The last time I seriously rode the bike was 02/09/06 -- Gisborne
South. Having found a box with most of my cycling goodies in it,
Friday night, and the forecast for today not being completely
absolutely horrendous, I planned to set out for the ride I have been
looking forward to for 5 weeks. So lastnight I carboloaded on good
country fare -- rissoles, sausages and steak, and wine (I'm a city
toff, I don't drink tinned New).
Donned the HR monitor, because I had the aim of keeping in E1 the
entire way. Hah. Ha hahahaha. Heh.
After about 8 km, the heart finally remembered what it was meant to
do, and started beating a little more normally. Not in E3 for what my
legs thought was a rather gentle tootle in mild weather. But before
long, there was a bloody great big hill. I'm going to have to carry
my camera one day, because it's just a small mountain range -- and
there's no way around. You have to go over, and then right back down
again. Alas, this small hill, only a few hundred metres high, had me
out of the saddle in my bottom ring of the triple. Have I lost that
much fitness? Down the bottom, 4km further, the turnoff to the
observatory approaches. The road up the observatory is 4km long
again, and it's somewhat more gentle.
Even "Axle hill" is easier than that blip a few kms back. Why is it
called Axle hill? I actually found out its name in the bus -- we had
an unusually full bus, because it was instrument changeover day, and
so everyone was at work instead of slacking off (we're public
servants, remember). The bus *struggled* to get up one tiny blip. It
turns out when the observatory was being built, that the trucks had to
be specced to this hill. They found this out after a couple of broken
axles. Don't miss the gear change, folks. Got to the top with an
average speed of 19km/h for the 29km trip from town -- it's a gradual
climb all the way. Wrote down some stats at my office, searched for
sunscreen (woops, I noticed my arms getting red before the turnoff.
Must find the box with the sunscreen), and headed back.
33km/h avg back to town, almost halving the time. The bus takes a
long time to get down the mountainside -- it's quite satisfying to
half that time -- it's a good way of making you think "jeez, we're not
so high up here, afterall!" Just don't get a bug in the eye at 60km/h
-- the road surface is unforgiving if you can't see (I really should
get those prescription sunnies, shouldn't I?).
That blip had me doing 80km/h -- but it's a horrendous surface -- I
wouldn't brave any faster than that. A coworker who gave up cycling
years ago because of a bung knee reckoned he could only ever hit
60km/h on his sit-up-and-beg bike.
Back into town in time for breakfast at mum's for recovery food,
country style. I've now worked out what time I need to leave in the
morning if I want to commute that. 6am is fairly managable. I
haven't yet enquired as to the location of the showers at work though.
--
TimC
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?