It started as a dare…

Last weekend was the monthly BBC ride. However with the Around the Bay in a Day ride just the week before, many of the usual riders seemed to have backed off. Its funny but I only just realised that while I view cycling as a personal challenge and I really enjoy pushing myself every week, for most people cycling is actually just a fun activity and they are quite happy to have an easy ride. I have to remind myself that not everyone’s as driven as I am and that’s perfectly OK.

Anyway, the BBC ride this month was split up into two groups- the 7am fast ride to Mordi and back; and the usual 7.30am easy ride to Black Rock and back. Being the limits pushing guy I am (hehe), I went for the 7am ride. Polka Dot Lisa wasn’t able to make the ride this weekend due to her working at the Illustrators Festival so it was just me heading down to BBC for the start.

After a late start (damn the snooze button!) I hammered all the way down via Brunswick St, Collins St, St Kilda Rd. I think I averaged about 27kph which wasn’t bad at all, however I missed having PDL along to pace with. :(

The ride down to Mordi started as a fairly easy pace as far as I was concerned. Commi from BV (Matt) rode next to me and somewhere around the Hampton area I piped up and asked the guys up the front if we could “pick it up a bit”. Opps... BIG mistake! Andy, Stu and one or two others took off like a rocket and that was the last we saw of them. “Hey guys, I said a bit faster, not 10kph”! LOL

Into Black Rock I did my usual trick of pulling out and sprinted at the top of the hill, only this time everyone tried to follow. I really MUST time my sprint a bit later. 1km of sprinting is a bit too much and everyone streams past me at the end!

As we rolled through the hills around Ricketts Point we spread out a bit as usual but we all pretty much grouped back up as we rolled into Mordi for a quick stop. Apparently we were only a few mins later then the uber fast dudes which was nice to know. It was warming up into quite a warm day so I took off the arm warmers. Unfortunately 10 km later I had wished I had taken off the leg warmers as well. I’m still getting the dressing for the temperature thing dialed in at this stage.

The ride back we all spread out a bit. My legs were feeling the fast pace down and I dropped off the pace in the hills. Thankfully, jmcleod waited for me which I really appreciated and we rode all the way back just the two of us. Along the way I noticed that his rear wheel was very out of true which upon making it back to the BBC we discovered was a broken spoke and cracking all through the rear wheel. Yikes!

As the day was so nice and sunny, BBC had moved the breaky outside, however the usual buffet breakfast was replaced with cardboard trays filled with an assortment of food. No fruit salad (wow, a mandarin!), no cereal, no refills of juice. Not impressed seeing as most of the foods was not low fat. Grrrr…

Over breakfast I was working on Matt re a ride up the 1:20 that afternoon. The night before I casually mention if anyone would like to do the Kew Bouli after the BBC ride as I wanted to do some more hills work and Matt jokingly suggested I do the 1:20 ride again. Taking the dare, I said that I would if he joined me. Matt was a apprehensive about doing the 1:20 but I nagged him until he relented. Oh I’m such a bad influence, LOL!

After breakfast a group of us rode to Melbourne Bicycle Centre to get Matt a new tyre and jmcleod some new wheels. 15 mins later and jmcleod wheels his bike out with a killer set of Mavic wheels (very bling!) while Matt has a new tyre. I brought nothing! :( Back at Matts place we fit the tyre and then ride over to my place to load up for the drive out to Mt Dandenong.

The day was heating up into the high 20’s and we were both pretty hot by the time we got to Northcote. A couple of glasses of Poweraide and a cool down, then it was into the Renault and onto the freeway to attack the famed 1:20 ride!

Because it was so hot and we had already done a good 74km’s of riding already, we parked right at the base of the climb rather than Anaconda for a warm up ride. A quick dunny stop and then it was straight into the 1:20 climb.

Matt quickly dropped me (just like I knew he would) and I pretty much did the same as last time, spinning in the mid 80’s rpm at around 11kph. It’s slow, damn slow, but any harder and I can feel my legs blowing out and my heart rate overdoing it. Last time I had to take 2 rest stops on the way up and my aim was to just stop the once this time which I managed to do.

As I stopped and sat on the bike catching my breath, I glanced down the mountain into the trees and there, about 50 metres down the hill in amongst the trees and rocks was a late model Honda road motorcycle leaning against a tree, facing back up the hill. It didn’t look damaged other than the rear cowling missing the top part and I couldn’t see how on earth it could have been ridden down there. I was worried that a rider may have crashed and somewhere down there was a hurt rider but I couldn’t see any sign of anyone. Another motorcycle was coming up the hill so I waved him over and showed him what I saw. He and his pillion had the same thoughts as me but unable to see any sign of a person, we both left to go on our way.

Now back on the road I only had about 2km to go. As I rounded the final corner I could see Matt standing at the timing finish line with his camera. So I rode towards him with one finger raised to signify how many stops I took. Next time- zero stops is my aim!

As I rolled to a stop in the small park at the top, I retained a bit more dignity than the previous week, and just sat down on the grass rather than falling in a heap. I was still rooted after a pretty hard day but happy all the same. Matt was pretty thrilled to have done it as well, giving me a big hi-five in celebration. He was hard to convince to do it before hand, but now he was rapt to have made it!

Both of us were pretty hungry after the meager breakfast at BBC, so we stopped at a café with tables and chairs out front and both ordered open gourmet burgers and soy chi lattes. Mmmm… it was good!

The ride back down was awesome with both of us flying all the way down. I lead the way with Matt right behind me. I think my top speed was about 55kph and it was a buzz. Approximately nine minutes of downhill is a ton of fun and at the bottom Matt and I were both buzzing! We packed up and headed back, stopping at Anaconda (Matt discovered he needed new brake pads) and a stop at Glenvale Rd to get some photos to show the steepness of the road (pics weren’t much use- I need a level and protractor).

After dropping Matt at home, I drove back home, but along the way, PDL called me to say she had just had a crash. She sounded a bit upset and shaken up with a few tears over the phone. I was really worried about her and said I would come and pick her up as fast as I could but to her credit, she wanted to get back on and ride home. I rushed all the way home, thinking she would beat me but as it turned out I got home about 3 minutes before she did. As she came in I was shocked to see how banged up she was- ripped clothing, weeping big grazes on her knees, shoulder, chin and assorted bruises and scratches all over. My poor polkadot was a mess!

I immediately went into nurse mode and helped get her out of her ripped clothing so we could wash all the wounds. It turned out that PDL got her front wheel caught in a tram track at the top of Brunswick St after some guy was sitting in his car with his door wide open, leaving PDL to ride out over the tram tracks. After hitting the ground and sliding along, not one miserable prick bothered to stop and help her. She was lying on the ground, bloody, with her bike in the middle of the road and no one gave a damn! One cyclist that was behind her slowed down but never said a word and kept on riding. What is wrong with people?!?

Anyway, PDL was pretty sore and lacking much in the way of bandages we drove up to a chemist to stock up. At the chemist, the woman there suggested we use the spray on bandages as nothing else they had would cover the size of the grazes. As it turned out this was the WORST thing we could have done. The spray on bandage was SUPER painful, leaving PDL screaming in pain. Never EVER use that stuff. It’s useless.

The next day (Sunday), PDL again had to head into the Illustrators Festival. As she had a lift already arranged she was right to go so I went for a ride with my sister Sara and Dave (Percrime) from BV. We met in the city and rode down to Port Melbourne on the bike track. It was a really windy day with the wind pushing up sideways on the road, but thankfully the wind was mostly at our backs so it wasn’t too bad.

This was Sara’s first time down Beach Rd on the bike so it was a new experience for her. Unfortunately with the crap weather, not a lot of riders were out so she missed that part of the experience, but it was good all the same. Dave and I were in super cruise mode with the wind pushing us along while Sara was doing fine also (tho still a good 8kph slower than I would have liked).

We stopped in at Startline to see Liz and then kept on riding to Black Rock. Sara struggled a bit on some of the inclines along the way and it SO reminded me of the first time PDL and I rode down this way. That time we stopped at Hampton and trained it back to the city as I was dead tired. So for Sara to ride to Black Rock without too much bother (all be it with a massive tail wind) was a great effort. We stopped in at Kennedy Cycles for a bite and a drink and Sara got a taste of the cycling culture of post ride café gatherings. The social side of riding is a great attraction and it was most unexpected when I started. Now if I have a ride without that part, the ride is really missing something.

Heading back was always going to be a tough ask for Sara. The head wind was so strong that drifts of sand from the beach were stinging us and we were being pushed all over the road. At one stage I almost got caught out by the gutter and only JUST unclipped in time. I tried to ride as a wind break for Sara to help get her up the hill just north of Black Rock but I just couldn’t ride slowly enough for her LOL. But to her credit she never stopped, even despite the wind and the hill. We rode on until Sandringham where Sara and I left the road to train it back (the wind was just too much for her and she had an appointment to keep). Dave kept riding on back to Startline where Kathy (Dave partner) was doing some training and I really felt for him in that wind on his own.

On the train as we traveled along next to Beach Rd we saw Dave struggling on. At one point the wind was so strong it blew his forward momentum to a stop and he had to get off. I really felt for him.

All in all it was a pretty tough weekends riding. I did about 74kms on Sat morning at an average of about 27kph, and then I did 15 km up and down the 1:20 ride, followed by 30km on Sunday with Sara and Dave. Sunday afternoon I crashed on the couch and slept for about 4 hours. I was stuffed.

Oh yeah- I lost 1.8kgs the past week. That made up for the previous week where I actually put on 0.1kgs. I'm getting there, bit by bit.

It started as a dare…