cycle sydney

was fun morning.. very easy ride. managed to cruise in at 1hr 38mins.. loved the cross country bit
on my road bike.. saw at least 5 crashes.. also the placement of some of those cone markers sucked..
placing them on the left and right sides of the lane sometimes pushed the bunch tight but we all
survived. I also got shouted at by a cop for slowing down at an intersection ( was making sure no
traffic was coming from the left and right- just a natural thing to do!!)

"Arpit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

what did y'all think?

yeah, i was surprised at how easy it was, it was really conjested though, i left at 8:20 I think. As
for crashed, a buddy i was riding with was ahead of me then suddenly realised he was supposed to go
left instead of go straight ahead- very poorly marked. He turned in my path suddenyl, and i had to
brake so hard my bike stopped within a few cm of his front tire, but pivoted on the front wheel. the
bike was 90 degrees to horizontal when he grabbed my arm and pushed my back down, thank god 🙂
around a corner at a reasonable speed a kid crashed into me on my left but managed to stay
riding,riding next to him he was very apologetic and seemed tobe very shocked:

Kid: sorry
me: dont worry about it, are you ok? kid: sorry
mf: are you ok? kid: yeah
mg: cool

kid of few words :p

thats all the incidents i had 🙂 oh also 2 guys on road bikes raced me on a straight stretch, I
OWNED them on my mountain bike with knobbies 😄 havent gotten over that yet 😄

As for cops, meh, what are they gonna do.... i can imagine them on their radio "it was a guy!
on a bike!"

As for improvements to ther ide, i think they could have controlled traffic a lot better, and given
us the entire road, without those stupid markers . I heard cars hooting and police yelling at the
cars but didnt get an opportunity to use my air horn, except at a rest stop when my backpack hit the
trigger :p Also, seriously we paid 40 bucks, couldnt they just greenify the traffic lights? Making
roads wider is important, ive never used my brakes so much 🙁 but it was fun, and encouraged me to
keep a sustainable pace.... i guess... maybe next year ill go earlier 🙂 I really hated the line to
get the tshirts, i was thinking about just ging home without a tshirt to escape the line in the hot
sun of 1 o clock in the afternoon (i took ages in the ride coz it was so conjested.) they asked us
for our tshirt sizes on the form--- couldnt they have sent them in the mail?

Overall i REALLY enjoyed that ride, and I WILL do it again next year, as well as participatin gin
more rides with lots of other people. I hear bike north have a few rides. On Sun, 30 Nov 2003

10:52:31 GMT said:

was fun morning.. very easy ride. managed to cruise in at 1hr 38mins.. loved the cross country bit
on my road bike.. saw at least 5 crashes.. also the placement of some of those cone markers
sucked.. placing them on the left and right sides of the lane sometimes pushed the bunch tight but
we all survived. I also got shouted at by a cop for slowing down at an intersection ( was making
sure no traffic was coming from the left and right- just a natural thing to do!!)

"Arpit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

what did y'all think?

yeah i left at 7:30 (soon as the horn went off) .. the first few sets of lights (100m away from
start) we already had to stop for the red signal.. i cant beleive they didnt let us go through..
trying to stop a few thousand people at the start for a red light was stupid.. i got my shirt also
but i had 1 person in front of me in the queue :-p

i had my 30secounds of glory when i powered past around 30 people up a hill, not sure why i did that
maybe it wsa by mcdonalds for breakfast?!

"Arpit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

yeah, i was surprised at how easy it was, it was really conjested though, i left at 8:20 I think.
As for crashed, a buddy i was riding with was ahead of me then suddenly realised he was supposed
to go left instead of go straight ahead- very poorly marked. He turned in my path suddenyl, and i
had to brake so hard my bike stopped within a few cm of his front tire, but pivoted on the front
wheel. the bike was 90 degrees to horizontal when he grabbed my arm and pushed my back down, thank
god 🙂 around a corner at a reasonable speed a kid crashed into me on my left but managed to stay
riding,riding next to him he was very apologetic and seemed tobe very shocked:

Kid: sorry
me: dont worry about it, are you ok? kid: sorry
me: are you ok? kid: yeah
me: cool

kid of few words :p

thats all the incidents i had 🙂 oh also 2 guys on road bikes raced me on a straight stretch, I
OWNED them on my mountain bike with knobbies 😄 havent gotten over that yet 😄

As for cops, meh, what are they gonna do.... i can imagine them on their radio "it was a guy! on
a bike!"

As for improvements to ther ide, i think they could have controlled traffic a lot better, and
given us the entire road, without those stupid markers . I heard cars hooting and police yelling
at the cars but didnt get an opportunity to use my air horn, except at a rest stop when my
backpack hit the trigger :p Also, seriously we paid 40 bucks, couldnt they just greenify the
traffic lights? Making roads wider is important, ive never used my brakes so much 🙁 but it was
fun, and encouraged me to keep a sustainable pace.... i guess... maybe next year ill go earlier 🙂
I really hated the line to get the tshirts, i was thinking about just ging home without a tshirt
to escape the line in the hot sun of 1 o clock in the afternoon (i took ages in the ride coz it
was so conjested.) they asked us for our tshirt sizes on the form--- couldnt they have sent them
in the mail?

Overall i REALLY enjoyed that ride, and I WILL do it again next year, as well as participatin gin
more rides with lots of other people. I hear bike north have a few rides. On Sun, 30 Nov 2003

10:52:31 GMT said:

was fun morning.. very easy ride. managed to cruise in at 1hr 38mins..

loved

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the cross country bit on my road bike.. saw at least 5 crashes.. also the placement of some of
those cone markers sucked.. placing them on the left and right sides of the lane sometimes pushed
the bunch tight but we all survived. I also got shouted at by a cop for slowing down at an

intersection

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

( was making sure no traffic was coming from the left and right- just a natural thing to do!!)

"Arpit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

what did y'all think?

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 11:53:55 +1100, "Justin Turner"

justin(nospam)@(nospam)logicalfusion.com.au said:

I left right from the start (about 7:35). It felt very uncomfortable in a very tight bunch until we
looped around to the bridge onramp (there were already people sitting after a crash outside Harris
Technologies). The first few sets of lights weren't much fun. If they could free this up at least
for the first 10-20 minutes it would be a big improvement as a lot of the people (myself included)
aren't used to riding in a bunch & many don't realise the potential implication of shifting line a
few inches.

It was my first time doing the ride & I was pleasantly surprised at the levels of organisation (had
read some bad things from previous rides). There were a few areas that were a bit poor, but
overall, there wasn't much dicing with cars. I took 2 hours exactly on a MTB with knobbies (quicker
than I expected). There was no line up at the T-shirt tent when I got there (9:35).

Going home I got a train just after 10 at Westmead - had the last compartment to myself. Changing
trains at Central to get to North Sydney before the ride wasn't much fun. Every train was packed. I
was lucky & squeezed on to the second one that came while I was waiting, but many were still on the
platform. I think next time I'll stay on the East Hills train to Wynyard & ride up from there.

The third left hander after the harbour bridge was the low point in my book

Quoted message said:

obvious to me that most people weren't expecting a steep hill after taking the turn (I realised
going down Harrington & down-shifted dramatically). There were people with clip-ins everywhere
weaving left & right trying to drop down in gear while not falling over. I avoided 5 or 6 before
running out of options & going for the feet on the ground (like everybody else). I don't know what
they could do there - perhaps extend the loop to George St &

Quoted message said:

The Cross Country at Rhodes seemed strange (wouldn't have liked to be on a road bike). I was
thinking what a disaster it would've been in the wet.

Ok, your the second person to mention a 'cross country' . where was it? what was it? i dont remember
any cross country....

Quoted message said:

Overall, apart from the specific gripes, I was pretty happy with it. I'll probably do it again
next year.

"dyno" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

yeah i left at 7:30 (soon as the horn went off) .. the first few sets of lights (100m away from
start) we already had to stop for the red signal..

i

Quoted message said:

cant beleive they didnt let us go through.. trying to stop a few thousand people at the start for
a red light was stupid.. i got my shirt also but i had 1 person in front of me in the queue :-p

i had my 30secounds of glory when i powered past around 30 people up a

hill,

Quoted message said:

not sure why i did that maybe it wsa by mcdonalds for breakfast?!