel far more secluded than at any other time we’d ridden this track, and provided some memorable moments.

In several sections of the track the foliage is quite close, forming a canopy above you. As you’re hurtling along at 25-30 ks per hour with your head near the handlebars so as to not dong your head on the branches above it’s somewhat disconcerting to suddenly realise you are about to rip through a large spider web with the mother of all big fat spiders waiting to grab onto your gernsey as you destroy her home! And no amount of grabbing the breaks and squealing in horror can prevent the inevitable. A quick but thorough exam of the affected body with the 1100 lumen light on full brightness mode, and we are off to ruin the next spiders peaceful night in the wilderness. For some reason, Paul didn’t have an issue with me leading.

And then there was the moment when I stopped to check my gears as they weren’t shifting cleanly. Suddenly, out of the darkness, in a flurry of moving leaves sticks and debree, a brightly lit freight train derailed right along side me! It was Paul of course, realising too late I had stopped, jumping on his efficient XT front break, and ending up under the on coming rear end of his bike. He was shaken but essentially unhurt, and pacified by the fact that it was only a bit of grass in my derailer that had caused his derailment!

1100 serious lumens

But the moment that history will recall, was when the speedo finally hit the 10,000 kilometre mark. Mind you, in the dark, this was not an easy moment to capture! I didn’t have a headlight on my helmet so couldn’t see my speedo at all. Paul did, and so we compared odometer readings and he would stop when we thought mine would reach the milestone. Well, we must have stopped a good half a dozen times, just to make sure we didn’t miss it, before it finally happened.

During these hours of excitement I must have grown tired for more than once the rocks in the rock gardens sent me off course even more noticabley than during the daylight hours. At one point, I hit a rock at a 45º angle which through several over acute adjustments of the handlebars sent me from the middle of the track to the right of the track to the left of the track in less than a second. This sent Paul, who was riding beside me, off into the left side scrub – it was either that or my rear end and he made the right decision!

We killed our lights at one stage to soak in the darkness. The track was pitch black, there were no stars in the cloudy sky and the shadowy dull outline of the the trees was all that could be seen. It was quiet, still and moody.

Finally, we crept back into the sleeping Mogo Campsite. It was almost midnight! What an exhausting, stimulating, adventurous eventful ride on some of the best single track rock garden  you will find. We had ridden some 56 kilometres, half of that in the dark.

But the distance doesn’t matter – coz I’m not “numbers orientated”.

(BTW, did I mention I’ve done 10,000ks in 20 months on my 2012 Anthem 29er?)