Cumulus - Tubbut to Snowy River

To continue my broken ride from last year I drove down to Tubbut to tackle the Victorian Alpine crossing to the Snowy River. Tubbut is a small community of a school, community hall and a few houses. The community hall [toilets, water, power, maybe wi-fi] has been offered to riders as a stop over point and I will confirm this arrangement with registered riders before departure time.

I drove a further 5k down to the junction of McKillops Bridge Rd and Ambyne Rd to start my ride. Here the restored Ambyne Suspension Bridge stands proud as a reminder to the past engineering feats of the early road builders in this remote corner of Victoria. Later in the day I drove down McKillops road and crossing the Snowy River, McKillops Bridge is an even greater monument. ... the road itself is quite some ride in it's own right, chiseled precariously into the vertical walls that drop down to the Deddick River and all down hill.

But I digress, back to the main game. From Ambyne Rd there is a steady 6-8% climb for 5k and the road then forks to the right to Ambyne Settlement, a few farms at the top of the valley, through some farm gates [it's a Crown Road] and into the Vic Alpine Park along some two track that leads to the junction with the main Cloudride route.

It's about 12k from my starting point and took me a little over 1 hour with a few pics and gates. I was riding pretty light but with my old GT 14.3kg [Kona still out of action] and 2 litres of water I was about the same wet weight I would be at on the Kona.... still too heavy!

At this junction the climb proper starts. I had hoped for some cooler weather but at the bottom of the climb my Garmin was reading 35ºC. The fire trails through the Tingaringi/Vic Alpine Park section had a dozer over them prior to the 2015 Cloudride and in my opinion are now, after 12 months, in pretty settled and in good order. If they were flat you would ride them at 25-30kph ... but they're not flat.

Over the next two hours I might have ridden 250m. Some younger peeps might do a lot more than this, maybe 350m? The temp. climbed to 40º and I stopped looking. I needed to rest every 15-20 metres, get my breath and push on some more. Some of the water bars are simply one step at a time [as both reported by Ollie and Calvin] grab a handful of brake and take/dig another small toe-hold, try not to slip and go again. The views are also breathtaking ....

Eventually you get to the top but NEVER assume/think that that crest you can see up above is the final one. Rather, assume that there are another three or four and you'll be spot-on, right ...... and feel some sense of empowerment that you were right when there is another one. The joy and flow of happiness through every part of your body that is experienced when you get it wrong and actually get to the top is one of life's great pleasures .... you'll never never know until you give it a go.

Now, the descents. I've figured that climbing and descending in this country is a ratio of about 6:1 If it takes you two hours to climb up you can bomb down [with caution] in 20 minutes. At about 60 seconds into the first 'controlled' descent [just as the 'uncontrolled' one is about to commence] you have a flash of inspirational thought about your brake pads, when did you last look at them, how old are they .... is that brake fade I'm starting to experience. The back of that next waterbar is starting to look like the winter olympics ski jump ... and it's out of season! You lock everything up and try and use the sharp upward pitch of the back of the waterbar to wash of some speed so you can peek over the crest and get some sort of line for the next descent. Now if this is not your favourite sport simply get off and walk/slide down.

I slithered and slid my way down and up the second lesser climb and had to turn back and retrace my tracks back to the car rather than bomb down to the river. It was my intention to drive around via McKillops Bridge and up to Jindabyne via Barry Way and check out the Snowy crossing point from the roadside immediately adjacent to where the FT descends to the river .... and I was well out of time!

For normal humans [fit bikepackers] I would allow 3.5-4.5 hours to leg it/ride across this 15k. I've since had a look at Calvin Decker's tracking points and figure he's done this section in 2 hours. He did the first climb, 3k in 50 min. Quite insane given he had already been pushing through this sort of country for six hours before and was on the third day of the Cloudride.

The permitted 'alternate' route via McKillops Bridge [it's 85k] adds 60k to the Cumulus and has 1850Vm in it. The winding 20k descent down to the bridge has a nice flow and should be a quick 1h. From there its a monster climb up 15k and 935Vm. There are a few sealed sections [maybe 15k] from the turn above Brumby and through Suggan Buggan and some more climbs. Time? ..... it's all in the climbs, maybe 5-6 hours, it's day 3 or 4 and the legs wont be too fresh.

If you choose the shorter Vic. Alpine Fire Trail route the Snowy River is in fine crossing order.

The water is a lot clearer than in previous years and calf/knee deep should be the max depth. As you will be informed in more detail in the river crossing notes there are multiple options. The river is wide with fragmented channels and a lot of time can be wasted pondering these as it's not immediately apparent how/where to exit the river without some reconnaissance.