First it was IPWR, then it was Basil, then TCR for a while, and now it’s back to being IPWR!
Some time in January
My performances in my local criterium races of late have been outstanding. Sadly, not outstanding in a good way. But it wasn’t a problem. Every bike racer knows that there are two ways to do ok at bike racing – the first is to finish ahead of everyone else, and the second is to have good excuses. And I’d figured out the perfect excuse for doing badly at crits.
Continue reading “Before”
I’ve been having some blog problems of late. They came at an unfortunate time, right as I was getting ready for the Indian Pacific Wheel Ride, so I didn’t really have any time to work out what was going on. That means updates for that race were – well… non-existent. The good news is that if you’re reading this, the blog must be working again.
Continue reading “Hello, hello, is this thing on?”I did promise more on why I’m in Fremantle, and I really meant to write something good. Time has got away from me though, so instead it’s something quick. If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m doing IPWR again. It’s a small affair this year, with only nine riders making it to the start, but really that’s quite a lot, given the circumstances.
I’m still having trouble posting to my blog, the quick way doesn’t work and the slow way is slow! That means, obviously, I won’t be posting all that much, sorry.
Of course, the tracking page is up, so if you want to follow the dots you can do so at https://indianpacificwheelride2021.maprogress.com
I’m mostly ready, a few quick things to finish up then off to bed, ready to start in the morning!
Ok, I’m going to try one quick thing… if this works, it’ll be great. If it doesn’t, you may never hear from me again!
I’ve been having some trouble just lately with my website. It sort of bothers me that I have plans for all kinds of great adventures, but I can’t even seem to keep a website working, but there you go. Maybe it’ll come good soon if I ignore it for a while…
First things first: Cloudride Prologue was great. I had looked at that course ahead of time, and knew that the first 200km and the last 60 or so would be much faster on a gravel bike. Knowing the effort Steve puts into his courses though I suspected that the other part might turn out to be pretty tough. I wasn’t wrong. The country up in the Blue Mountains NP was just beautiful, but boy some of the roads were tough!
And which better…
https://cloudrideprologue21.maprogress.com/
And which better…
https://cloudrideprologue21.maprogress.com/
I had to make it before I slept again, I just had to. I only had about 300km to go, and I could easily do that in a day. At least, I should have been easily able to do that in a day. The only problem was, it was windy. I’d stopped behind a big hedge the night before and was in a pretty sheltered place, but still I could hear the wind before I even opened my bivy. I lay still and listened for a moment, but that didn’t seem to help the situation, so I gave up and opened my bivy.
Continue reading “Day 14.75: All the way”So just in case you were worried that there wouldn’t be more racing,
Continue reading “The road to the finish line is seldom straight”…so just before we head there, here’s a short little detour, in case you were worried that there wouldn’t be more racing!
Continue reading “The road to the finish line is seldom straight…”
I woke up to a light rain. No problem – it was the same light rain I had gone to sleep to, and I had found a pretty good spot, well sheltered under some trees. In fact as the sky got brighter and I started to see more of what was around me I realised I could have been much better sheltered by an abandoned building that must have been just outside my lights the night before, but no matter. I shook my bivy dry but didn’t worry too much about having some damp sleeping gear. After all, I was so close to the finish now that maybe I wouldn’t even need to use it again. Right?
Continue reading “Day 14: I really hoped I’d be faster than that!”