Life is all about learning new things. Today i learned many things. I learned that even when you think the temperature has reached absolute zero, it can get colder. I learned that leg warmers go UNDER your knicks, and there is a good reason why. I learned that there is a guy out there who rides with his son to school on Crossmax SLRs. And i learned that i am still nowhere near fast enough.
I got up at 3:45, got my stuff together and hopped in the car shivering so much i could barely turn the key. My car said it was 3 degrees and i should beware of 'Possible Icy Roads'. Wasn't it a great day for my long sleeve jersey and bib longs to be in the wash! The summer stuff would have to do, along with full finger gloves, arm warmers and leg warmers (which i had never worn before).
In spite of the weather a reasonable group turned up and we set off. You remember the clicking noise that was so annoying on my last ride? Well i tightened up that cassette lockring as it was a little loose and said 'aha! That'll fix it'. Yea sure like hell it did.
CLICK CLICK it went,
CLICK CLICK. Barely rode a k before there was an exasperated "who the f%*&$ is that clicking!?".
sorry
The ride went alright though, after a call of 'car back' heading towards cooroy we were passed by two slow scooters. I said more to myself than anyone else "you only live once" and took off after them, almost caught em too
. But i should know by now not to do that sort of thing on this ride as i need all the go i have for the last section. After a beautiful run through Black Mountain and Cootharaba (sun rising over mist etc etc aww isn't that wonderful) we rolled towards boreen point at a leisurely pace. All but one of the other riders turned around before we got into the town though, which seemed odd but i just kept going. Met up with another group at boreen point and turned around, and after a k or so decided that their 30kmh was a bit too slow. I saw the original group off in the distance so popped off towards them. Just before i reached them, the 2nd group suddenly roared past doing 40+!
This ride confuses the hell out of me, i can never work out where or when it is suddenly 'on' but when it is they go nuts. I held with them at up to 52kmh for a few k but eventually dropped off (along with 2 others, so not too bad). Once i was dropped i didn't see them again but the remaining distance to Noosa went ok. The only downer being that by this time not only could i not feel my fingers, toes or face, i couldn't really feel my kidneys either, so getting into the car and cranking up the heater felt great.
Popped over to the river for some breakfast, then back to tinbeerwah, took the freshly restored Lawrencia out of the car and set off to do a section of the Noosa L'Eroica course. Went pretty well for the most part, not as nice as my Mercier but still a good ride, even with the massive jumps between gears with a 14-28 5 speed. Just a few k out of cooroy i notice a strange feeling through one pedal, and find the left crank arm had come loose. Had to Michael Milton it the rest of the way and even with that was only 40odd seconds down on the best time for that ride. I'll have to head out there again soon to get that time. The RACQ centre in cooroy were nice enough to lend me a socket to tighten the cranks and i got back to noosa fine.
More food, then home to sleep all arvo. I could get used to living like that
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I found it interesting to note the change in temperature, when i left noosa for the early ride the car said 6, when i got back 14, when i got back from the second ride 24. Sadly the smell was a constant (pizza, wd40 and sweat, yum).
Will rest tomorrow, then saturday i will try and sneak in a quick spin (might not have time), sunday possibly group ride, monday or tuesday planning on a 160k plus steady ride.