probably a bit late to be asking if anyone is doing this since it’s day after tomorrow.
ride from … i don’t know, some place in NSW near… Byron? going to coolangatta i think.
Brooke and i are doing it, me on ugly purple fixxy.
starts at 9.oo, reg on the day at 7.oo.
stuff on it is here
http://tr.nelson.co.nz/rainbow_ride.htm
brooke is working till past midnite, and i’m going to be playing W.O.W. till christ knows what time, so it’s going to be very slow and steady for us.
anyone is welcome to ride with us tho.
maybe see some of you down there.
lupine - are you nuts?! that’s a pretty hilly ride for fixed 
have a great ride! let us know how it goes.
ok.
well, that hurt.
44-16 probably wasn’t the best choice for a ride like that.
hills. lots of hills. so many fucking hills.
we drove over a small part of the course on the way to the staging area and i was seriously wondering if i could swap my role for the day with brookes dad who was dropping us off, and then going fishing.
lots of hills.
late reg was at 0700 hrs, and by 0810, Brooke and myself were still the only people at the reg tent. it was starting to look like we were a shoo in for first and second.
by 0830 people had started to turn up and we weren’t so lonely, but there wasn’t a huge run on parking spaces either.
final number of riders ended up being just over 100, about 80% of which were doing the 80K ride.
i’m a wimp and was only doing the 60K cause although i’m nuts (as has been mentioned before) i’m not fucking nuts.
you wouldn’t have know it from the comments i was getting tho.
people were having a bit of trouble coping with the concept of anyone doing this on a fixxie, which was doing wonders for my confidence. and thank you to the nice lady who offered CPR if i tried to die on one of the hills, but i’m spoken for, or gay, or into horses or something. no really. i’m pretty sure i am.
rider brief was at 10ish, and followed the usual rambling comments about following the road rules, not raping cattle, don’t eat the children format, and then we were off on the ride.
did i mention it was hilly? i mean really hilly.
the first one was about 500M from the start and about 1/3rd of the way up i realised that a gearing i can crank up spring hill for work is NOT going to be fun up this molehill.
then i remember that once i get to the top, i have to get back down in one piece. which straight away starts us on the next climb. oh god and the next one was only getting longer and longer. this place is called Burringbar, and it’s not a place fixed wheels should ever go. ever.
i did mention it was hilly right?
ascents are bad. actually they are very bad.
descents are pretty damn bad as well. top speed of 50KpH, who the hell knows what RpM.
and now we’re heading into murrwillimbar (who the hell knows how you spell it, i didn’t want to spend that much time on it).
some lying bastard had told us that the worst was over, and we were on the way now, half way through and still cranking.
Mt Tomewin. lets talk about it for a minute shall we.
i did mention it was hilly didn’t i? cause we got to the bottom a hill. this hill was 4K long. pretty constant pitch of about “what the fuck am i doing here” grade, and people started having some trouble.
ok to be honest about it, people were having trouble about half way up the first hill, but this monster was finishing them off fast.
i have a confession to make at this point.
i stopped to say hi to a nice couple who were taking off their shoes because they had hot feet (i kid you not), and i was absolutly incapable of getting going again. the gearing was just not going to allow me to start again on this pitch.
i covered it up masterfully though by waiting for brooke to walk round a bend and offering to push her bike up the last 700M of this mostrosity. everyone bought it and thought i was a true friend for helping her out like that.
so off i walk at field march pace, hup two three four, hup two three four. up the hill i go.
as i get to the lookout at the top of Mt Tomewin, pushing 2 bikes, who should get dropped off out of a comfy, cushy SUV but brooke. laughing her ass off, and providing amusement for the 1/2 dozen people at the water station trying not to puke, or pass out, or both.
words were spoken which scared the plentiful local birdlife, and off we go again.
if you haven’t ever riden or driven down the north side of Mt Tomewin, i reccommend that you do. beautifull views, nice and cool (comparatively), and all in all a lovely ride.
and very difficult on a fixxie. being passed by brooke still laughing her ass off at me wasn’t making it any easier. down and down and down, and then back up again. what the hell, not more uphills again. oh, ok, down and down again.
when a sign tells trucks and cars to use low gear, and roadies are shifting to the big pizza ring, you can feel a little lonely wondering if you can do 200RpM before your hips explode.
and still down, whoa and now it’s flat again.
about 10K out from the finish it’s now fast, undulating road. it’s crank it up to 30ish and get your head down time. chase that smart ass roadie that passed me on the last down section and run his ass down. game on.
apparantly it can be a little daunting for a couple of roadies in team replica gear to have some nut on a fixed, wearing baggy fox shorts, a SYDBMA jersey, and mountain bike shoes and helmets come chasing them.
conversations by the two guys i caught. “shit dude, it’s the fixed guy, what’s he doing here?”. “is he still there?”. “how do we get rid of him?”. it was like going to a singles function again.
i stopped for a bit to let brooke catch up, and then we rode on into currumbin. and here it got a little surreal again. it was the dragon boat festival and there were about 1000 people there at the park. lots of people cheering and more ignoring us, but it was all good cause thank a merciful deity, we’d finished.
you know the first 10 minutes after you finish a really hard ride when you feel like you could turn around and ride straight back? that lasted about 10 minutes. ice-cream, and then the lunch the organisers put on, and leg cramps and the priize giving.
lots of prizes. spot prizes, place prizes, team prizes. Brooke got some conti slicks, i got some cool fusionhealth ginseng tablets, we got a nice etched beer glass as a trophy. all in all about 25 people got prizes of some sort, so a good result.
we did the ride in 2H42m for 60K, average speed about 20KpH. we stopped to chat to people, and didn’t really push it at any point except up the last 700 M of Mt Tomewin (that was a pun, or a play on words. clever wasn’t it?) and still weren’t last by a long way. people were still coming in about an hour after we did.
so, i’m not the fittest guy by a long way, and i’m not the strongest. i might be the fattest, and we’ll have to see about that. but we did it, and had fun doing it, and we’re up for the 100K in a few weeks. so come along and have a go.
the worst that can happen is that the ugly old person offers you CPR if it all goes wrong.
i took some photos, but i’ve lost the conn cable for my camera, so you can’t see them.
i’m going to go stand in anouther hot shower and contemplate my possibly damaged brain, see you for the next one?
thanks for the report! you nut case
Inspirational madness for sure. Nice work mate.
T.
Lupine,
read your report Saturday night and felt for you, know those hills well (crashed a car in the rain on Burringbar range once) you inspired me to ride home to Bris from Daybro yesterday, good practice but nothing like Burringbar and Toomewin.
What is this 100K you are talking about, is it the Brissie to GC?
OK, Wolf Man, presuming I’m in the country (sound like anyone we know??) I’ll follow you round next year for the laugh.
We’ll need better planning, like maybe more than two days notice for example … and gear selection coaching from ndf for another example, but we’ll make it happen.
Wouldn’t wanna miss all that pain again!!
well done Lupine, hills are a bitch. The resolve to never ride a hilly fixed century disappears at about the same rate as the pain. Come on everyone, who’s riding P-B-P next year? I have a 650b bike planned, fixed/geared switch in half an hour. Perhaps I should get cracking eh?
Fixed for <200km events only to start
(“damn brifters”)
http://www.observedtrials.net/otn3/my%20650b%20bikecad.jpg
- Joel