First on Saturday we had our MTB skills course at Lysterfield for women. Me, Norm, Adam and Andrew had a fun time teaching some awesome excited women more about riding their mountain bikes. A great day with sunny weather. What a change of scenery to our cold and cloudy Forrest surrounds!
Sunday we attended the GMBC round #3 race at You Yangs . We met a bunch of the Race Development Squad too and a few even had their first taste of racing. Woo hoo. Pre race a few of us had a 15km warm up, then post race, some more joined us for a 20km stint over to Stockyards with some fun downhills...more woo hoo! The day seemed to go forever and I actually forgot that we had to go home sometime soon.
Sorry to not invite anyone, sometimes it is a bit hard when the roads are at your doorstep and there is 12hrs notice that a ride "IS ON".
It would be similar to being a surfer living near the beach ringing his mates in Melbourne letting them know at 5am that the surf is pumping. He is not going to wait 3 hours for them to get down. ...Anyway, a friend(Liz) and I rode my now favourite loop off all time yesterday. The wind was a northerly in the morning which was great. However it was possibly 10 degrees leaving from Forrest...and it only got colder. At a leisurely 10am, the 2 of us left my house at Forrest in perfect conditions. 17 kms later we had climbed to the Turton's Tk entrance. I warned Liz that Turton's is too good to be true. Being MTB'ers I was able to advise her that it is single track for roadies. Popping out at Beech Forrest we were met with the slight cross/tail wind of the northerly that had the chill of a southerly. The trip from B.F to Lavers Hill was sweet, we were able to power along here most of the way in the big ring around 36-42kmph quite easily.
Coffee at Laver's Hill and we were squealing like kids for the next 10 or so Km's. The wind did not give us any grief on these downhills and the roads were dry. Arriving at Castle Cove, we forced a stop to admire the view. Once in the flats of Glenaire we started to feel a cross/headwind of the northerly and our speed was now around 27-30kmph on the flat!
5 or so kms later and we were up the climb that effectively lasts 11km (with some small downhills inbetween). Thanking the cold weather for keeping me cool, as I had my layers unzipped to let the fresh air in. The roads were wet now and there was rain clouds hanging around Apollo Bay and you could not see the hills.
Since having Liz stay for a few days, it was hard getting back to normal and I must say I lost interest in working or answering emails or turning on my computer. Everything felt like hard work and I was pretty keen to have maybe 2 weeks holidays.
It took all my energy to get ready for Saturdays ventures.
1. Road race with Geelong Cycling Club at Maude ...and 2. A private MTB skills session with a group of very fit guys at the YOU YANGS
Somehow in my planning, I prepared for EVERYTHING else bar how to get to Maude via Forrest. There is a short cut via Lethbridge but I did not know and sent Norm further than we needed and low and behold made it to the race start with about 30 seconds to spare on start line. Thank goodness it was a handicap and I was not off limit.
