The Moruya Bunch

Congo is not the easiest place to start a ride from.  Camped at the end of a lagoon at the base of a small headland that protects you from the southerly breezes, you have a view across the beach to the waves breaking over a rock platform, and it is early enough that the birds that were up before you continue to sing.  Just try hoping on a bike and riding away from that scene, knowing that within the first few kilometres the road will bend upwards at a gradient that even when warmed up would be too steep to be pleasant.

Ride away we do, for the second time in two days, intending to follow the same route as yesterday, the views had from the bike in these parts too good to ever go stale.

Having climbed the hill and rolled into Moruya, we start to see other cyclists, and they appear to be heading to the same place.  Being just before 7:30 – my instinct tells me a bunch ride is about to start.  One of the downsides of travelling is the limited opportunity to ride with others, and the lack of camaraderie and safety that comes with riding in numbers.

We change course and ride through the centre of town hoping to find the start point – and we’re in luck – a dozen or more cyclists milling around.  Here’s how you join a bunch ride:

“G’day, youse doing a bunch ride”

“Yeah”

“Mind if we join you”

“Nah”

A jumble of voices try to tell me the route, not realising that I am not a local and don’t recognise the names of half the towns or any of the streets.  All I picked up was this; there are some hills that some people ride hard; the bunch may break up on the hills, but it re-forms later.  In other words – hang on – because if we don’t we’ll be lost.

Like all bunches, there is little fanfare to indicate the ride has started, the one or two riders circling in the car park are joined by a third and then they head off, the rest of us madly trying to clip in and catch up, as the leaders by now are half way down the main street and heading for the bridge over the river.

There is a singular reason why Moruya is not more famous than it is, and the locals love it as they do: there is no single feature that is spectacular, that dazzles you, that draws people here.  Instead, there is harmony, the natural elements of the river, the harbour, the forest and the mountains balanced against each other.  And the town that sits in amongst it, just the right size, with the right mix of restored heritage buildings, modern designs and ‘70’s misses.

Yesterday we enjoyed each element on it’s own, riding through the forest, then along the river, then out to the heads: today, chasing the bunch across the bridge, I sit up for a moment and enjoy the view of all the elements together: sublime.  In the distance, sapphire mountains just like in the poem, underneath me, the river ringed by gums that broadens into a harbour on one side, and on the other, disappears into the mountains.

Only for a moment can I sit up and enjoy the view, the bunch fast disappearing in front of me as we turn and follow the river.  We leave town pulling 35km/hr and no suggestion that the pace will ease any time soon.

Back when I used to regularly ride the Sunday bunch in Penrith, there was always a bunch captain to keep things in order: Reg was the bunch captain when I started.  The Sunday bunch, being a recovery ride, was a 28-30km/hr ride, two abreast at all times and leave no gaps: all this policed by the captain.  This was my expectation when I saw the cyclists milling about in town.

But that was a Sunday bunch, this is a Saturday bunch and is beginning to feel like a substitute for a scratch race.  Ability being the difference between expectations and disappointment, I began to suspect this bunch ride was going to leave me a little disappointed.  Speed dating style conversations became the norm as the arrangement of riders at the head of the bunch steadily changed, each rider attempting to do a turn alongside the main pacesetter.

Not normally needing an opportunity to look a fool, I created one anyway.  Having done a brief turn at the front, and hearing a bit more about the route, nearing the hills I dropped back to pass on my new found knowledge.  But wanting to climb the hills with the leaders I proceeded to race past the entire bunch as the pace picked up approaching the first climb – nothing screams ‘look at me’ quite like overtaking the entire bunch as they hammer towards a climb.

Reaching the front just as we hit the climb I am completely spent – breathless – and promptly blow up – slowing to a crawl – to be passed by the bunch before we top out.

The bunch now splintered into groups of twos and threes, we continue to ride at a solid pace until the rest spot, where the leaders wait for the rest of us.

We return via a different route that takes in a few of the villages along the coast with each small rise attacked by the leaders.  By the time we turn onto the main road home the bunch has split again, and the leading group sits on a steady 40km/hr back to town: a fact I can confirm only as far as the old granite quarry, where I blew up again and then dawdled back to town where we all met at a coffee shop on the edge of town.

If you needed one more reason to move to this town then this coffee shop will provide it – making as it does the best coffee on the south coast.

For Pam & I we still have the hill to climb to return to Congo, which we do with aching legs and wounded pride – both soothed by the sight of an echidna crossing the road in front of us.

Lung busting bunch rides with friendly people through gorgeous scenery – I must be somewhere on the NSW coast