Biker Bunnies: May 2011

Hello all :)

A beautiful sunny Sunday provided a perfect day for the Century Challenge 2011 (compared to last year's rainy conditions), and I did feel quite excited in my half-awake state as I signed the registration papers at Mount Penang to enter the 110km challenge. Sadly neither Tor or Amanda could make it, but I'm hoping that more bunnies will be enticed to brave these mad and gruelling hills next year.

This is by far the hardest long ride I've done - with NO flat section along the way; undulation while lovely and inspiring in the beginning - turns to sheer pain towards the end: your legs scream in protest and you have to pretend you can't hear them in order to get to the finish line. I believe a trance-like state of denial helps too... ;) "that's not a hill, it's just the earth turning slowly and I'm actually riding on a flat surface".

To give some idea of the 'undulating' ride - here's the topography & map of the route:

This is a fantastic ride though; the scenery is amazing and the Erina Rotary club (who organise the ride and raise money for Coast Shelter) do a great job in putting on the event - the best for any charity ride I've done: You cycle along remote country roads and arrive at rest stops with friendly marshals providing home-made chocolate cake, fruit, water and.... snakes :) If this doesn't get your spirits up to continue, I don't know what would... :)

You could probably count the mountain bike riders (in the 110k challenge) on one, or maybe two hands. The big bulk of the riders were all jazzed up on their road bikes and zoomed off into the morning sun (not to be seen again, I might add ;)) - which allowed us slower paced riders to enjoy the scenery without any hustling & bustling... It can get lonely out there on the remote roads though, and so it was very exciting to find a like-minded friend at the first rest stop (while digging into the newly arrived chocolate cake). Maddy (solo champion rider) and I - braved the second half of the ride together, with jelly-beans for fuel and sheer determination to get us to the finish line where we were greeted by our very own cheer squad of patiently waiting partners...

Stage 1
The start of the ride takes you up Wisemans Ferry Rd (undulating up-hill) to the Peats Ridge Rd turn-off. Morning sun and still quite chilly in the air (cold feet...). Luckily I'd put on quite a few layers, thinking I could take some off as it got warmer in the day - as it turned out, the chill in the air stayed with us and I was glad to be rugged up for the whole ride. Wisemans Ferry Rd has quite a few potholes and chomped up edges, so you need to keep an eye on where you're going... Once you get onto Peats Ridge road, the surface is more reliable, and there is even a shoulder safe enough to cruise along...

Stage 2
Ride down Peats Ridge road to the Calga U-turn bay, where you cross the road and cycle back up to the first rest stop near the Peats Ridge road & George Downs drive intersection. The return trip from the U-turn bay is definitely more up than down, which made that lovely chocolate cake all the more welcome! This rest stop provided us with 2 route choices: 1) Be sensible and take the 65km shortcut - or... 2) Keep going on the century challenge route... Being die-hard (or foolish), we prevailed and soldiered on towards stage 3...

Stage 3
Probably the hardest stage of the ride - the road narrows quite a bit, to a winding and quite hilly country road - which you're sharing with a surprising amount of non-cycling traffic: there were countless motorbikes blaring past us and 4-wheel drives - where some found it hard to gauge how much room (if any) they should leave between their car and the cyclists! Not too well-read-up on the map situation, I was blissfully unaware of the turnaround point and called out YAY!!! 20km too early (this was just before the hideously steep 10km ride DOWN to Mangrove dam followed by the 10km back up again)! Without the support of the marshals at the rest stop at the bottom of the hill, there is no way my champion fellow rider and I would have made that leg of the ride.

Stage 4
From the top at Kulnura we were told it was 40 km to the finish line - and so we set our determination dial to maximum, and put our heads down for the home run. A jelly-bean boost stop at the 16km to go mark gave us the much needed energy to complete the challenge. Getting to that finish line practically had me in tears: exhausted & exhilarated with a certificate and lucky rider prize to top it all off! Am I mad enough to do it again? - Definitely :)

Ride stats:
Distance cycled - 106.6km
Speed - 56.1 km/h (max) 18.1km/h (average)
Time cycling - 5 hours 47 minutes
Total time - 7 hours 14 minutes
Calories - 3946 (!)
Heart rate - 172 (max) 137 (average)