13th June 2009
Biker bunnies: Lou and Annette
Meeting place: Kariong (Annette's place) 7:30am
Biking weather: Sun coming out after a freezing night (gloves a must!)
We set off in various styles - Lou dressed in biking gloves and "Skins"(long fitted biking pants), looking a million dollars on this freezing morning. Annette sporting the multi-layered look and totally convinced that all is allowed when preventing death from frost-bite... ;)
Early on we were stopped by a pair of frantic (lost) runners, who demanded to know where the Pacific Hwy was. We offered what help we could ("Just keep on running down to the left there and you'll be fine"). We believe that the woman (who did get a little hysterical) must have decided we were plainly not trust-worthy, after seeing the bunny on our hi-vis vests... We left them to their merry ways and continued on ours :)
All went very well up Wisemans ferry road, if you ignore the fact that poor
Lou left a lung somewhere along this part of the ride, due to intense coughing... a few nose-blowing stops and a chance to catch breath did seem to help.
We continued along Wisemans ferry road past the Peats Ridge road crossing and shortly after turned into Dog trap road. This leg of our journey dished up an excellent opportunity to test bike-acceleration... Halfway down the road Annette spots a moving dark shadow on her left. An anxious look later confirms 3 dogs, and a further quick look alerted to the lack of fence between biking bunnies and dogs with lots and lots of teeth! Miss Lou did have some assuring words and even offered up her own body as a barrier between dogs and Annette. This information and re-assurance did sadly land on deaf ears, as Annette darted hell-for-leather down the road without a single thought beyond "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
Acceleration = instant
Leg speed = 100miles an hour
Brain activity and ability to check team bunny is ok = zero!
Luckily the dogs were (according to Lou) 'all bark and no trousers' and the whole debarcle only left us reeling over our handlebars in fits and tears of laughter.
We then spent the ride across the F3 Bridge and down steep Mangrove road talking about phobias and enjoying the scenery. This would be a gruelling hill to ride up, but it would still be fun to try it one day... Once we got to the bottom we had a mandarin, banana stop before cruising on to Narara Valley road towards West Gosford and Manns road. This was the first bit of real traffic we came across - but the bike lane gave us plenty of room to ride happily and safely :)
Our ride finished with Kariong Hill, and after a slightly close shave (during an Annette solo-ride on Thursday) it was lovely to get to the top without any worrying moments from passing traffic (read trucks). 30kms in beautiful country scenery - what a lovely way to start a weekend :)
The StatsRiding distance - 30.6km
Active riding time - 2 hours 30 minutes
Calories burnt - 937
Average heartrate - 123 bpm
Maximum heartrate - 161
The Map
Okay, I'll come along as a back-seat rider!
ReplyDeleteThis may come up twice - in which case, I am really sorry. But, I'm willing to come along as a back-seat rider. . . . .
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome :)
ReplyDeleteAll very impressive. I don't know that I could handle the cold, the cycling and the dogs all at once... one at a time would be a push.
ReplyDeleteIf there is room on someone's "pakethållare", I, too, will volunteer as a back-seat rider.
Cihuacoatl.
Thank you for visiting and commenting :) There is always room on the virtual 'pakethållare' for our backseat bunnies! :)
ReplyDelete