Wombats in Melbourne

Last night at about 2200h I decided to get a bit of night riding done to
test batteries / lights and get back in the swing of it in preparation for
the upcoming Scott 24hr in Canberra. I got on the Yarra Trail Singletrack
at Viewbank and followed it out to Templestowe and back which is a pretty
nice bit of track but is lacking in any serious climbs or real technical
sections. I have been riding this part of the trail in the mornings for the
past couple of weeks and adding about an hour or so to my commute to the
city so I am starting to get to know it reasonably well.

Anyway, last night I was barrelling along with 10W halogen on the bars and
15W halogen on the helmet. I must have seen over 100 rabbits and a couple
of owls but it was the wombats that freaked me out a bit. The first one was
not far from Bond Rd and went running across the track in front of me. I
thought it was a dog at first as it was moving pretty quick from left to
right and only passed about a metre or so in front of my wheel, scaring the
**** out of me!!! I then saw a further 3 wombats between Bond Rd and
Westerfolds Park and none of them seemed too worried about me riding past
within a couple of metres of them.

I ended up going to Templestowe and back twice for a grand total of about
1h50min of riding. Not sure how far I went because I don't have a computer
on the dually yet but it was good fun to be hitting singletrack at night
again. The only person I saw in the whole time I was out there was a dodgy
looking guy who was carrying a bottle of water and hanging near one of the
foot bridges....not sure what he was doing there???

I have been messing with my air, rebound, damping, etc settings on my fork
and shock lately and I reckon I have just about got them dialled in for what
I need. I am looking forward to the Scott and I just hope that Tam doesn't
end up whoopin my arse in terms of number of laps completed!!

Gags

In article ,
"Gags" gags_44nospamatnospamtpg.com.au wrote:

it was the wombats that freaked me out a bit

I suspect it's mating season for them. Lots out and about, judging be
the roadkill around here.

--
Shane Stanley

Gags wrote:

Anyway, last night I was barrelling along with 10W halogen on the bars and
15W halogen on the helmet. I must have seen over 100 rabbits and a couple
of owls but it was the wombats that freaked me out a bit. The first one was
not far from Bond Rd and went running across the track in front of me. I
thought it was a dog at first as it was moving pretty quick from left to
right and only passed about a metre or so in front of my wheel, scaring the
**** out of me!!! I then saw a further 3 wombats between Bond Rd and
Westerfolds Park and none of them seemed too worried about me riding past
within a couple of metres of them.

There's a big one near the bridge over the yarra, it's best to give way
to them

On 2006-09-10, Bleve wrote:
There's a big one near the bridge over the yarra, it's best to give way
to them

Yeah. Any creature that can be hit by a car and waddle off with a shake
of its head is definitely not something you'd want to mess with on your
bike. (Ok, so the creature would die from internal injuries in the case
of the car collision, but the point still stands.)

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".