Once upon a time there was no such thing as a Mountain Bike. And it wasn’t that long ago. I love MTBs and probably 90% of my riding in the last 10 years has been on MTBs, but when someone first told me, in about 1984, that there was a bike called “Mountain Bike” that was like a big BMX with fat tyres and gears I thought it was a stupid idea. “It’ll never take off” I said. “Where can one of those go that a 10 speed can’t? They’ll just be heavy and slow on the road and barely more effective off it.”
And although that seems a crazy view now, at the time I thought I had a point, based on our recent touring experiences and a healthy dose of precocious arrogance. I was of course ultimately wrong, although perhaps not entirely so – early MTBs often were tank like. Raleigh Grifter anyone? On the other hand you could never say that about the brilliant 1983 Specialized Stumpjumper…
The discussion was taking place at Raspin’s Beach campsite, in Orford, Tasmania. I had set off from Hobart that morning at 5 am with my friends Andrew, Stu and David. Now we were 80 hilly kilometres and one day in to our planned week long cycling, walking and camping tour of Maria Island, just off the coast of Tasmania. The Raspin’s Beach campsite was the staging point till we caught the ferry early next morning.
We all rode 10 speed road bikes, biased towards touring with racks, panniers and in some cases modified gearing with wider range gear clusters. They had 27″ wheels and I think we had all upgraded at least some components to alloy, like “cotterless” cranks, alloy stems, and alloy wheels with quick release hubs. The frames were steel and I think most were reasonably decent grade “chrome-moly” tubing. They weren’t as heavy as you might think and were surprisingly sturdy.
David had toured a couple of times before, and last time he had invited me to accompany him to Bruny Island’s Labillardiere Peninsula a year earlier, a round trip of about 200km, over half of which was on dirt roads and tracks. Andrew and Stu, both good friends of mine, had joined us for this latest tour to another island, Maria. Fired with enthusiasm we had planned an ambitious programme of further tours for the coming year.
That day we had followed the main highway to the north of town, reaching Bridegwater Bridge at the outskirts by sunrise. We rode up the old East Coast highway, built mostly by convicts in the 1850’s and punctuated by such landmarks (and obstacles) as Grass Tree Hill, Bust Me Gall Hill, Black Charlie’s Opening (cue schoolboy humour), Buckland Straight and then twisting down through the narrow, rocky Prosser Gorge, passed all the way by giant, speeding, heavily loaded log trucks, carting Tasmania’s old growth forest away to make woodchips for Japanese paper mills. We reached Orford in the late afternoon and set up camp at Raspin’s Beach, in view of the looming bulk of Mount Maria in the distance across the water. In Tasmania we don’t have much flat land – even the islands are usually half drowned mountains. The next morning we took our bikes on the ferry to Maria Island, heavily loaded with tents, food, water and other kit.
On Maria Island, a National Park and the scene of an early convict settlement from Tasmania’s past when it was called Van Diemen’s Land, there is a lot of wildlife. The animals seem less timid on the island and can at times be surprisingly forthright. Emus ran up behind us and stole food from our panniers. Wombats occasionally blocked our path, but were more often spotted comically trying to “hide” head first in a bush half their size, on an otherwise open plain. Tasmanian Devils and possums kept us awake at night, screeching, shrieking and fighting over the right to raid our tents. But most of all I remember the magnificent Forester kangaroos, Tasmania’s only roo breed but the second largest of all roos after the Red. The males reach around 6 foot tall and in mating season they have huge, savage fights for the rights to the females. They have massive powerful feet and claws that would seriously maim or kill a person if they tried. Thankfully in the main they are gentle. I’d say they are a lot like deer and I wouldn’t want to get the wrong side of a stag either.
In the days to follow we cycled over probably 60 or 70 km of rocky and sandy tracks on the island in at times blistering heat. We used our friction, non-indexed gears very effectively and ploughed our bikes, so heavily loaded you could feel the frames flexing, through mud, sand, river crossings and loose gravel. The bikes were surprisingly capable and surefooted in such rough terrain.
One hot afternoon later in the week, we cycled to the southern extremity of Maria Island. Our destination was Robbins Farm (I think that was the name), now abandoned and overgrown since Maria had been declared a National Park in about 1970. Having explored the ruins with boyish curiosity we turned for “home” – our base camp at Chinaman’s Bay, just north of the isthmus. The afternoon return ride was in blistering heat, probably 35 degrees. It was slow, hot going. Ploughing in low range gears through the soft dry sand on the isthmus joining North and South Maria Island together, there was a sudden almighty CRACK, like a gunshot. I saw a piece of something small and black fly through the air in front of my bike, and then realised the sound was my front tyre blowing out in the heat. The hot sand had been too much for my rather worn tyre, still running at high pressure, and it had blown a massive hole in the sidewall.
We patched the tyre up with gaffer tape on the inside and repaired the tube with a giant patch (it had literally lost a pea sized piece of rubber). I ran on reduced pressures for the rest of the journey, including the 100km ride back to Hobart. This was the only flat or mechanical failure we had for the entire trip, a round journey of probably 150km with intermediate journeys of 10-30 km at a time all week in harsh terrain. It is hard to believe it now, but we did all of this on what were in fact standard road going “10 speeds” – 5 cogs on the rear, 2 on the front. Realistically we had probably 7 actual gears to choose from. It’s easy to forget where it’s possible to go with skinny tyres, few gears and no suspension.
Seeing I’ve recently got back in touch with Andrew via Facebook I’m going to ask if he has any photos from this trip. I lost mine years ago. Interestingly he still rides, I think he has a Giant Trance now. And I have a couple of Marin hardtails.
So yes, MTBs won that particular argument in the end.
Talk Wrench - Bikes and Bits 