128km and loving it

Route: Southbank to Eltham, via Frankston
Distance: 128.8km
Duration: 4 hours 59 minutes

Well, our plans to ride to Arthurs Seat, much like our plans to ride around Kinglake last weekend, were derailed. This time it was the bad weather that was hanging around this morning, but in the end we still managed to get a great ride in. My bike just happened to be at work in the city and so I caught the train in and met Brendan at the Shrine of Remembrance for a ride down Beach Road. He had to be back home at around 5pm so we just decided to ride as far as we could before we had to turn around.
As it turned out we rode at quite a brisk pace, averaging around 30km/h and getting to Frankston by about 2:30pm. After a quick ascent and descent of Olivers Hill, we grabbed a coffee and then headed back up toward the city.

At Seaford we met up with another rider who also happened to be heading back into town and so the three of us had a nice ride and chat together. Until we got to Mordialloc at least. As we turned left at the round-a-bout onto Beach Road, our companion didn’t check the pedestrian crossing on the slip lane, almost knocking an older gentleman over. I stopped suddenly but forgot to warn Brendan and he hit my back wheel and fell to the ground.
Remarkably he was fine with not so much as a scratch. The only damaged sustained was a buckle to his front wheel but luckily the guy that we were riding with just happened to be a bike mechanic by trade. Even more fortunate was the fact that there is a bike shop right next to the round-a-bout there and so our companion went inside, grabbed a few tools and started to true Brendan’s wheel.

After a couple minutes we were off again, albeit a bit shakily. In fact it is the first time that I can remember us being slower on the way back into town than on the way out, and there wasn’t that much of a breeze.

Back on St. Kilda Road we ran into one of Brendan’s work/cycling friends Rowena. The two of them headed back through the city together while I rode back to work to pickup the backpack of clothes I had left there earlier in the day.
Adding around 5kg to my payload I headed up Swanston Street, turned right onto Elgin Street and followed that to Yarra Boulevard. About this time I was starting to crash with around 100km ridden. Luckily I still had some food left over and so I slammed that down for the last 25-30km home.

Having not ridden more than a 100km for quite a while the ride from the city to Eltham was a bit of a struggle. I followed the Alpine Tour de Burbs route before turning onto Fitzsimons Lane toward Eltham. I eventually limped home after a touch under five hours on the bike with 128.8km ridden in the day.

Having done a few smaller rides of late it was a good feeling to get on the bike and a have a long day at it. It made me feel a little more confident about the massive task that we face in March. Having said that, there is a lot of hillwork to be done between now and then.

In other news today’s ride marked the debut of Helmet Cam. It made me look like a bit of an idiot out on Beach Road but I got some great footage of the ride. While we are on the subject, don’t forget to check out the video of today’s ride.

47 days to go…

2 Replies to “128km and loving it”

  1. Hey awesome work. I too have signed up for the 3Peaks though I’m very much a recreational cyclist. And being 6ft5 and 99kgs makes the uphills slow.

    Reading your posts with great interest.

    Are you doing the Alpine Classic this weekend?

    Keep up the good work and best of luck with the training.

    Cheers, Steve

    1. Hey Steve. Thanks for stopping by.

      I’m glad to see someone is enjoying the blog – it’s been fun doing it and I just hope that I make it through the event! I’m feeling a little apprehensive but with more training I suppose I’ll keep feeling stronger.

      I didn’t do the Alpine Classic this weekend but I would love to have. As it is I’m pushing it by asking for time off work for 3 Peaks and for a week of training in Bright in late February. Did you do the ride? If so, how was it?

      If you want to catch up for a training ride and you live in or around Melbourne, hit me up at theclimbingcyclist@gmail.com

      Thanks again for your comments.

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