I am flying out to Canberra tomorrow so over the past week
I’ve been trying to do as much riding as I can, as I’m not taking my bike away
with me. I just missed out on clocking up 400km for the week as I finished with
386km. I wanted to summarise my longest ride for the week, which was also my
longest all time ride of 178.6km.
Thankfully we were leaving at 8am, which allowed me to have
a little bit of a sleep in. I was riding with my cycling coach and also a mate
who was coming along for part of the journey. It was 30km to where we were
meeting, so that meant that I had already been riding for an hour before we
even started. We were headed for Yungaburra, which is situated on the Atherton
Tablelands and included the longest climb in Cairns, the Gillies, which is 19km
long. I had been riding everyday of the week so my legs were a little bit tired
when this ride began and I struggled a little bit going over the climb, but I
managed to keep a steady pace and ended up doing my best time up there.
For Cairns weather it was pretty cold for the most part of
the morning hovering around 15 degrees celsius.
As we came to the lookout, my mate turned around and my coach and I continued
on. It was about 20-30km of very undulating riding before we came to Yungaburra
and I must say, the coffee shop was well awaited and I enjoyed the short sit
down that we had. A quick coffee and some very delicious scones were eaten
before we got back on the bike.
The ride home was much easier, although there were some
short but steep climbs to overcome before we came to the decent on the Gillies
range. I must say that by this time were legs were feeling quite shattered and
the 19km decent back to Gordonvale was very nice. Thankfully Steve (my coach)
didn't push the pace and was nice enough to wait for me if I dropped off the
pace. We kept a steady pace back into Cairns, but by now, my energy levels were
depleted and I had consumed all my food. I stopped at a Night Owl and devoured
a can of coke before holding myself back as I rode home with a tailwind.
I came home feeling not as bad as I thought I would have and
after about 1650 metres of climbing for the day and with an average speed of
about 29km/h I felt really good, having enough energy to go fishing a few hours later. It was a tough ride and after just over six hours in the saddle, by
backside was definitely starting to get sore, but it was all worth it, now
knowing that mentally and physically I am strong enough to do something like
that.
I didn't get any photos from the day, but I hope to get some
out running, when I’m in Canberra over the next week.
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