The Ride
27th August 2009
Bunnies on Bikes: Amanda and Annette
Meeting point: Radjhani's restaurant on Ocean View Rd
Set-off time: ~9:30am
Accessories: padded bike-pants, map, camera, phones & flouro-vests
First up - Amanda's delightful riding account:
Sadly there were no little people binding me up and carrying me into the woods today or wild boars chasing me through the forest with men in tights trying to save this fair maiden. But there were cement trucks trying to cement Annette into the road and ute drivers being pains in the derriere)!!! AND HILLS!!!!!!! And once again lots of them. I am learning to embrace my new love of hills and try my hardest to reach the top because if I don’t I will always be at the bottom!
Today was not like every other day – I was actually looking forward to the challenge and it was an early challenge followed by a cruisey straight flat ride home.
Funnily enough both Annette and I (and I blame it on the fact that it came up so quickly) had to walk up our first hill, which was at the end of Ocean View Drive, obviously Annette walked up less than I did but nonetheless that is the first time I have seen it happen.
We cruised along the shared footpath along the Entrance Rd until we crossed onto Tumbi Rd where I think all in all there are about 5 hills and guess what; I cycled up every single one of them! I did nearly vomit on the first one but soldiered on and managed to keep going for another 2.5 hours. The road is not too bad, there is a cycle path along some of the road and one has to be careful of stopping on posh people's driveways (yes even I think they are posh Noelle), especially when they are trying to get out. We discovered that Prado drivers cannot turn on a square but need a perfect arch into which they can maneouvre themselves onto the rd as one lady asked us to move further down the road – we were on HER turning circle – years of worn out bitumen and she simply couldn't veer of her traditional approach to coming out of her drive.
Water stop at Mingara petrol station where Annette lost the plot pretty early and bought herself not one but two waters, and she was already carrying a spare – what had I let myself into – was she going to kidnap me and is this why she had purchased unnecessarily large amounts of water – NO she had just had a brain freeze!
Following Tor's advice we went down Tumbi Creek Rd to try and find the lake track and I nearly ran into a grumpy old bag pushing a pram across the road – strange people in this world – she seemed pissed off that she had to wait to cross the road for a bicycle and decided to try and go it alone – but I was too fast for her and she got stuck on the kerb! :D
Then at the end of what we thought was the bike track we turned into the village idiots as we ate our sesame snaps and laughed incessantly at how out of place we looked in suburbia.
No further accidents or incidents to report until Annette with her divine love of taking photographs at every single stop said "Can you take one of me with the water in the background" and proceeded to hand me the camera forgetting that she had her bike in the other hand CRASH BANG OH MY GOD HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER STOP LOOKING AT US SERGEANT MAJOR – you get the picture. Lucky I had my bike pants on to soak up the... Only joking!
As we drove past Tor's house Annette waved and I wished the girls luck on their walk. Nearing the end of our road I got beeped by a P plater who had no idea that the road was not hers alone. Coffee break at the iBar where Annette made me pose in my workman's vest beside a road digger – do you think I look the part?
Amanda :)
& here's my (Annette's) view from the saddle:
This 35km bike-ride started by taking on Ocean View Rd (pushing bikes, huffing and puffing up to the roundabout), & then meandering down the shared path to the Tumbi Rd roundabout (in a most elegant fashion needless to say). Sun was out and the day was indeed a beautiful one for a ride... What could possibly cause these biker-bunnies to go off the rails...?
We struck the hills of Tumbi road, but with happy undulation we got plenty of free rides too :) Our encounter with the 'posh' Prado driving lady at our first 'water stop' is probably in hindsight, what set us up for further laughs and hysterics along the way...
You have to picture this; You have just wrenched your lungs inside out to get to the top of a hill on a bicycle, adrenaline is pumping and your breathing is still that of an asthmatic horse. You wheel your bike to a stop, well off the road, plenty of room, metres and metres to the road and the driveway behind you... Then down the driveway, loud and vivacious (non-diva I might add), comes the PRADO lady. You look up and smile (as you do...), then you see her performing strange hand-signals from the driver seat... Waving? No not waving.... Drowning? hmmm nope shouldn't be... OH!! Wants me to mooooovve! Right! 20 metres isn't quite enough to steer this beast out onto Tumbi Rd, sure I get it :) Hobble Hobble (that's you moving your bike with water bottle in one hand), followed by the roar of the Prado finally making the near impossible turn onto the main road... Witness this and you're bound to lose the plot!
After the Mingara water stop, the ride took us along the bike path up towards Tuggerah with alcoholic drink inspired street names... we pedaled (drank) our way up to Kalua, before heading back down the bike path towards Long Jetty & the Entrance Rd *wave to Tor as we pass her street* completing the ride back down to the end of Ocean View Rd in Terrigal.
It is fair to say that we went from bad to worse - but we had an absolute ball :)
- At the water-buying stop, I lost my brain arriving out of the shop with 3 bottles of water (one for Amanda) not having thought where to store them... subliminal kidnap plans no doubt.
- Then the kerb-crashing grump threw us into fits of laughter, the look on this lady's face was pretty priceless as she steered her child occupied stroller BANG into the kerb with a look of complete indignation aimed at Amanda.
- The village-idiot-convention became reality as I decided to take a photo of both of us 'poised' on a log; instead the camera captured me side-swiping Amanda's sesame snap into the grass looking as though I'm either walloping her or trying to push her off the log...
- As we left the 'convention' we cycled past a suspicious man kneeling in his front lawn... in front of a very rectangular coffin-shaped hole! We instantly thought 'six feet under' and All is NOT what it seems in the 'burbs! With a few nervous giggles we quickened our pace, throwing a few looks over our shoulder ...
- I dare say it was a good thing that I wasn't on my bike when I haphazardly threw it on the ground (again - caused by a photo opportunity), but the crashing noises and hysterics we brought to the peaceful setting had us scrambling back on our bikes and leaving for the next debacle in less than 5 seconds!
Finally, we cruised on back down Ocean View Rd to a well-deserved coffee, a digger waiting by the side for a last pressing photo opportunity :)
Thanks for all the laughs!
Photos
The Stats
Distance covered: 35km
Riding time: 3 hours 11 minutes (less if you ignore water stops)
Heart rate: 111 (average) 168 (max)
Calories burnt: 1017
The Map
The map doesn't show the bike-path, but generally it's pretty close :)Big well wishes go to the Toad pole champions Lou and Tor (and Pete & Adrian) doing their 100km Oxfam trailwalk this weekend!
GOOD LUCK!!
I felt that Amanda looked great next to the road digger and I would have loved to have seen the incident with the Prado driver!!!! I can imagine that it gave you other, more humorous things, to think about.
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