The 26th January is
Australia Day, commemorating the founding of the colony of New South Wales on 26th
January 1788. The fact that it commemorates colonisation of Australia is
obviously pretty controversial, but whether you agree with the concept or not
the day is a public holiday here.
Amongst my cycling friends, a
public holiday is an opportunity to get together and ride! At Easter time, my
friends will be making the most of the 4-day weekend to do a longer cycle tour
than you can normally manage without using up leave days. Therefore, Australia
Day brought a chance to get together during the week and go for a longer
day-ride to demonstrate to people what sort of daytime heat and ride duration
to expect for the tour. With a destination of Hervey Range Heritage Tea Rooms,
there was a nice incentive to make it up the killer hill at the end too.
I sadly can’t join in for the
Easter tour as I will be back in the UK over that time to visit family and friends (so I
guess it’s not entirely sad!), but that doesn’t mean I can’t join in with the
training rides. So Australia Day saw me out on my bike, chasing down the group
as I had arrived at our starting point slightly late and they had already left…
I didn’t take any photos during
my ride out thanks to my objective of catching the group, but to be honest it doesn’t make
for the most interesting ride. Following the road west out of Townsville, it is
reasonably straight and barely even undulating right up until the big hill leading
up to the Hervey Range. This gives a ride profile for the 42kms that looks like
this:
What a hill!! The last time I
tried it was for an overnight trip, and I had struggled up the hill taking many stops
along the way. This time I really surprised myself, making a non-stop journey
not only up the hill, but the whole way from Townsville to the Tea Rooms in 2
hours 20 minutes. I was very pleased to see that I have got so much stronger as a rider.
Once at the Tea Rooms it was easy to
spot my group thanks to all of the bikes parked up:
We enjoyed our hard-earned
breakfasts and scones and coffees, and having finally caught up to the group –
I could see them from shortly before the hill, but didn’t manage to actually
catch them – it was great to have some company at last. And while riding hard
alone hadn’t been the most fun and was not what I had planned, it was good to
know that I could make the ride on my own, and I feel it will be useful to have
that confidence for future plans :)
The ride back obviously involves
descending the same hill, and this is a far more joyous event. I flew down
without even touching my brakes, and it felt goooood…
The long slog back to town is
less enjoyable, but I made a really strong start sticking with the lead group
for quite a way before I could no longer handle the pace. I did well
considering I was carrying 3 panniers and am a less experienced rider than the
rest, but eventually I had nothing left in the tank and I dropped off the back
of the group. A while later the next group came past, but I was still
recovering from holding a pace that was too much for me, and I wasn’t able to stick with them either. I
ended up battling a brutal head wind at a slow pace for some time, before I was
finally caught by the last group and managed to stick with them.
Steadily peddling on the rear of
the group, we made it back to the edge of the city before poor Bec got a
puncture when a nail went right into her tyre. I had overtaken her when she started
to slow down, thinking she was just taking a new position in the bunch, but
when I looked round and saw her stopping I pulled up and went back to help.
As Bec worked on changing her
tube we were caught up by the final rider, and the 3 of us got the bike going
again and made it the rest of the way back to the finish point. I was pretty
much done in by then (rooted!), and the remainder of the ride back was not enjoyable –
definitely type 2 fun! Thank goodness there was a good Aussie sausage sizzle at the Bicycle Pedlar's to look forward to!
So not necessarily an interesting route but
certainly a good workout, and at about 85kms (approx. 53 miles) from my place to home again, it is by far the furthest I have ever ridden in one day. I am really glad I did
it with weight on the bike too, as my aim is to develop touring strength and
stamina rather than road biking speed. Finished off with fish and chips by the
sea that evening, it seemed a pretty good way to spend a day :)
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