Last Sunday I took part in Cycle NSW's Spring Cycle. The registration fee includes transport on all Sydney trains which is a great way to get to the start of the ride.
The riders start heading off between 6:30am and 7:00am so it makes for a very early start to the day.
Now that's early!
After shaking out the cobwebs and getting a quick breakfast, I rode down to the train station ready for a trip into North Sydney. This year I decided to ride my touring bike and have some fun.
At the Station
Sydney Trains
At the start line, bike mechanics, sponsors and coffee vendors made it an easy wait for other friends to show up.
Coffee!
I got talking to Mark, from http://rvvelonaut.blogspot.com.au/ His adequately named Green Jelly Bean Rotovelo has recently seen him cross Australia from Perth to Sydney. Mark seemed likely a genuinely nice bloke who was more than happy to share his experiences and talk about his epic ride for Legacy.
Marks Green Jelly Bean
Nice to talk to fellow cyclists
One of the things I enjoy about the Spring Cycle is that there really does seem to be a Spring festival atmosphere to the race. All sorts of bikes come for the ride.
All types of bikes at the Spring Cycle
Keeping with the fun theme, Patrich decided to ride his restored steel framed, 8 speed internally geared hub bike.
At the start
Taking it easy at several stops along the way.
Relaxing!
Quick, take the pic, I can't hold my gut in for much longer
Suck that gut in Patrich
Free Banana stand, who can resist?
B1 and B2
Another car show, they seem to follow me lately.
Looks like the MG club's in town
At the finish line, we relaxed under a tree and watched out for our other friends to finish. Unfortunately one of them crashed out which had us waiting for a while. At least he was not badly injured, just a bit bruised and sore.
At the finish line
Olympic Park
Patrich did a great job capturing the Spring Cyle action from his Fly6 Camera.
Well, the official ride was over, and an enjoyable one at that, but we had other plans. We decided to ride back home via the old aqueduct making it a 100Km day.
This is an extract from http://www.canalreserve.org which gives some interesting history on the old aqueduct.
"The Lower Prospect Canal Reserve is a unique parcel of bushland that snakes through a densely populated area of Western Sydney. The corridor stretches for approximately 7.7 kilometres from Prospect Reservoir to Sydney Water Pipehead at Albert Street, Guildford (see map) and varies in width from 40 metres to 100 metres covering an area of approximately 54.6 hectares."
There a sections along the cycle path where you can still see the remnants of the old aqueduct, really enjoyable ride actually.
The old aqueduct
Under the bridge down town
Nearly home
I bid Patrich farewell towards the end of the aqueduct cycleway and made my way over to the M7 cycleway to see me back home.
All in all, the Spring Cycle+ was a great days riding on the touring bike.
Last weekend I took part in the Rotary Club of Erina Century Challenge. The major beneficiary of the Century Challenge is Coast Shelter, an organisation located on the Central Coast, which attempts to meet the needs of the disadvantaged within our community through advocacy and the provision of direct services. Coast Shelter provides accommodation to approximately 110 homeless men, women and children each night and also coordinates the provision of over 200 meals each day at the Donnison Street Community Centre.
A couple of my cycling friends and I have taken up the challenge several years in a row now, and it is fast becoming one of our favorite rides of the charity circuit.
We have been blessed with some wonderful Autumn weather of late and Sunday morning was no exception.
Waiting for Gadot
I drove up from Sydney and parked in the Mt Penang Parkland reserve. Always keen, I showed up 30 minutes before the 7:00am on-the-day registration booth opened. So I sat in my car listening to Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction getting pumped for the big ride ahead.
When 7:00am finally came around I rode my bike over to the registration tent and waited for Patrich and Jim to show up.
We took an opportunity to take some photos and talk about Cadel's great start to the Giro.
Jim showing off his new "Vecchi Grassi Bastardi Cycling" Kit
Patrich just showing off
The Rotary club representative gave us a fine welcome and sent us on our way.
The ride itself goes through some wonderful central coast roads with some nice climbs and nice long smooth descents. The first climb of the day start at approximately the 10km mark as you climb out of Brisbane Water National Park and make your way up to Peats Ridge road. The last climb of the day, and it's a doozy, comes at approximately the 90km. Here you go up and down to Somersby Waterfall and Picnic area, the elevation profile does not do them any justice at all. The official starting line moved a little this year making the ride just short of 100km at 98.78km. I rode up to the old starting line and back to get my Garmin clicking over to the 100km mark.
Elevation Profile
All in all, it was a great ride and one that I will be doing again.
Distance: 100.67 km Elevation Gain: 1,235 m Calories: 3,945 C Avg Temperature: 18.6 °C Time: 3:42:13 Avg Speed:27.2 km/h Max Speed:62.8 km/h
