Great commute today. First time I've done the whole distance on my Bad Boy. The Cateye V3 reports 33.5km to Bikely and Bikemap.net are only 1km out. The new Hope Vision One LED Light is pretty spectacular but it is very unforgiving of battery voltage. Its performance with my batteries has pointed out that there's a weakness in my current charger. So I've splashed on a smart-charger to deal with that (which puts me over the cost of Ay Ups in total... sheesh... could have just bought those at the start but I do like having ALL my lights use the same batteries). Back to the commute.
The ride in was pretty cold. Frost on the grass and lingering mist around the creeks. I was dismayed that my freshly charged batteries only lasted 20minutes in the Hope Vision 1 before the light said, "Uh-uh. You little AA's are not putting out enough electricity for me. I'm off." The Spiderfire didn't let me down and I understand more why Audax insist on two independent lights.
Passed and was passed by more cyclists than I've seen to date on the paths. It was almost like a Sunday afternoon except the sun hadn't risen and it was about 2 degrees! All were very polite, particularly the person who was crossing a bridge and stopped to give way. Hats off to that cyclist. When I arrived at the Burwood Hwy. and Mountain Hwy. intersection a 'roadie' shot over across red lights. I was a little unimpressed but I thought if Connect East or whomever it is would pull their collective thumbs out and finish the bridge we could avoid that all-together.
The climb southward from Burwood Hwy. to High Street Road is probably the toughest for me. My HRM said I hit 188 bpm which is 5 over my 'maximum' but it was for only a few seconds.
Gave a feeble chase of the 'roadie' up the hill but he was far too fit for me to get near. Maybe in a few months.
Passed someone who appeared to have Ay Ups and I was converted on the spot - incredibly bright but as I got closer I felt 'high beamed' and had to guess where the path was. Thing is, at that time, there was more than enough light to see by. Perhaps he needed some inner-glow of blinding the unsuspecting passer-by?
When I passed the paddocks south of Brady Road it felt the coldest part of the ride. The horses didn't seem to mind.
Returning I was a determined to make it all the way. I'd fitted some spare batteries, mixing mAH ratings (apparently not a good idea because the weakest one will upset the arrangement) and the Hope seemed happy with this. In fact it got me to within 5 metres of my back gate - no exaggeration. On the way saw some lovely sights - the moon was gorgeous, horses heads down munching grass in clouds of their own breath back lit by the lights of the freeway, rabbits dashing off from the edge of the path, two ducks standing on the path and gawking about until the last minute, and another cyclist who climbs much better than I do.
At the last part of my trip, doing a right hand turn into my driveway, a lovely man in a 4WD decided he didn't want to stop accelarating for the one second it would have taken to let me take the turn according to the road rules and overtook me a few inches from me extended right arm. I gave him a serve but he wouldn't have heard anything in that huge vehicle with a diesel engine. Ah well. It didn't ruin my trip. I was stoked to do the full thing on the bad boy.
Total kms: 67