The Ride
26th June 2009
Bunny-riders - Lou and Annette
Meeting place - Kariong
Ride start point - Kerta Street Kincumber
Ride end point - Lou's place Copacabana
Lou-bunny arrived at Annette's place, where we loaded bike, bags, helmet and selves into car & zipped over to Kincumber. Car mechanics (due to service Lou's car, but currently minding her bunny-bike 'Silver') watched vehicle swap and donning of bunny vests as we got ready to embark on our trip.
Added excitement was that we had 2 heart-rate monitors on this journey! Maiden voyage for Annette's birthday monitor and lots of yelling out stats along the way... "I'm on 123 WHAT ARE YOU ON?????" "I'm on the saaaaaaaaaaaaame!!!" Once we worked out the interference factor (picking up each others monitor reading), we did end up on slightly different,
heart rates (quite similar though) - but kept yelling out statisitcs for the mere fun of it :)
Our first stop was at the bike shop in Kincumber - browsing for helmet and comfy girly seat. This brought a happy surprise rendez-vouz with bunny-Janine, who was in the shop picking up a puncture repair kit.
Avoca Drive through Kincumber and Green Point, was a lovely cruisy part of the ride - the sun was shining and the road was bliss to ride :) Actually the cruisy bit continued all the way around, down Serpentine road (bit bumpy along the edges in parts - but otherwise quite nice), and down Terrigal Drive to the foot of Charles Kay drive....
This is where the hell-bunny bit began!
Going up Charles Kay drive was hard and relentless, there is simply no panning out along the way - the hill just goes UP from the bottom to the very top, and it's #$% steep :) Close to the top I was going over options in my head:
1. Lean sideways and fall (ungracefully) in a heap on the side of the road and wait for the tow-truck to pick me up...
2. Stop pedalling and roll backwards (not a good idea...)
Then... there's a roar behind me: "WHAAAAHHHH YOU CAN DOOO IT!!!!" Lou saved the day with a well-timed pep talk! It's amazing what encouragement does when you're in dire need! Kept pedalling against all odds and... we made it to the top!
Our reward was a meandering down-hill ride towards Avoca, bellbirds singing in the trees and the sun beaming on our happy faces. A short phone stop along Avoca Drive (involving some car-mechanical issues) and a reasonably flat ride into Avoca.
We glimpsed the beach as we swung through the roundabout, and then... it was all uphill again to the top of Cape three point road. Along the same level as the massive hill we'd just done (and to quote Janine: "My car finds it hard getting up that hill"), we made it - though to say 'in style' would possibly be a slight exaggeration, unless you count scaring elderly flower-picking couple by the side of the road as we slowly huffed and puffed our way past them...
Past the water tower there was a definite sense of "Hooraaay", we'd climbed the hills and were on the homebound stretch for a nice cup of coffee and lunch at Lou's. We even allowed ourselves a shortcut through Noey-bunny's backyard to save ourselves riding up any more hills. Lifting bikes over fence and steps we ran into Noey just having returned from her Woy Woy ride :)
It was a truly fabulous ride - and as Lou said: "on the bunny scale this one would rate a 2 bunny ride up to Charles Kay drive, where it becomes one hell-bunny ride :D"
Thank you so much for a fun ride & looking forward to the next one :)
The Stats
Riding distance - 24.5km
Active riding time - 2 hours
Calories - 920 (Lou's monitor says a little less but that may be because Annette forgot to pause for about 8 minutes... ;) )
Heartrate - Max 172
Heartrate - Average 127
The Map
Once again, I really do admire you all. I wouldn't be able to cycle up all those hills - I think I would have settled for the tow truck option. However, apart from the hills, it sounds as though it was a wonderful day.
ReplyDeleteIt was a fabulous ride my dear - can't wait until the next adventure
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