Yesterday, Perth, my wife and I packed the panniers, attached the trailer to
the trike, and set off to Toodyay. Only 80km, so not really a hard
one....but we were so wrong!
It is something that, from a car, you do not fully appreciate the number of
hills you need to rise 400m over 80km. Or rather, once you've climbed the
400m how many additional ups and downs our pioneer road builders thought fit
to include. And you don't fully realise how long and steep Red Hill is, or
how after climbing hill after hill the additional load of panniers and
trailer etc is really quite a burden. Anyway, we made it and there was a
sense of achievement to be had. Our first major (overnight) trike outing.
Highlights were the number of cars, motorcycles and trucks that had a
freindly wave or toot. Maybe 1/3 or more, and hitting 53kph down hill whilst
hard on the brakes, and of course averaging 17.18kph over the ride there.
Lowlights were the dead animals reeking in the middle of long ascents (never
on descents of course), the hills, the temperature well into the 30s. Things
we did better this time included mounting our UHF handhelds on the back of
the trike seats, and using a remote speaker/mic clipped onto our jersey
fronts, and taking a 10L plastic jerrycan of water which we'd finished by
the time we got to Toodyay.
Cheers
David M