Mt Donna Buang #2

My 2nd attempt at climbing Mt Donna Buang. However this time on the mountain bike and taking the back roads. My boss, Sandy and myself, set off from Launching Place at 8.30 am.

I was quietly thinking to myself that I should go easy on my boss (who’s in his mid-40s). It wouldn’t be very sporting of me to race ahead up the mountain. The first 3kms was a gentle uphill on asphalt towards the foot of the mountain ranges. The boss, David, was setting a fairly brisk pace, and I thought to myself: right… he’s pretty fit. Then the road became a bit steeper, but he still kept the same pace going. I was beginning to feel the twinges of an ache in my thighs. But it was still a fairly enjoyable climb at this point. My heart rate was still only about 140/min.

The road then turned into gravel at the 5km mark. David, was still keeping the same pace. But now with the slightly rougher surface, the effort required to keep up was starting to hurt. He began to pull away. My heart rate was already at 160. There wasn’t much reserve to be chasing him at this point. I knew there was still a lot more climbing to do and I didn’t want to destroy myself so I let him go. I managed to keep within about 20m for most of this part of the climb, but I think that was only because he would dawdle when he started to see me fall away.

We reached another main rd and decided to wait for Sandy. We were at the 11km mark. The road sign indicated that Mt Donna was still another 16km away. Sandy was about 5min behind. She had a slow start because she’d only had 3hrs sleep and I suspect still had some alcohol in the system. We then started to climb again, for another 5km of asphalt. All 3 of us stayed together, and so I thought: I”m not doing too badly… but then the road turned into a firetrail, and David announced that this is where the REAL climb begins. Sandy and I just looked at each other – stunned. It seemed that the previous 16km was just a warm-up for David. While Sandy and I where killing ourselves just to keep up. The firetrail began with only a gentle ascent and then a false flat. I had a glimmer of hope that I could stay in contact with the lead. But then the hill really started to kick up. David just kept grinding away in some massive gear, while I was spining my cranks like a hamster just to keep him in sight. I could only keep this up for about 10 minutes and then he was gone. It was about 5km of solo climbing now, as Sandy had stopped behind to put on some gloves.

David waited where the road joined with Donna Buang Rd. He asked if we should wait for Sandy before the final ascent. I replied “yes, it would be the polite thing to do”. What I was thinking was: please I need to rest, I’m dying here.

It was only about 1km to the top. I just died 500m from the top. The other two kept powering ahead, and I lost sight of them at this point. I geared down and just kept spinning. I reached the final gate to the top, so I knew I was close. This gave me some extra mental strength, so I stood on the pedals and powered up the last 200m, but still a couple of minutes behind the others.

Coming down all happened very quickly. Sandy had brought an entire spare wardrobe in her backpack. I was slightly better prepared this time, but only really because I was wearing my mountain-bike outfit. I was partially warmer than last time I descended Mt Donna wearing just my lycra top.

I thought that this would be a pleasant hillclimb with my middle-aged boss, but instead I was schooled at hillclimbing yesterday.

I rate this as the hardest and longest climb I’ve ever done: 27km from start to summit, in 2.5hrs