I spent the last part of the day sprinting like Caleb Ewan – except that it was uphill, at 6km/h and about 80 watts.
Day One – tough day!
It’s been a tough day. I went into it dehydrated and with a max temp on the bike of 43 I just couldn’t rehydrate, leading to cramps and general poor performance.
This is not where I planned to be!
I’m not where I planned to be. I’m not even close. A year ago I had recently finished the Indian Pacific Wheel Race, and even though I’d had some issues and was a long way behind the winner I felt like I’d done pretty well, all things considered. I knew I’d done a bit of damage to my knee in the process, but overall I was feeling good, and I had a plan. That plan was all focused around a single moment, 5 days from now. The problem is
Big Ride for a Big Reason
Big Rides for Big Reasons is a phrase that I have printed on my jersey, and one that always rings true. The fact is that all of my rides are for a big reason, being my own personal health and wellbeing, but it is nice when they can be for an even bigger reason than that, and I am happy to announce that this year’s Transcontinental Race will be for a very big reason.
Ride For Ryan
When a friend asked me a while ago if I wanted to do an Everest (ride up and down the same hill over and over until you have a total ascent of 8848m – the height of Mt Everest above sea level) my first thought was “not really”. But then he mentioned that it was for a good cause, and the training benefit that it would bring, and that the date had just shifted so that it didn’t clash with what I consider the best one-day race in the country, and I thought again.
Cloud Ride Prologue
Ok, if you haven’t already heard the news, I’m heading back for another crack at the Transcontinental. I’m all signed up and will be heading off from Bulgaria in late July. I know I can ride that far, so the aim for this time is to do it quickly. I developed a great training plan, and have totally failed to stick to it, but hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks.
Anyway, with that in mind it seemed like time to do another long race, so I did. There is a great off-road race called the Cloudride that starts and finishes in Canberra that I’ve thought about doing for a long time, and I’m not doing it this year either.
What I did do though was the Cloudride Prologue, a 500km race designed as an entry into bikepacking and/or a testing ground for gear and set-up.
All the way!
Well, I made it! I had a great trip, saw some fantastic things and met some wonderful people. Right now though I’m thoroughly enjoying being ridiculously well looked after by some wonderful friends, old and new, so the stories will have to wait. Shouldn’t be long though!
Port Augusta
Not staying here though, sounds like someone got robbed last night!
WA is big, and wind is horrible!
Right, made it to SA. The wind has not been kind, but it hasn’t been kind to anyone else either. Well needed lunch break right now though. I’m well behind schedule, and the areas giving me issues include:
- Neck
- Knee
- Achilles
- Posterior
They are all a bit inter-related, and I’m really not sure which is the biggest issue right now, but so far none of them have actually stopped me, so time to get back on the road!
Day 1
Right, day 1 is pretty much over. Didn’t go perfectly to plan, beginning with knee pain less than an hour in, and then having my light mounting bracket snap a few hours after that, and then realising that the charge cable that has worked perfectly for years and still did last week had chosen today to fail.
There should be a light in this picture…
Happily though the knee seemed to stabilise with a bit of nursing, and I was able the reattach the light with a special high tech engineering solution, known to those of us in the industry as “zip-ties”, and I had another option for charging cables, so with a bit of stuffing around I managed to get 428km in today. I’ve just stopped for dinner and am basically done, I will just roll down the road to find somewhere to sleep.
Coverage is pretty patchy here, so posts might be few and far between!
Rowan