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    • Aaron posted
    Posted in South Australia » Service Cuts to Overland - GSR Press Announcement

    In what way did Don_Dunstan, Pressman or Justapassenger state or imply otherwise? Each explicitly indicated that he thought that the road was too dangerous for bicycles except under special escorted conditions in the case of the Tour Down Under stage after the finish at Stirling. They were all expressing surprise that there are not more truck accidents during the descent, and using this as a reason for their belief that downhill cycling there would be very dangerous indeed.
    "SAR526"

    JAP specifically mentioned closed roads yes, D_D specifically mentioned not wanting to ride up the grade and mentioned coming down the hill in a bus and being surprised at the lack of accidents involving trucks. My query was to Pressman who managed to link the two suggesting that he thought D_D had concern about doing the ride "mixing it with trucks" - I do not believe the first two expressed anything remotely like that issue.

    For the record, I have done both the climb and decent on the old road several times (unclosed road too), and likewise on the new road (closed) twice. Neither ride is totally for the newbie, although I was only in junior high school when I first rode the old route, but equally, neither route is unsafe as such. An inexperienced rider's biggest concern coming down the current route is being able to adequately able to wash of speed, I am quite sure given the opportunity that one could easily break the speed limit through the tunnels with little more than unbraked coasting on a bike. If you have never experienced braking and cornering a bike at 60+kmph don't try it. Likewise the decent down the Southern Expressway either on the closed road or the following bike path (or South Road for that matter) is not for people not familiar with speed.

    Monatcute Road the other mentioned by JAP could be an interesting prospect to those not familiar with it. Pushing it to get down the relatively steep, very straight right up to the point where you have to brake coming back from 60 to 70 kmph to make it unscathed through a roundabout, lots of energy to loose.

    But all of this is OT to the topic du jour.

    Edit history

    Edited 28 May 2013 14:35, 8 years ago, edited by Aaron

    In what way did Don_Dunstan, Pressman or Justapassenger state or imply otherwise? Each explicitly indicated that he thought that the road was too dangerous for bicycles except under special escorted conditions in the case of the Tour Down Under stage after the finish at Stirling. They were all expressing surprise that there are not more truck accidents during the descent, and using this as a reason for their belief that downhill cycling there would be very dangerous indeed.
    "SAR526"

    JAP specifically mentioned closed roads yes, D_D specifically mentioned not wanting to ride up the grade and mentioned coming down the hill in a bus and being surprised at the lack of accidents involving trucks. My query was to Pressman who managed to link the two suggesting that he thought D_D had concern about doing the ride "mixing it with trucks" - I do not believe the first two expressed anything remotely like that issue.

    For the record, I have done both the climb and decent on the old road several times (unclosed road too), and likewise on the new road (closed) twice. Neither ride is totally for the newbie, although I was only in junior high school when I first rode the old route, but equally, neither route is unsafe as such. An inexperienced rider's biggest concern coming down the current route is being able to adequately able to wash of speed, I am quite sure given the opportunity that one could easily break the speed limit through the tunnels with little more than unbraked coasting on a bike. If you have never experienced braking and cornering a bike at 60+kmph don't try it. Likewise the decent down the Southern Expressway either on the closed road or the following bike path (or South Road for that matter) is not for people not familiar with speed.

    Monatcute Road the other mentioned by JAP could be an interesting prospect to those not familiar with it. Pushing it to get down the relatively steep, very straight right up to the point where you have to brake coming back from 60 to 70 kmph to make it unscathed through a roundabout, lots of energy to loose.