We left Melbourne on the Princess Freeway around 10 after a slow start again today, what’s the rush. Well it might have been a little better to leave a tad earlier today but it all panned out Ok in the end. We drove for about 2.5 hrs to get to Blore Hill the site of our next mountain bike adventure on the edge of Lake Glen Maggie. Blores Hill Mountain Bike Park and the lake area look like they are very popular places to visit.

We rocked in about lunch time and checked out both trail heads and noticed Blores Hill Caravan park almost across the road from the park so we went in and booked a night, setup the camper and had lunch before riding. Fueled and ready to go we hit the trails. There are a lot of trails and links between trails and it became all to easy to get geographicaly challenged out there and we did on multiple occasions.

Blore Hill Trig – some good views up here

The run up the rocky ascent and decent from the Blore Hill trig point was probably the highlight for me. Plenty of man made track here with a few jumps, berms and the odd wooden feature across small water crossings. Nearly all of the track is on a hard gravel base and at times all the loosed gravel caused us a few moments. The speed is high here and there was an excellent berm section off one of the hills with heaps of jumps and berm after berm. On the way back Sharon had her first crash of the trip going over the handle bars. Just a bit tired at the end of the day and not concentrating she clipped a tree with the handle bar and the rest is history. A few grazes on the arm and a sore shoulder but she will solder on ok.

Interesting wooden features

Carpeted berms – you can really hook into these

It was!

We had to wait for this guy to get off the track

A bit of time tonight to try and swap our XC race tyres for something a bit more gripy for our MTB touring trip. I brought a couple of sets of tyres with me but I noticed they are not tubeless ready like the current ones on the bikes. Anyway after trying for ages to get one of them to seal on the tubeless rim without success with the pump or a gas canister I got the compressor out, cut some hoses and jerry rigged up something to get a bit of air volume in to try and seat the tyre. After a few goes it would still not seal and without a pressure gauge inline I was flying blind. Suddenly an almighty bang and the tyre completly blew off the rim as well as braking my valve end off the foot pump.

Scared all the birds away and Sharon was too scared to look out of the camper after it went off. Bit like a shotgun but not quite as loud. So I am back to running a tube in the front with another tyre now. Need a bike shop to replace some bits now and a hose clamp to get my compressor hoses connected back together again. Another thing I had on the list to organise before we left. No plans for tomorrow yet you will just have to wait and see what we end up doing.