Pomona to Mapleton
I’m lucky enough to live in a little hinterland town called Pomona. It’s in Queensland, Australia, about 140 kms from Brisbane, the capital city. It’s about 30 kms from some of the best ocean beaches in Australia and enjoys a beautiful sub-tropical climate. Importantly for present purposes, just to the west of Noosa—the nearest beach—there’s a range of hills which provide fun roads for motorbikes. Further west are other mountain ranges and the beautiful Mary Valley which offer good, but reasonably quiet roads for bikes.
There are some great rides from Brisbane to the Mary Valley, but they are for another day.
Finally, under the heading of background, these are not serious mountains by European or US standards, but they are enough to provide excellent entertainment for old blokes on motorcycles.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was sunny and warm and I was feeling virtuous because I’d cleaned some rust spots off the outside of the chain, tightened it and taken the HISS tank sticker off without detriment to the beautiful black paint. I thought I deserved a ride. For some reason I thought it was Wednesday, so I set out for the Bellbird Creek Café, a biker-friendly place about 50 kms from home. It’s a popular destination for Brisbane based riders on their weekend day tours. The fact that I thought it was Wednesday was important because the café isn’t open on Tuesdays.
At the time I wrote this, Bellbird Creek Café was located slightly to the south south west of Kenilworth. The linked map contains a marker.
The route took me over the Bruce Highway—the main highway up the east coast of Australia, at this point undeveloped by European and probably US standards. Immediately on the other side is a pretty road climbing quickly up final few metres to the Black Mountain ridge which has enough twists and turns to make it fun on the bike. If you weren’t concentrating on the road, you’d have a good views to the coast and the Pacific Ocean to the left and the Mary Valley to the right. I was going to take photos, honest I was, but I was having too much fun.
Quite quickly, you turn off and head briefly into the valley before climbing again onto an adjacent ridge which carries you inland. It too is an excellent road for the CB1100; there’s a good surface, lots of corners of varying degrees of difficulty; and not much traffic. It’s a rural setting, so there’s bush (what we call forest down here), grazing land and occasional houses. Coming down off the ridge you are quickly on the Eumundi-Kennilworth Road which is good and fast and there’s not much traffic so the CB1100 can stretch its metaphorical legs.
Just before I reached Kennilworth it dawned on me that it was, in fact Tuesday. Why do we have these realisations? I hadn’t been thinking about what day it was; it just hit me that there wasn’t going to be coffee, or indeed anything, at Bellbird Creek.
On the up side, it solved a dilemma: how was I going to get home reasonably quickly without retracing my steps. The obvious answer involved a treat so I turned left onto the Obi Obi Road.
It’s a beauty. It races across a plain through farmland with enough turns to make it interesting and even require a very occasional gear change, although the CB1100 has so much torque it often is more for effect than need. Whatever, you can maintain the speed limit easily. At the end of the plain, though, the road reaches a steep climb up to the town of Mapleton on the ridge of the Blackall Range. It’s a beauty: twisty and safer for being one way for the best bits. I was behind a car but was saved from this by roadworks which meant traffic had to stop. When it started I jumped the queue and the CB1100 and I had the twisty bits all to ourselves with no pressure.
If you were a tourist, you’d stop at the top and walk into the falls. A couple of bikes were parked at the start of the walk. I kept going to Mapleton where I had the coffee I’d promised myself.
The CB1100 at Mapleton
If one heads south from Mapleton, there’s a lovely ride along the ridge with great views to the sea and Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. It’s got some good corners and there is a couple of places where the road dips and then climbs again sharply. I was once hurtling along there when a car in front of me ran over a snake and threw it into the air. Luckily it missed me.
I was heading north, so I headed down toward the coast. There are two fantastic twisty bits on the way down this hill. I haven’t yet ridden up it on the CB1100, but going down is pretty damned good. It brings you out in the large town of Nambour where you get to make some route choices. Because it was getting warm (35°C, 92°F) I decided on pace and took to the Bruce Highway for a fast trip home.
What a tough way to spend an hour and a half on a Tuesday morning: fun roads on the CB1100, a cup of coffee; and home for lunch.
It’s a hard life.
