First Mt Donna Threepeat for the year

For previous overseas trips, my training staple has been the Mt Donna Threepeat. The best local climb with some length - 16.8km and 6.4% average for each lap.

The major issue with using this for Northern hemisphere Autumn assaults is the cold, as Mt Donna Buang is the closest snow play area to Melbourne. Although the snow is inconsistent, the road ascends the shaded Southern side of the mountain adding to the chill....

Some patches of sun on the lower slopes

Summit 4 degrees celcius and a bitterly cold wind - top of the third repeat late in the day

 Total 103km, 50.4km climbing 3240m vertical gain.

Strade Bianche

After not having ridden in the hills the last couple of weeks, on Saturday I decided I couldn't handle what would be a slow time for me up the 1 in 20 (extremely popular ride on Mt Dandenong with over 33,000 times posted on Strava) so turned left instead onto the Basin-Olinda rd.

As the Basin-Olinda rd is gravel for 5.5km of the 6km, I have avoided it all these years like many other local cyclists. But I'd seen some positive comments about the climb and surface being fine on road tyres recently so was intrigued. It was still wet and a little slippery especially in the lower half from the rain earlier last week but was fine on 23mm tyres. Wonderful little climb and extremely enjoyable to ride another local climb I hadn't been on before. Loved it that much I had to ride it again Monday.

Keen now to search out other gravel roads!

Continued across to Montrose and back over the hill to Olinda and down the 1 in 20 to home...