Todays rides

[mezla]

So, I was going great guns... had just closed a gap from a bunch of the 30-34 group to a little breakaway ahead and felt great. Then, my bike decided to have a total hissy fit. Chain wedged solidly between cassette and wheel... had to be driven to Stromlo Forest Park where (after quite a while) a lockring tool was found, allowing me to unstuck my chain. After all that, only had time for the 68km, so just rode it slowly with a mate who'd stopped when he saw my predicament. So slowly that I only drank 600ml of water the whole way. Quite disappointing, as I wanted to really go hard at the 105km and see how I faired after some good carbo-loading prep. Did a half lake at speed on the way home just to burn some energy... feel like I could ride again.

Anyways, had fun, was nice to take it easy and watch my mate suffering beside me

Great to see so many cyclists of all persuasions out on a beautiful day. The number of tandems was high... funny things they are

The 2012 Amy's Ride jersey is really nicely designed too. Feels very nice too... top notch.

[the_big_fella]

mezla, sorry to hear about your mechanical issues. hope no damage was done.
Agree that it was a great day.
I really enjoyed the ride, but the urriara climb nearly wrecked me. I'm not a natural climber being 90kg and 6ft5, so it was definitely a challenging 68km. Was my first foray on those roads and can't wait to get back out there...once my legs have recovered...

[twizzle]

mezla, sorry to hear about your mechanical issues. hope no damage was done.
Agree that it was a great day.
I really enjoyed the ride, but the urriara climb nearly wrecked me. I'm not a natural climber being 90kg and 6ft5, so it was definitely a challenging 68km. Was my first foray on those roads and can't wait to get back out there...once my legs have recovered...

Light-arse, I'm 6'3" and 105kg, you have no excuses

[the_big_fella]

mezla, sorry to hear about your mechanical issues. hope no damage was done.
Agree that it was a great day.
I really enjoyed the ride, but the urriara climb nearly wrecked me. I'm not a natural climber being 90kg and 6ft5, so it was definitely a challenging 68km. Was my first foray on those roads and can't wait to get back out there...once my legs have recovered...

Light-arse, I'm 6'3" and 105kg, you have no excuses

Fair point well made, twizzle.
I definitely have to work on my hills...

[Cruiserman]

Light-arse, I'm 6'3" and 105kg, you have no excuses

What he said 6'2 and 95 you are a positive rake.

[mezla]

mezla, sorry to hear about your mechanical issues. hope no damage was done.
Agree that it was a great day.

Awaiting to see if damage was done. Bike is with LBS.

I really enjoyed the ride, but the urriara climb nearly wrecked me. I'm not a natural climber being 90kg and 6ft5, so it was definitely a challenging 68km. Was my first foray on those roads and can't wait to get back out there...once my legs have recovered...

If the ride doesn't wreck you, are you going fast enough? I think not
My five and dime advice: Meditate on Rules #5 and #10

[Ross]

Rode out to SFP this morning was going to get in some crit training but it was too foggy. I almost ran off the track several times just in the one lap and I don't think I exceeded 20km/h!

[HAKS]

itching for a ride. Waiting on a new BB and tools to change it from Amazon. Arrived in the country on Mon and cleared customs but yet to be seen in Cbr

[twizzle]

Rode out to SFP this morning was going to get in some crit training but it was too foggy. I almost ran off the track several times just in the one lap and I don't think I exceeded 20km/h!

I reckon I could almost ride around there with my eyes shut.

Far too many laps while recovering from a broken toe two years ago. Literally - hundreds of laps.

[skull]

Did my first ACT bunch ride today. The one that left from the shop at Phillip. I was amazed by the amount of riders, easily 60. Any way was a good ride till I got a flat and had to stop. After I changed it I rode off and realised I had no idea where I was (due to only being here a week, fog, and dark). So I rode up the first hill I came across, I think it was called Red Hill.

It climbed above the fog and the view was brilliant, couldn't see any of Canberra but it looked like a giant sea of fog and in the distance I could see Black Mountain.I could just make out the flag pole off Parliament house so I headed off in that general direction till I got to familiar territory. From there I just rode around the lake getting some kilometres up.

Ended up getting 50kms out this morning, tomorrow I am heading to the crit race at Stromolo. I drove out there this afternoon to find out how to get there. It is only 15km from my flat but I am concerned that I will be pushing time riding there after work tomorrow as I won't get home till about 1720, then ride out there (get lost a couple of times), register, and be ready to race by 1830.

[mrgolf]

Yep, Canberra can be pretty special looking in the morning.

Bilbs medium Dunlop loop so as not to overdo training before Mont.

[rockviewau]

first ride in AGES!!! 17.2km ride to work in 48mins

nice ride but on the mtb, as i need to cross onto a bit of dirt up here which wouldnt be too nice for my roadie

[mrgolf]

108kms (6 laps) over 24hrs at the mont. Our team took out category. I am in a world of pain and am very tired. Riding a hard tail alu 26er isn't very kind on a bumpy course like Kowen. Happy with result and riding. Had a good time.

[skull]

Good stuff I rode past the mont today on one of my explore my new home rides.

I rode from town to Lake George, then back via Bungendore and through to Queanbeyan and back to town. 101km total, and I would like to note that rather surprisingly the coffee from the bakery at Bungendore was rather good.

Also what is with all the crap road works everywhere here in the ACT? Gravel madness coming out heading North on the Federal Hwy, and then the crap roadworks where the Mont was being held, also the roadworks out towards SFP. It seems every road out of the ACT is deliberately turned to gravel.

[jcjordan]

Good stuff I rode past the mont today on one of my explore my new home rides.

I rode from town to Lake George, then back via Bungendore and through to Queanbeyan and back to town. 101km total, and I would like to note that rather surprisingly the coffee from the bakery at Bungendore was rather good.

Also what is with all the crap road works everywhere here in the ACT? Gravel madness coming out heading North on the Federal Hwy, and then the crap roadworks where the Mont was being held, also the roadworks out towards SFP. It seems every road out of the ACT is deliberately turned to gravel.

The roads people here in the ACT like to use a lot of what I like to call ‘spray and pray’.
to get another 3-4 years out of a road they spray down liquid asphalt, throw a coat of crushed rock on top and then pray that the cars will roll it in rather than doing the job properly and putting a roller over it.
The result is that we get weeks of loose gravel flying everywhere and the opportunity to work on our handling skills by riding on marbles.
It’s just a crapy and lazy way to try and save money.
I make a point of contacting Canberra Connect and informing that they are making my trip dangerous and that if they don’t sweep up the bike lane I will hold them responsible for any harm that I come to. It generally gets a response from a street sweeper in a day or two.

[Ross]

Some friends tried to go for a ride on the Federal Hwy out to the Tulip Farm on Friday morn and didn't even get as far as Eaglehawk and they had to turn around and come back becasue of the loose gravel and the fact that the passing cars were peppering them with gravel as well.

[mezla]

Your friends are soft Ross (See Rule #5)

In other news, I averaged 37.7 on my (12.5km) ride to work today. New PB woot!

[gassyndrome]

That's pretty bloody fast for a commute. Where do you ride from/to?

[skull]

Did a nice uriarra/cotter loop to spin the legs over. Doing the five peaks tomorrow.

[mezla]

gassyndrome, I ride from Downer to Deakin... so very straight and very flat. Traffic lights are annoying, but my tracker autopauses under 5km/h.

[HAKS]

CCC ITT this morning from SFP to Mt MacDonald. Pretty rooted now after doing it on a sick body . Had about 4 ppl behind catch me and I managed to pull 30sec back to my minute man so not to bad. It wasn't a graded start so hence had everyone mixed together.

[skull]

Did the rotary five peaks. Was a good ride, but geez the rotary crew were majorly disorganised. For a $55 entry fee (and that was the early bird entry) I expected a lot more than what they were running.

I would do that ride again, but I don't think I would pay to do another rotary ride after their efforts today.

[mezla]

Yeah, I just finished Five Peaks. Did all five and the long way home, then rode home. 120km all up... very sore hands and bum though because I rode with a slower mate and it took aaaaages lol.

Huge 10hr cleaning session at my place yesterday - cancer patient coming home - immunocompromised, hence huge amounts of Dettol... and huge amounts of Dettol fumes. Skull, if you rode past anyone coughing and spluttering, that was probably me.

Pretty knackered now... craving meat and fat something awful!

EDIT: Skull, regarding the disorganisation, I suspect you're referring to the total lack of signage in Duffy and surrounds. Apparently some bogan f*cks took all the arrows off. Ah, south side.... gotta love it. I was pretty pissed off at the time, but in hindsight, I think it went ok... they really needed to get some marshalls out there pronto as soon as they heard about it though.

[skull]

Yeah, that was around where we got lost. Didn't matter too much as I was riding with some locals so we made our own way to red hill.

Another negative is there was no marshal at the top of the first peak, I was the second rider up and on the up, we noticed the marshals down below at the entrance to the base still sticking up signs. Also the start was all very hap hazard. So if I wanted to get my brevet card signed off I would have had to wait and when we got to the top of the second peak the marshals had only just pulled up in their car.

Another bit of confusion was Anzac parade, with one marshal telling people to turn right but it wasn't all that clear and a lot of people went straight.

And at the end of the 100km where the bike track had been washed away, we followed the detour signs back through the wetlands as the rotary ones were not obvious as to which way to go.

Also top points to the moron in the white station wagon on Mt Ainsle (the second climb). Again I was in the first lot of guys to get to the top and on the way down the main body was going up. Now you would think if you were driving your car up the road and all these cyclists in front of you are going up too, that when they get to the top they would be riding back down. So if you had half a brain, you wouldn't go on the opposite side of the road around a blind corner.

Well that happened as I was coming down, was at about 50km/h and then all of a sudden a wagon coming straight at me and not moving. I had a few choices:
1. hit the brakes hard and hope I stop in time (wasn't going to happen)
2. he moves back to the left onto the correct side of the road (was a bit hard with bikes in the lane going up)
3. I go bush to the left to avoid the car (would have definitely come off)
4. slam straight into the wagon
5. the stars align and a combination of various things happen and I live

Well luckily for me 5 happened, I hit the brakes hard (had serious death wobbles going on), the diver has realised "oh crap" I am about to have a cyclist as a hood ornament and started looking to move left, the riders riding up have realised what was about to happen (Probably due to my squealing) and pushed left to let the van move over. I manged to squeeze past the side of the van and the left edge of the road (probably a bit less than a metre of space) and stay upright. I did leave a little nugget in my pants, but hey if skiddies in my knicks is all that happens I am ok with that.

When we got to the water stop at around the 90km mark I asked the marshal how many groups had come past, she said none and we were the first. I don't know if that was due to our detour or if the few that had gotten in front decided to only to the short loop. My total time for the complete loop came to 3hr 30min approximately and with some detours ended up just under 110km.

[PawPaw]

100k yesterday, and this 93k today.
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/79259856

I bonked around the 75k mark as I didn't take carbs with me, and didn't drink enough.
The climbs were more intense than the map makes them (18 and 20%).
As my two buddies hadn't been over the route before, I did a lot of leading on the flats at higher intensities - 50+ on Anzac Ave, 40s elswhere.
Hence the blow up.
We also had 3 tube failures, none mine today, and we all needed to break the ride at Redcliffe for a coffee.
Great ride with great company and great vistas - mountain, lake, bay.