THE 2019 WNTRSLSTC
Our biggest crew yet met in Bright to take on the 4th edition of the fabled WNTRSLSTC, the sunniest but coldest one yet.
You might wonder why the shit it has taken so long for us to get this out into the world, but let us start by telling you it hasn’t been through a lack of trying. Take away all the life responsibilities of moving house, lack of internet, work commitments etc. etc. and focus solely on this. Every year it takes a lot to be able to put a ride like our WNTRSLSTC into words. In 2018 getting caught in a snowstorm really did all the talking for us, but this year conditions couldn’t have been more contrasting, yet still familiar. We had our coldest recorded temperatures in 4 runnings of this annual ride, yet the clearest, bluest skies we could ever imagine, gracing us as we rode an enormous loop around Victoria’s High Country.
ROUTE: THE 2019 WNTRSLSTC
Distance: 248.6km / Elevation Gain: +3143m
I: SOLSTICE EVE
It was Friday night and we found ourselves in Bright, unfamiliar territory for us this time of year ever since the legendary CX round got inexplicably canned. We chose to change things up for the fourth running of the WNTRSLSTC, opening it up to those outside the group chat, wondering if anyone would show up after mostly using shots from the infamous snowstorm of 2018 in our “marketing” “campaign”.
Between arriving in Bright and landing at our accomodation proper, Adrian and Josh took on a quick supó run for breakfast items, late night snacks, and on road sustenance. The weather was looking good, but the riding would be long and no doubt sapping, so party mix, biscuits and crumpets with jam was what filled the baskets.
Back at our olde faithful accomodation – the Bogong View Motor Inn, the last of us were arriving just before 10pm. Settling in immediately it seemed as though we would be on track for our earliest Solstice Eve nights sleep yet, easily beating Zeke’s 1am arrival in 2017. Dean built his wall, computers and cameras were charged. In a few hours we would wake to the sound of Harry knocking on the door to our room, his day starting a little earlier as he drove up from Yea – a drive that would involve a close encounter of the rusine kind.
II: THE CLASS OF 2019
In 2015 in the heart of the festive season, and in the middle of our first fully fledged cycling based project as Soup Boys, we ran an unofficial, 3 person crit in the middle of Bright during late afternoon. Our course? The Memorial Clocktower, now a worthy meeting point some 4 years later.
From their homes, their cars or accomodation some fresh faces met with us in the centre of town for a quick meet and great, coffee and briefing as to what lay ahead. All up we would start with 13 on the road, have 2 in the car, and pick up 2 more in 27km time as we rolled through Myrtleford. A far cry from the handful of riders we had had in past years.
III: SUNRISE – 07.35AM
On our way out of Bright, perched atop the Blackbird Cafe was a digital clock and temperature gauge. Accordingly to our little glowy friend that illuminated the foggy streetscape, we rolled out just before 6.30am, the temperature was -6ºC. Fortunately early kilometres were done at a brisk pace. Hot coffee had our stomachs warmed, but our legs, faces and hands were anything but.
Strength in numbers and in lumens meant the early turns were well lit as we rolled into Porepunkah, turning onto the rail trail to avoid a pre-dawn trip down the Great Alpine Road. With Mount Buffalo as our backdrop, and fields of hops, cows and vines in the fore, we made good pace as everybody began to introduce themselves proper, or begin to take note of what wheels to follow when the going would get tough.
Compared to the rest of the day, these early moments along the rail trail would be something to cherish. Almost completely flat, and probably smoother than the rather heavy asphalt on the Great Alpine Road, it was a trail that allowed us time to relax and take in the rising sun that popped its head over the tops of the valley, lightly kissing our backs as we got nearer to Myrtleford.
That was before we were plunged right back into the fog shrouded iciness. Pulling up opposite the Myrtleford Piazza we quickly snacked on jersey pocket bananas and apples before departing the roadside with 2 more riders in tow – Ben from Bridge Road Brewers and Shane from TOR.
The fog followed us out along the Lake Buffalo Rd, where the ground was still VERY icy. Flanked by the back-off of Mount Buffalo meant direct sunlight was missing us by approximately an entire valley, but the golden glow on the mountains opposite almost provided enough metaphorical warmth to keep the legs turning.
IV: INTO THE FOREST
The road out to Lake Buffalo undulated, twisted and turned, the sun consistently flirting with us from across the way. It was only as we got much, much closer to the shores of Lake Buffalo where we finally felt some real warmth from its majesty. Fleeting moments of golden light touching our backs as we made our way over small rises in the road feeling like some kind of reward for a fast first 2 hours of riding.
The flirting came to an abrupt halt as we came to pull up for our first proper stop of the day, along the wall of Lake Buffalo. It gave us a chance to take on some sustenance, defrost our bodies, and as it would turn out – defrost our bidons too as they had become frozen solid in the freezing temperatures which for the the last 20 minutes had comfortably sat on -7ºC.
PEDLA CORE ROUBAIX NECK GAITER (BLACK)
Neck buff, snood, neck warmer, gaiter. Spotted on the football pitch they were the kind of thing that drove Sir Alex Ferguson mental. The “back in my day” types would shout till veins started protruding out of their temples, ranting on about how they would ride through 4ft of snow to work at the local smelter. Fixed gear bike, wooden rims, uphill BOTH WAYS. Most importantly, no neck warmer. That’s how real men did it. Apparently.
Well the year is 2019, fortunately bike fashion has come along way, as has grading roads to now be uphill one way, downhill the other, and Manchester United hasn’t really been the same since Fergie took a seat a little further back in the stands. This is also the WNTRSLSTC, our bidons have frozen, any facial hair is frosted by default and without what Pedla call a neck gaiter, some of us would be absolutely done for. It’s even got Roubaix in the name to keep those who remain misty eyed over wooden rims, working at a smelter and the symptoms leading to premature death happy. Worth the purchase price? Absolutely.
Coming to a complete stop also meant that we were able to make any adjustments to our riding kit – changing, removing and/or adding layers where it mattered most, everybody with a musette of their own in the back of the team car.
Reluctantly we hit the road again, fortunately this time the sun would follow. We traced our way around Lake Buffalo as the air became alive, mist forming over the glassy surface of the lake whenever the sun touched it. The tarmac soon left us as we turned onto what would be the first, and longest of a few gravel sections, plunging us deep into the forest.
An innocent enough start greeted us along this particular gravel road, before a combination of muddy ruts and slightly more serious gravel led everybody to go-at-their-own-pace. A fork in the road would send Chris and Matt to the right when they needed to go straight, a silhouette and Strava fly-bys later that night showing they would be no more than 10km from us for most of the day, but still out of reach.
After riding through the bulk of logging activity in this particular forest, we were placed at the bottom of the first climb of the day, one of the easier ones we would encounter by way of gradient, but not by road surface. It became a proper bush road by this point, with occasional brake ruts, leaves and branches littering the path, and puddles so frozen they could be ridden over. Just like our chance encounter with a car in the middle of last years snowstorm, we crossed paths with a local hunter, his grandson and his hound – each wondering what the fuck we were doing out here on a day like today.
It was still -4ºC.
V: AN ODE TO THE SOLSTICE, BY KIP
Now somewhat of a seasoned veteran of the WNTRSLSTC, by fireplace many nights later, Kip penned this heartfelt ode to a ride and indeed a day that simply needs to be experienced to be believed.
“It’s hard to love. It’s one of the most beautiful and difficult and rewarding things you can throw yourself into. There are thousands of little motes of light that need to line up for something like love to work, and stringing them together in that way…we all wish it was easier. But life is rarely easy. And love as the Most in Life, is exemplary in that.
I speak of love because one of those floating motes sits larger than the others. Some bigger, some smaller, but none of lesser importance. This one though, is something of a foundation, a bedrock. It has it’s own gravity and pulls the little others along with it. It’s name is Trust, and it’s as old as any connection between people, things; living. It’s an economy of give and take, push and pull, cosmic in it’s gravity sinks and beautiful in it’s stable orbit, when it can strike that balance.
Over the years I have tried to wrestle Trust with Adrian, leadeur of Soup Boys and route planner of, in this tale, WNTRSLSTC 19. I give in that economy and I Hope (another mote in its own right) that there is the purity of Reciprocation (yet another mote, floating).
AND YET year over year, orbit after orbit, I am struck away by him, finding no alignment, no balance. He is a betrayer of my confidence and my love. So I find myself, for not the first (and I know not the last) time, amidst the ruin of my own Trust and Hope, and more literally I find myself on a fucking 20% incline made of rutted mud in some pine growth forest south east of bum fuck nowhere. The group is shattered, some have been lost on the road. The support car has disappeared in a haze of Kush. Will and I scramble on what feels like hands and knees, metaphorical nails bleeding against the rough earth as we claw our way forward. Forever forward.
I’ll spare you the details of kilometre over kilometre. In the end, we make it home, darkness worn around us like a shawl, inside and out. The dome above us black and flecked with a million billion mote satellites trying to align into perhaps meaning into perhaps nothing.
I see myself in the mirror, I look devastated. By the fractal nature of the universe I see myself in the mirror and stars, in alignments and elliptical orbits and I see my deep desire to Trust that Adrian will one day reciprocate and plan a route that isn’t 250km and does have gravel sections that soak up the better parts of days.
But he looks at me and smiles: he doesn’t hear me. He never will. But I will keep on Trusting, and Hoping that one day, he’ll hear me. Though, in the end I suppose, it isn’t the easiness of a ride, but the friends we made along the way.”
VI: NOON
The gravel road smoothed out for the descent, very quickly becoming rapid and filled with pure enjoyment minus a small incident that led to our first puncture of the day. The road emerged from the bush to spit us out amongst rolling farmland in the King Valley, the gravel continuing on as we zig-zagged our way through the valley with moments of tarmac laden respite.
Some four legged friends joined us along the way as we were treated to a real dose of country vibes. First there was a herd of cows grazing beside the laneway that took us up towards Carboor. Then there was the case of a lamb who much like the Tifosi on the climbs of the Giro d’Italia, wanted to run alongside its heroes – us. After it had had its fun, Harry pulled over and together with Luke returned it to its fam, hopefully no stern words would be exchanged.
VII: LUNCH
After the fun interaction with the local livestock, things turned to shit. We rolled into Whorouly with weary legs and yearning stomachs. The crew at the local general store were rapid in firing off some quick, basic sustenance, and the sun was doing it’s best job in willing us on, but we needed a little more.
All that stood in the way of us and our lunch at Bridge Road Brewers was the climb up to Beechworth, of which we could take one of 3 choices.
The first was Flagstaff Road. Steep, gravel. Like mountain bike type gravel. The next choice to the west was Buckland Gap Road, smooth, freshly laid tarmac, winding but still quite steep. Finally, a little further west again was the third option, taking the bike path into town. It would be this last option that we would lean towards, but the “false flat” that had been described by Ben from Bridge Road ended up being a little more than our hungry legs bargained for. One by one we filtered into the dining hall at the brewery, fireplace, beer, pizza and pretzels welcoming our arrival.
It was at this point in the early hours of the afternoon that the sun began functioning as one would expect in its deliverance of warmth. Clouds were a major rarity on this particular day, astonishing for the middle of winter, but we felt that we had still been well and truly stitched up by temperatures that hadn’t risen above single digits. As we drank coffee outside the brewery before rolling out once more, the mercury finally hit 10, then 11, then 12. For all of a few minutes.
VIII: THE DECISION
Those few minutes would be because of us riding uphill towards Stanley. The sun remained, but the temperature dropped once more as we rose up towards the village Benno calls home. Surrounded by orchards and small hobby farms, the climb does a stellar job in reminding you of the best parts of the Adelaide Hills, a worthy pocket of the high country to ride through in summer as you can stop off at any of the orchards for some proper fresh treats.
Ben and Chris had stayed back in Beechworth, a century of riding to their name. Theo bypassed lunch to head on up the road in pursuit of happiness. As we dropped down the backside of Mount Stanley, staring a T-Intersection square in the face, we were faced with a decision. Go left and we finish the route, go right and we wrap things up in Bright 40km sooner. This was a case of no turning back.
With legs weary to the point of buckling, the decision was made to head right. We regrouped down the road and commenced the subtle descent into Myrtleford.
IX: SUNSET – 5.03PM
Myrtleford presented as a completely different place in the golden light of the afternoon sun, a far cry from the early morning scenes. We retraced our steps back onto the rail trail, sticking together as a group, occasionally stopping for refuelling, changing of layers and placing of lights along the way.
Coming into Porepunkah is where we split into a few groups. The larger group surged ahead, while a select few stuck back with Okky as he had the UE Boom still blasting. Bhad Bhabie belting out Gucci Flip Flops took the group off the bike path and onto the Back Porepunkah Road and into Bright, slow and vibey winning the race as somehow they had arrived back at the memorial clocktower before the other group.
The sun had set long before, the temperature had dropped once more, folks at the pub were wondering what the fuck was going on. Perched at the steps of the Memorial Clocktower, it was like we’d never left.
Until next year…
