It started badly, then got worse… But how will it end? That’s the big unknown. Check back here to find out though. Or just look at the tracker, if you don’t want to wait a year… In the meantime, here are a few pics!
Race to the Rock ’24
Day 19 – Bring it home
I woke up to see that day 19 had dawned bright and mostly clear. There was still a little bit of cloud around, but the sky was mostly blue and things were looking promising for a perfect day.
I got up and packed my gear, and was on my way pretty quickly.
Continue reading “Day 19 – Bring it home”Day Eight – A Dark Day
The next day dawned… well, grey and overcast to be honest. I headed out of the hotel and went straight to get breakfast. Someone decided at some point that Kimba is halfway across Australia, and to celebrate that they (or someone else) erected a giant Galah. I really can’t think of a better way of marking the halfway point, even if it is actually only the halfway point if you are taking a specific route from Perth through to Sydney. Well, to be honest, I can think of one better way, but happily they also built a bakery, so they had all bases covered, and I had breakfast covered.
Continue reading “Day Eight – A Dark Day”Day 7 – A Lazy Day
Kristoff Alleghert is a legend in ultra-cycling. He has won some of the toughest races in the world with huge margins, and had a solid lead in IPWR 2017 when it was halted. He doesn’t write nearly as much as I do, but he does write a bit (and what he does write, he surely writes quicker), and one thing I remember reading from him is “Standing around waiting for the rain to stop is not a solution”. In my defence, I was not standing.
Continue reading “Day 7 – A Lazy Day”Day Six – Including Bonus Rant
Other than the Yalata Aboriginal Community, which had access restrictions because of Covid19, there isn’t a whole lot between Nullarbor Roadhouse and Nundroo. What there is, though, is quite beautiful. I had deliberately slept pretty late because I didn’t want to be riding into the morning sun (or more to the point I didn’t want the cars and trucks behind me driving into it), and then I accidentally had a very slow breakfast. It was a compromised breakfast, too.
Continue reading “Day Six – Including Bonus Rant”Day Five – Time for Some Pictures
A good night’s sleep would have done me good. I was exhausted, and when I had climbed into my bivvy I had pretty much just closed my eyes and been instantly asleep, but now my eyes snapped open and although it was pitch dark I was wide awake, and I was worried.
Continue reading “Day Five – Time for Some Pictures”Day Four – Race for the Border
It was grey. That was the first thing that struck me when I woke – the sky was grey. Given that I was about to ride a couple of hundred kilometres through basically desert, a grey sky wasn’t a bad thing. Clear skies and baking sun make for a tough day on the bike. Lower temperatures would make it much more pleasant. Driving torrential rain, on the other hand, would make it less pleasant. So for the first moments as I lay in my bivvy looking up at the grey sky I was wondering which of those it would turn out to be. Then I realised that whichever it was going to be, right now it was actually pretty good for riding, so best I get up and do so.
Continue reading “Day Four – Race for the Border”Day Three – A Second Time for Everything
I woke up early. That wasn’t the plan, so I went back to sleep. I was pretty keen to avoid missing too much sleep through the race, and I knew if I ran myself to exhaustion at the start it would take a really long time to recover and start feeling good again, so I went back to sleep.
Continue reading “Day Three – A Second Time for Everything”