A "wee" weekend away....

Sometimes you need to take a risk and get right out of your comfort zone, but sometimes it's also good to remain in the dark about what you are letting yourself in for. I can't really decide if the former or the latter is a better description of the bike ride I found myself on the other day.

I had been feeling a bit "meh" about running and so one of my Trotter mates suggested I go on a weekend bike ride with a group of likeminded people as a change. I was rather worried about joining the group as I'm no great shakes on a bike and I think that the furthest I've ridden without a break is about 50k, and even that was a while ago.......so I was worried about being the annoying slowcoach that everyone had to keep waiting for and hence ruined the trip. My friend persuaded me that I'd be fine as I had "running endurance" and that it was just meant to be a fun trip away with no pressure of speed or times, so (with some trepidation remaining in my heart) I packed an overnight bag and we cycled down to the meeting point on Saturday morning.

The "starters"

Having slung my backpack in a car and successfully hidden behind others in the pre-event photos, we set off. It started off as a nice social chatty ride and so I wondered what I had been worried out, but then I did hear a few warning signs, such as when the guys cycling along behind me talked about it being a nice gentle pace that they could easily sustain and how far they usually cycle.....or when the guy I was chatting to told me that he was "just doing the 80k option", ie turning round at 40K.....if that was "just" 80K, then how far was I meant to be going??? He also instructed me in some cycling etiquette, eg about always passing on the outside, not overlapping wheels....and told me that unless I learned how to "draft" I wouldn't make it!! That wasn't the most confidence-inspiring thing to say, as I am incredibly nervous about crashing, as I have broken both legs coming off bikes (and one time was due to someone cutting me up and taking out my wheel) and so I like to have my own space and see clearly where I'm going and any upcoming obstacles - the antithesis of drafting!

I was initially lulled into a false sense of security by the size of the group, and by the fact that other people got punctures, as these things meant that I wasn't ever at the back....and was even one of the people that had to wait for others, though there were a couple of faster riders that didn't seem to be so much "team players" and kept riding off. I actually think it may have been one of these cyclists that caused our first major drama of the trip, cutting past another guy on his inside so he wobbled and ended up sliding off the road into a ditch and hurting himself with various open skin cuts and grazes. He seemed to be fairly OK (well nothing was broken anyway) so I was told that as one of the slowest there, I should just keep going, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the next section was rather a nightmare for me. It should have been a lovely coast down some sweeping hills into Swansea and whilst we were on a major road it was fairly wide and had a decent surface, but unfortunately by this point in time the heavens had well and truly opened! Not only did I find it almost impossible to see where I was going due to the rain, but the cars and trucks shooting past were also spraying up fountains of water, people were coming on and off the road to my right and left, and I feared that any sudden action on my brakes would send me skidding across the tarmac like Bambi on ice. Clearly I was alone in my fears, as everyone shot past me while I just clung on for dear life, trying not to swear or cry but at least I made it to the bottom safely and to our regrouping point (ie another snack stop for me) at the start of the Fernleigh Track.

On the road....

The Fernleigh felt like familiar territory for me as I raced the NSW 15K champs along it in 2019, though I don't remember it being as downhill a run as the ride felt uphill! I was cycling along next to the guy who'd had the earlier accident and he said that one of the cuts he'd suffered was right across the front of his knee and that he felt it was opening up with every pedal stroke so he thought he'd probably stop when we got to the ferry in Newcastle (yeay....well boo for him.....but yeay for me, as that meant that as long as I could keep going to that point, I wouldn't be the first to DNF :-) ). One of the 2 other girls on the ride got another couple of punctures on this section, so again I wasn't actually last as we headed into Newcastle. The girl that was the likely culprit for the accident, again showed her disregard for anyone on the road apart from herself as she cut across cars and almost caused a major accident by ignoring traffic lights and stop signs in the busy street of downtown Newcastle. Despite these dramas, we made it to the ferry safe and sound, but the extra time taken meant that instead of a sit down feed, I was still trying to drink my takeaway coffee and eat my slab of delicious hot buttered banana bread whilst wheeling my bike onto the boat for the short crossing to Stockton (though it was hard not to think of it as Gateshead, being just across the river from Newcastle!!).

The crossing only took a few minutes and then we all cycled off round the streets of Stockton together. After a few kilometres we were onto the open roads heading towards the airport and the "peloton" spread out into various small groups. I was accompanied by Elissa on this stretch and so we had a lovely sociable chatty ride trading very very bad jokes (and singing appallingly). We pulled into our next pitstop having just ticked over the 100K mark and I did comment that it had taken way less time than I would take to run 100K but that I was probably a lot better at running the distance than riding it. A couple of guys were finishing their ride for the day here, and so they hopped off their bikes and into the two cars that had been accompanying us, whilst the two that had driven up that point jumped out and onto their bikes. Luckily (or unluckily as it meant that I no longer had an excuse to stop), one of the guys offered to lend me his back wheel as he wasn't going to be cycling any further that day. My bike had been making some very strange noises up until that point, and  one of the guys who has much more bike-knowledge than me (admittedly it isn't hard to know more than nothing!!) diagnosed that the bearings in my back wheel had gone, hence it had been complaining and wobbling around for the whole ride up until that point.

My hands were already starting to protest - and this is how they ended up!!!

The next section of the ride started rather scarily as we had to cross the main highway between Sydney and Brisbane to get to the shoulder on the far side and then cycle up it. I was definitely flagging by this point, not just because of my lack of cycle fitness, but because my lack of confidence on the bike means that I am too scared to take my hands off my handlebars (and brakes) and so I cannot eat and drink whilst cycling. On a positive note, the road surface was good, it was only gently undulating and the verge was nice and wide so my friend Darren could cycle with me to keep me going, and we could safely fit side by side and not feel endangered by all the trucks passing by. We stopped in a layby/picnic area so that I could have a little feeding break and sit down, which really helped me make it to the "official" lunch stop at Bulahdelah where there were "real shops".

Mark post-Bulahdelah-dismount!

I was so excited to be able to go straight to the little supermarket and buy ice cream, chocolate and coke and then have a sit down to chat with the others - some of the stories were great, such as one guy cramping up so badly that he literally fell off his bike on arrival there, and then lying down and falling fast asleep as soon as he'd had his lunch. Unfortunately, although some of them had been there for a good 20 minutes longer than us, we'd only been there for 10 minutes before one of the others said "right, that's a long enough break, let's hit the road", which definitely caused me to swear and mutter under my breath that it was alright for her, as she was one who'd just got out of a car and started riding! The road got much hillier from Bulahdelah onwards and it was starting to get really hot, so I wasn't exactly enjoying it. One of my problems is definitely my stubbornness, so rather than give up and hitch a ride in one of the cars, I just kept going....though I did find it rather hard to cycle and cry at the same time!

How far??!!!

Darren stuck with me the whole time, and though I really worried that I was ruining his ride for him, he assured em that he didn't mind what speed he went as it was just about enjoying the trip and spending time in the saddle (well, it was certainly more time with me than if he'd been going it alone!). One of the guys in the cars kept pulling into laybys until we passed just top make sure that we were OK which was lovely of him, but at the next meeting point, I suggested that he could then go ahead as we were "almost" there and I reckoned I'd just about manage it. The meeting point was a famous cherry pie shop but they were just closing up as Darren and I arrived. Thankfully they stayed open long enough to give us cokes and luminous blue slushy drinks (which soon had us both clutching our eyes/temples with ice cream headaches) and we were soon on our way again.

On arrival at Forster, on hearing I had to climb the stairs...

I got a second wind as I felt that the end was in sight.....well, at least the turn off from the highway was....and the last section went on and on. It was much quieter traffic-wise once we'd left the highway, but the road surface was also much worse....and the road seemed to consist of never ending corners and undulations. Eventually we saw houses and found ourselves cycling down the main street of Tuncurry. We almost witnessed a major accident as a car pulled out across the traffic ahead of us, right into the path of an oncoming van, but luckily disaster was averted and we carried on up onto the bridge over to Forster. A slight detour round the streets of Forster and we'd finally arrived, just before the heavens opened with a torrential downpour of rain. I got off my bike and lay down on the pavement, only to be told that I was staying in an upstairs room and had to carry my bike up to it....but once this was done, it was finally time to wash, relax, go to the pub and the famous ice cream shop that it was the only reason I'd agreed to the ride. It was amazing, but I'm not sure that I would ever cycle over 220Km for an ice cream again!

Hurrah for ice cream!!!

I had wondered if my "broken wheel" would get me out of the ride home, but (unfortunately?) 2 of the guys that had arranged to carshare and do half of the ride each, kindly offered me the use of one of their wheels when they weren't riding.....so I had to zip up my mansuit and get on with it (after the obligatory early morning cafe trip before we hit the road). The road back to the highway seemed an awful lot better when you hadn't already ridden almost 200km, and I felt much less guilty about being at the back of the group, as I had offered to drop out on several occasions if I was slowing everyone down. Darren stuck with me at the back again, and as it turned out, every time we got to a regroup area, there was at least one other splinter group who'd dropped off the pace and arrived not long before us. My cycling (a bit like my running) is dependent on food, so I was glad that we had ordered ahead for our "second breakfast" at Bulahdelah and then were handed doughnuts or crisps etc by the support cars at other breakpoints.

The morning cafe crowd

3 people stopped 100K into this second day but I decided to carry on a bit further  - in for a penny, in for a pound - but then came to regret this not long afterwards. The stretch out to the airport (which I'd quite enjoyed on the way up) was horrendous. It probably wasn't as bad for the group ahead - not just because they're much stronger cyclists than me, but because they could take it turns to act as windbreaks for each other - but I found that at times I was making almost no headway along the road as the wind in my face was so strong. I didn't even have the breath to swear, but I could not think of a single enjoyable thing about that stretch of ride.....and at one point even had a sit down protest (and a chocolate bar) at the side of the road!! Poor Darren....having to put up with me....especially when my temper frayed a bit more as he couldn't quite remember the route to the ferry, so we did an extra tour of the streets of Stockton! Big apologies are obviously due!

Getting on with it...

After the ferry I knew it wasn't far to the Fernleigh Track which would be sheltered, so I decided to pedal there and reassess, and as the Track was more downhill than uphill, I was even talked into going a bit further than that (despite another girl dropping out). The back car kept checking up on us and I managed to keep going all the way up the hills out of Swansea and past Catherine Hill Bay before finally calling it a day at Lake Munmorah. It was starting to get late now and I felt that whatever he said, Darren had given up so much of the enjoyment of his ride to stick with me (payback for talking me into it?) that he'd appreciate getting his head down and powering along the last few kms. There wasn't that far left to go, but this way meant that we got back in time for the "Finishers' Photo" before everyone else headed off home.....which I then had to do on my bike - talk about a glutton for punishment!!

"Finishers"

My stubbornness had really proved itself that weekend but although I was rather knackered, I was quietly proud of myself for not quitting (or not quitting earlier anyway!)....and surprisingly enough, it wasn't my legs that showed the most damage from the weekend but my poor hands, as despite having worn cycling gloves, it took weeks for the blisters on the palms of my hands to settle....which shows how much I was clinging on for dear life I guess!! Oh well Sally....it may be a while before you get another ride out....and so I may take a long time fixing your wheel to give me a decent excuse for refusing any more cycling invites!!