Mt Baw Baw

I quite enjoyed this article and surprised myself at how keen I was to give it a crack…one day:
A wall of tarmac | RideOn

So who’s done it that can talk me out of it?

Mount Baw Baw’s too far from Melbourne to be a return ride

Challenge accepted.

Simpsons did itas per link in comments

Just make sure you have appropriate gearing. Close to the hardest climb I’ve ridden -only rating the Mortirolo a fraction harder!

As described it is a very quiet stretch of road!

^ 42/23 will be fine, won’t it?

You won’t need to change down from the big chainring for it… :cool:

I rode 39*29 on Baw Baw. I will have to check my ride file, but pretty sure cadence was under 50 RPM in many places!

Save some energy for the return - although not steep or long, there are some climbs on the way back.

Don’t do it!!!
Nah, give it a crack.
I did it last year and really struggled. Ran out of water with 3 km to go in the middle of January.
The descent was no fun either. Too steep.
I would love to do it 20kgs lighter.
It makes Donna Buang feel easy.

^ Cool. You can come with me - I know how much you love climbing. :wink:

What gearing did you run? (Normally I wouldn’t care about such trivial matters, but after dalai said he ran 39/29, I’m a bit scared.)

Just take the Kona :wink:

Find a local climb that averages around 13% like O’Hea Street http://theclimbingcyclist.com/ohea-street-the-steepest-climb-in-melbourne/and ride it with what gearing you have - then ask yourself if you can ride ~6km of that…

^ Yeah that’s not far from me – will have to give it a crack.

Might take the rack off to save weight…

I’ve done it twice, first time in the race.

It is fucking steep. In the race i rode 39/27 and was fair cooked already. The second time i did it on 39/25 and was much fresher. I just made it up. This was some years ago when I was considerably stronger. It is doable, but you won’t do it on a single speed in my opinion.

When you descend stop a few times to cool your rims down - make sure you do it.

Drive to Noojee: up to Baw Baw and back is about 100km return trip through some really beautiful countryside. Then have a pint and a burger at the pub in Noojee. It’s a fantastic day out. Just be prepared.

riding from here?

Not the best time of year to get psyched for it - snow on the ground up top, ice on shady corners coming down, and lots of winter traffic (at least on the weekends). Start doing laps of the steep side of Macedon and you should be fit for spring.

Gumtree road repeats

I actually love climbing, but not at the speeds of the skinny kids.
I had a 36/28. And was hoping for more teeth on the rear sprocket.

I should clarify, although I’m keen to give this a crack ‘one day’, it’s not going to be this year and probably not really looked at seriously until the latter half of next year. I wish I was fit enough to wake up and climb Mt Baw Baw (like dalai) but I’m not and would have to commit ~3 months of serious riding before I even decide that it’s something I want to do.

Mate and I rode noojee to mt bawbaw and back a couple years ago. Yes it is quite steep but for some reason i found mt donna buang more difficult? It was a cool day on the baw baw climb where as the donna buang was in the high 20’s/low 30’s and we started from croydon to the warby trail and then up from there. Gearing i used was 39/25 on a bike which is not overly light (old steel colnago)

It’s not a competition, dej. :stuck_out_tongue:

At the speed i ride i should hope not:)
heavymetal reminded me of the descent as well. At certain sections, releasing the brakes made the bike feel like it was taking off from under me. It was quite easy to hit 80kph. One corner i ended up going off into the dirt shoulder as i realised too late i was going too fast, there were a few small bumps and the rear locked a little so i stood it upright and just went straight on luckily no damage done.

Another nice climbing day is warby to marysville (via reefton) then back from marysville, up lake mountain and back to warby. Think its 150kms. Not as steep as baw baw but nice scenery