{"id":19486,"date":"2019-01-24T10:11:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T10:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longrides.bike\/?page_id=19486"},"modified":"2019-01-26T10:00:59","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T10:00:59","slug":"colt-45-6-january-2019","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.longrides.bike\/?page_id=19486","title":{"rendered":"Colt 45 – 6 January 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahhhh, the wonderful Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland.\u00a0 Beautiful one day, cyclonic the next.\u00a0 Possibly…. or maybe….. or should we just wait and see.<\/p>\n

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It was Cyclone Nora who deluged us in March 2018 during the Oppy.\u00a0 Continuing the BOM’s alphabetical ways, Cyclone Owen drenched us throughout our Christmas ride in December 2018.\u00a0 And just when we were venturing back onto the bike for another foray in Audax FNQ land, Cyclone Penny wavered around the Gulf and threatened to make a break for tropical coast.<\/p>\n

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A few days before the weekend, only 30 brave souls had registered for the Colt 45.\u00a0 The rest were no doubt recalling previous soakings and watching the forecast.\u00a0 After days of rain and gloomy skies, Penny finally decided to head south, taking the wet stuff with her and leaving us with delightfully calm blue skies.\u00a0 The registration site kicked into high gear, as another 110 registrations pounded in – some even before the official closing time.<\/p>\n

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With a backdrop of perfect weather, 140 or so riders filled the\u00a0carpark at Tolga pub and spilled onto the Rail Trail.\u00a0 What followed was a morning of “navigating” along dirt trails, grassy road sides, gravel roads, a bitumen cycling circuit, and even a wooden swing bridge.\u00a0 There were plenty of\u00a0 misplaced riders, despite repeated warnings to follow cues sheets and those teeny signs that had been carefully placed around the course by the SAOs over the preceding days.
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Everything was going well as a stream of riders headed along the rail trail and through Atherton.\u00a0 There was a small glitch at the secret stamp at Hasties Swamp, in the form of a massive swarm of paper wasps.\u00a0 Luckily, we all got to experience this wonder of nature twice – both on the way in, and on the way out.\u00a0 Strangely enough, very few riders decided to spend any time admiring the RAMSAR Wetlands at the bird hide.\u00a0 Thanks to Jimmy Chan for his Wasp Attack footage (yep – those frantically waving arms belong to Jimmy).<\/p>\n