MAN VERSUS ELEMENTS.

BLACK SHEEP BAUM TAKE ON TASSIE. PART ONE

By Black Sheep Cycling

July 17^th, 2019

happy anniversary, boys.

To mark the one-year anniversary of Black Sheep Baum, we set some of the team a challenge worthy of the occasion. Armed with our winter-ready ELEMENTS range, their hand-built Baum bicycles and with the Queen's Long Weekend at our disposal, four members of our Melbourne-based team set out to circumnavigate Tasmania in just four days.

This is their story. Part One.

Devonport – St Mary's – Hobart – Miena – Devonport. 850km. 11,000m of vert.

Dregs, bogans and third-generation morons.

Leo Schofield’s description of Tasmanians isn’t flattering. He described his time on the island as “the unhappiest episode of his life” and said the place drove him to a nervous breakdown. But it sounded ok to us. In fact, it seemed like a solid idea to try and circumnavigate it in just four days. It’s a small island, after all. Bit lumpy perhaps. Bit chilly in winter. But still. We think we're athletes. We know how to suffer, how to push ourselves. We’re hard.

Now, I’m going to caveat this by stating that Tasmania is bloody stunning. It really is. It’s an outrageous landscape and one of the most entertaining places to ride a bike in Australia. But it can also be hard to fully appreciate the natural beauty in things when you can’t see straight, or breathe properly, or stop sobbing. And our proposed route – prepared by the wonderful Sofia Tsamassiros of Eudaimonia Tasmanian Cycling Tours – was front-end loaded. Her rationale was if we could push through the hardest days early we would have the momentum to finish it off, even if our legs were cooked.

We don’t like Sofia anymore.

Day 1 — 243km — 4300m. Devonport to St Mary’s, via Ben Lomond National Park.

After taking the overnight ferry from Melbourne, we rolled off at sunrise in Devonport. It was cold. Really, really bloody cold. We sought shelter in a café, met up with the support team and reviewed the plan for the day. 240km of rolling roads, some known, some unknown. And then there was the '?' on the map at the 120km mark. An optional detour. A right hand turn into Ben Lomond National Park and the famous Jacobs Ladder climb. We’d all seen the photos, heard the stories of this legendary climb. It was one of the main reasons we were here. We wanted to conquer it.

Jacobs Ladder – the bit everyone knows from the photos – is easy. It’s the 15km of climbing that comes before – all gravel, all steep - that ruins you.

The thing they don’t tell you about Jacobs Ladder is that the ladder – the bit everyone knows from the photos – is easy. Sure, it’s 12.5% and it’s on gravel that’s loose AF. But it’s short and punchy, and the view is distracting. It’s the 15km of climbing that comes before – all gravel, all steep - that ruins you.

But we had to do it. So we briefly exchanged looks of regret, put on a brave face for Instagram, and pushed on to the top. And the photos tell the story. The view back down the cutting and into the valley is extraordinary, completely unique, and utterly worth the slog to the top. It’s an absolute bucket-list cycling experience.

Unfortunately for us, it only came at the halfway mark of day one. We still had 100km to go, the sun was setting, and the kitchen at the St Mary’s Hotel – our final destination for the day – closed at 7:30pm.

After a brief stint cruising on the main highway, we made the mistake – again – of following the ‘more interesting’ route and the remainder of the day degenerated into a mad-max style slog through a state forest and a series of increasingly dodgy gravel logging tracks. The sun disappeared, forcing us to navigate through the forest and dodge Tasmania’s suicidal marsupial population via the headlights of the support car. The words ‘stitch-up’ were frequently heard, along with a fair collection of more colorful phrases.

We ultimately rolled into St Mary’s in pitch black, broken, emotional and starving. Luckily the kitchen was still open and proper old-school country hospitality was extended to us. Pints all round, massive chicken parmas, hot showers, and half a bottle of local whisky later and we all felt renewed.

Day 2 – 221km – 2500m. St Mary’s to Hobart, via Sam’s incessant whining about his knee.

The next morning spirits were again high, and we kitted up and rolled out before sunrise, optimistic that day two would be more straightforward. We were following the coast south to Hobart, which meant sealed roads, coastal views, and less climbing. The morning featured our first glimpses of snow for the trip on the mountains outside St Mary’s, but we otherwise ticked through the next 200km with relative ease, stopping occasionally for coffee on the side of the road (pro tip: before you roll out each morning, make sure your soigneur fills a thermos with freshly brewed aeropress).

We ignored the sobbing, told him to harden up and pop a few painkillers.

A largely uneventful day, 220km and 2500m of climbing had never felt so (comparatively) easy. In fact, the only real challenge for the day was watching Sam fill his cleats with mud mid-afternoon and then battle for half a kilometre to clip back in. At some point in this titanic struggle his knee decided it was pretty much done with being twisted and forced and caved in in protest. We ignored the sobbing, told him to harden up and pop a few painkillers. We cruised into Hobart as the sun set and were treated to the stunning view of the city lights twinkling over the water. Life was good.