Liz Randall's Cycling Blog - a life behind bars

"With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable"



Sunday 24 February 2008

Melbourne Summer Cycle Sunday 24/2/08

This is today's ride... the first and last ~30km are getting into and out of town in order to be a part of the Melbourne Summer ride in aid of MS. The summer bit was somewhat of a misnomer as it was chilly and I was wearing arm and leg warmers and 3 layers on top and still was not very warm. The number of cyclists that took part was HUGE.....we're not sure how many but after waiting 10 minutes for a lull in the starting queue we gave up and just joined in..??6000. There were cyclists of all types and crashes of all types too...mostly the whoops there he/she goes type, but one I witnessed had the potential to be a bit more. The guy was just in front of me and clearly was unsighted WRT a rather large plastic orange cone which he proceeded to plough into and endo over....a VERY splat/painful looking fall.

My entire reason for joining in this ride was not the politically correct reason of raising money for MS, although that happened too..my reason was I wanted to ride over the West Gate Bridge...the second longest bridge in Australia and clearly one that is difficult to get a pix of since this is the best I could find!


The bridge collapsed during its construction in October 1970..a time when my husband, then a Marine engineer, was in a ship due to dock in Melbourne. I recall spending a VERY nervous time waiting for a call to say he was ok and eventually found out via the very helpful Lloyds List publication..something that may well now not exist. It was a newspaper with the location of all the merchant ships in the world..pirates excepted!

Today was to be a cruisy in, cruisy during and cruisy out ride..however a mechanical at home meant I left late and so had to TT in. During the ride the pace was easy until the bridge at which point I stopped being a friend to those I was riding with and attacked the slope, then linked up with a trackie I knew and galloped over the rest of the course. Then, dammit on the way home I was accompanied by a young, very lightweight, very fit, strong colleague who set the pace (gasp gasp) home faster than I really wanted until she peeled off my route (thank god) after which I got into cruise mode. The result can be seen below! (my TT heart rate when racing is ~160bpm). Now I'm stuffed..I even "had" to have some comfort food(!) I was so ..well.. tired when I got home.



so now for 1 week of taking it easy.. blue line will descend yellow line rise.

Spare a thought for Jill in Alaska, on her way to do the Iditarod by bike...

No comments: