CRESWICK GRAVEL LOOP
Lucking out with a clear blue winters day, we rode a loop of some premium Goldfields gravel.
It has been a long time since our last visit to Creswick. The first time we visited town on a Soup-adventure was also the last time, for no other reason as we didn’t want to tempt fate once more.
See, our last visit came during an ill-fated weekend in the Ballarat region for Cycling Australia (rip). What was supposed to be a fun-filled weekend riding, eating, drinking and culture-ing our way through Ballarat and surrounds devolved into a weekend akin to an early 2000s teen horror slasher, where we were all individually (and collectively) fighting for our lives.
Showing off to the cameras, Adrian crashed within the first 10 minutes. We suffered broken spokes and missing pedal springs, but what was supposed to be an easy (in theory) twenty five kilometre ride from Ballarat to Creswick became the lasting memory of Ballarat, Cycling Australia and indeed Road Nats for us all (now you also know the reason why we haven’t returned to Buninyong since). Much to our dismay we contributed a majority of the single use rubber waste produced by Australia in that calendar year, with a dozen punctures across what was described at the time as a ride through a “dank moonscape” of the Creswick pine plantation.
Since that time we have aged, grown, matured, fermented, evolved and felt confident if not still a little weary enough to return. Also this time we were on gravel bikes. And so, here we are as a group of six taking bikes down from the rooves of cars on a brisk Sunday morning, the Main Street of Creswick yet to wake up. Fortunately the IGA was open.
ROUTE: CRESWICK GRAVEL LOOP
Distance: 82.5km / Elevation Gain: +888m
I: IN THE FOREST
Maybe it was the trepidation talking, but even with the above Strava route loaded, we took a couple of wrong turns before we’d even begun. Perhaps it was our way of trying to show respect to the pine forest that had taken so much from us (tubes, dignity) and given so much (namely sunstroke), but we eventually synced ourselves to our GPS’s and re-entered the forest.
For a few kilometres we snaked our way deeper into the forest, first through typical Australian bushscape, occasionally crossing through both dense and sparse pine plantations by the hectare, finishing atop a ridge that would remind us of gravel rides through the Adelaide Hills. We’d made double digits on the kilometres travelled front, and were yet to suffer a single mechanical, but we wouldn’t dare state that fact out aloud.
We let out a deep exhale and rolled onto the tarmac, a chance to settle our nervous tension, and divert our attention and use of all five senses from trying to pick up on any leaking air. Turning back onto another laneway and looking back across to Creswick township from what could be described as its hinterland offered a pleasant distraction as we mixed it with locals walking their dogs, or returning from picking up their Sunday paper and milk.
II: THE GOOD STUFF
The first gravel section traversed and the sun beginning to bathe us proper, we began warming to the ride a lot more. Couples taking their vintage whips out for a Sunday drive helped lighten the mood, as we started doing the same, only on without all the tweed and a distinct lack of leather on our hands.
Like wake-boarders cutting a lakes glass surface, the wide laneways and the silent morning air begged Ben and Okky to tear them up, feathering the brakes with expert precision as we slowly gained speed rather than descended down laneway after laneway.
The pothole count grew and grew until what we were riding along was little more than a strip of flattened grass. A few hundred metres up the road we could see the livestock that had flattened it, crossing the precipice into their official territory. They seemed relatively unfazed by our presence, while we were stoked to be participating in the closest, most ethical version of running with the bulls that we could possibly muster up.
Our visit to Little Pamplona was short-lived, as we emerged from the farmland into the outskirts of Clunes.
III: CLUNES PITSTOP
Clunes was emanating real, much flatter Beechworth vibes as we rolled through town. Sure there wasn’t Australia’s best potato cakes on offer, and definitely no bumper to bumper traffic on Sunday’s, but it was certainly a pretty, and very goldrush era township.
We took the opportunity to take in the local church (football netball club) and run a lap of the Main Street as the lunch time rush began to pick up. We were momentarily tempted to stop and refuel, but the sun had us energised, and what was a gentle tail wind had gaslit us into thinking we didn’t need to stop. Nope. Absolutely no need.
We’d soon realise the mistake we’d made.
IV: MOUNT WHAT?!
All hopes of it becoming the perfect Sunday ride evaporated shortly after leaving the Clunes town limits. Following the train line on a relatively flat, but definitely very straight dirt road brought us face to face with a head wind that we would need to learn to love for the next dozen or so kilometres. Occasionally the road would be flanked by some trees, or a horse would get curious, head to the fence line and block the wind for us for what was a fraction of a second. We hadn’t stopped for a break in Clunes, and maybe this was mother natures way, or the Hepburn Shire Tourism Office’s way of telling us we should have, because it only pours for us.
Sure we weren’t on an expedition across Antarctica, but the wind, the flat, sparse surrounds HAD those vibes. Our bodies had finally acclimatised to the horrific wind chill slapping us in the face when it was accompanied by another whistling – the sound of Ben’s tyre losing pressure. The sun could be out all it wanted, but metaphorical storm clouds were brewing on this ride as he pulled over to the side of a cow-pat paved laneway to assess his options.
Fortunately he is a much more accomplished mechanic than ourselves, and after some tinkering, a quick word from a local driving past on his barely-together Ford Falcon we were back on our way, all with fully functional bikes. Had we just danced with the devil and won?
Well not quite, as the slap in the face we were being served up a few kilometres prior had clocked off, and was now replaced with punches to the ribs via a crosswind once we turned to make our final big 90º turn to head back towards Creswick. It was in those almost fight or flight moments – you know the kind that you get when you’re in the middle of a bike ride in conditions that are almost IDENTICAL to what Sir Edmund Hillary would have gone through when crossing Antarctica? Yeah those moments are when things started making sense, as we pulled up to refill drink bottles at the bubblers of Mount Blowhard Primary School.
Submit your school yard jokes here:
We still had to ride over Mount Blowhard, which at the time felt like trying to ride over the Vinson Massif, but once we had tamed Mount Blowhard, we were warmly welcomed by the Creswick forest, this time on the opposite side of the town.
V: BACK THROUGH
The sound of the wind faded away, to be replaced by a gentle breeze that had a strong Pino Silvestre aroma as our return to the forest had us snaking along beautiful forest tracks once more as we crept up onto the edge of Creswick.
And it was that last few kilometres where we went from being in the middle of a pine forest, silent but for the sounds of our breathing the clicking of our bikes, to just happening onto a side street, to the Main Street of town a block later that made us realise Creswick was pretty special. The bakery had opened and almost closed since we had arrived in town, and as we sat on the gutter resting our legs, and scoffing down the last remnants of the bakery’s glass cabinet, we couldn’t believe that the fear of laying down a dozen more punctures had ever stopped us from coming back.
