Mt Osmond

I continued my quest for new and interesting climbs on Monday night after work. The most noteworthy part of my journey from the CBD up towards Mt Lofty was some dipshit in a car yelling out 'wanker' to me as I was getting towards the top of Glen Osmond Road.

I don't really take much notice of that stuff - he was just a dickhead passenger in a dickhead car showing off in front of his dickhead mates. Interestingly though, it's the second time it's happened recently. The last time was a couple of weeks ago on Main Road at Coromandel Valley. On both occasions I was minding my own business in my little 50cm patch along the edge of the road and the offending twats were nowhere near me (on the other side of the road at Coro and one lane over Glen Osmond Road).

There does seem to be a bit of a feeling around the place that there's an increasing amount of agro from drivers towards cyclists. The issue is certainly talked about quite lot on the Adelaide Cyclists forums, which is the main voice in town for the cycling community. This may or may not be the case - it might be like the apparent belief in the wider community (perpetuated by Today Tonight/Current Affair etc.) that there's more violent crime than there was 30 years ago when clearly the statistics don't bear that out. Anyway, like I said before, the yelling abuse thing doesn't particularly bother me. I just go 'yeah, yeah ....whatever' to myself and continue on my merry way. I'm far more concerned about drivers who do stupid things that can endanger my life. On that subject, I think I'll give Glen Osmond Road a miss in the future. It's not because of the heckler, but there's no bike lane and I really don't feel particularly safe, especially when trucks and buses go by.

Back to the ride... I reached the bollards at Crafers in a reasonable time (for me). I still get overtaken by so many cyclists when I'm doing a climb - it's a good thing I'm not easily deflated. If I did take it to heart I'd be in a permanent state of depression about my lack of progress. I'll keep plodding along up these hills and hopefully, I'll eventually see some improvement. I'm sure I'd progress quicker if I did some more structured training but I really just want to go out for a nice ride in the hills on a sunny day.

Spooky tree and a view of Adelaide from Mt Osmond Road

Back to the ride ...again... I decided not to go all the way to Mt Lofty this time because thought I might detour up Mt Osmond Road on the way back down. I haven't been up there since the 80's when I used to play golf there. I remember the road was pretty steep in parts so I thought I'd give it a bash. As it turns out it was probably steeper than I remembered - the first ascent that overlooks the freeway is particularly severe. Once you veer right at the top of that bit it does settle down a little and becomes more undulating. I followed it around the edge of the golf course then descended back down and eventually ended up on Portrush Road. The road going down looked nice and smooth - I might try going up that way next time.

Oh yes, I have another 'note to self' ..... when you stop at a traffic island thing for a red light at a level crossing and the 'ding, ding, ding' for the oncoming train starts, always take note of where you are in relation to the boom gates. I was at Emerson crossing on Monday night and clearly wasn't paying enough attention to what was happening and I suddenly sensed a large, heavy, very hard and unstoppably automated object descending over my left shoulder. I ducked forward and out the way just in the nick of time but it gave me the fright of my life. Needless to say, it was also slightly embarrassing - I'm quite sure drivers behind me were guffawing at my predicament.

Anyway, despite all that it was a really nice 45km twilight ride and another climb ticked off the list.