Derby: There's Hills in them there hills.

Absolutely exhausted at the Trig point on Rattler Hill

I cycled away from Derby Park fully expecting to be back there in four, at most five, hours.  I returned just shy of six hours, feeling absolutely  gutted.  Today I learnt that’s there’s hills in them there hills.

But back to the beginning, I was so confident of my ability to get around the Blue Dragon Day 1 course in a reasonable time, that I wasn’t even bothered when I realised about 500 metres from my car that I had forgot to refill my water bottle.  I figured there’d be plenty of rivers to fill up with, so I just sauntered through town, over the bridge and took the right turn down Mascot Road.

I was also completely oblivious at this point that I was doing the course the wrong way round, though I did on several occasions think to myself that the circuit would have been more fun in reverse.  I only discovered this two days later.

Anyway, after a bit of an uphill warm up, the road soon turned down hill, and other than a few near misses with cars and the voluminous dust clouds behind them, it was a great little ride along the road to Ringarooma River Bridge.

Mascot Road

Just after a second smaller bridge, about 200m further down the road, a little dirt road beckoned me off to the left and what followed was kilometres of bliss, with the odd scratch of two.  The path was initially surrounded by flowers, but then not far in the road heads up hill to the right past a “Private Property”sign and an obvious and inviting path continues on straight ahead alongside the river.

The next few kilometres were all narrow single track wending through remnant patches of myrtle forest, man ferns, and also eucalypt forest and even some grasslands.  The river to my left was the only constant, other than the almost annoying heavy overgrowth which kept catching my handlebars, face, arms, legs … did I mention it was scratchy?

Yea, slightly overgrown in places.

Not really a struggle to enjoy this ride.

Did I mention the delicious track?

View from my water bottle as it was filled. DON'T DRINK THE WATER.  Trust me.

This trail just had everything.

I confess to slipping back a few gears and just enjoying this section for what it was.  I even stopped and went down and filled up my waterbottle in the river which turned out to be a mistake as the water tasted warm and foul.   

Unfortunately all good things come to an end, and at the farthest point from the road, my little singletrack trail dropped out onto a slightly more substantial trail, which after about another kilometer turned into a substantial road which actually required me to put in some effort to move the bike along as it started to head gently uphill. Fortunately it wasn't long after this that I hit some bitumen, whipped past a Chinese Memorial and found myself at a seven way junction, where of course I went the wrong way, namely straight out onto the highway and hence had to back track, though fortunately only a few hundred metres.

I followed a small road out around the golf course, as I had been told last night that you could actually follow the Blue Dragon route up into the bush, and that it was in fact the best bit of the days ride, but I found myself in someone’s back yard, well actually two people’s backyards, and with no obvious route to follow I turned around and decided to return to Plan A, which was to follow the power lines further along the road.

Looking back now, I’m thinking that maybe if I had just perservered I might have saved myself an awful lot of pain.

Returning to the main highway and heading off towards Weldborough, the power line track was pretty easy to spot, as it started just where the power lines headed off from the road.  Other than the amusement of seeing some form of power cable randomly appearing in the road, my first impressions of this track was that it was nice and wide, but unnecessarily steep.  Fortunately that quickly passed (it was mainly brought on by the sight of the less steep Weldborough road below me) and the track actually turned into a real gem being easy to ride, open, and surrounded by some beautiful forest.  I was having so much fun, I wasn't even put out by the last little steep hill that I had to push up before emerging next to a giant cable coil.

Blissful riding

Beautiful forest

Even some man made interest.

I remember taking a picture and patting myself on the back for such a fine route choice.  If only I’d known.   

Thinking from here that it was just a quick saunter around a plantation to link back into the Blue Dragon Trail, I was a bit shocked as the trail plummeted steeply down, then rose steeply back up, then down, and up … 

The gradients were mind breaking

The trail was so steep that it felt almost vertical and was completely unridable (for me), and each of the ascents rose 50-100 metres vertically, before just as swiftly giving it all up again.  I think there were four or five of these monsters and I must have gained and lost nearly 400 metres in height to move forward less than a few hundred metres.  The very last hill was the worst of all, and it took me nearly 10 minutes to move forward just 200 metres.  It was on this hill that I finally saw a trail heading off to the right, which I followed to get onto my access trail, and I swear this bit of the trail was so steep that the bike seat was resting on my should as I pushed it up the hill.

 

It was with great relief that after sidling around a plantation I finally dropped back out onto the "official trail".   

I was however pretty tuckered out, and somewhat daunted when I checked my GPS and saw how far I still had to go.  I also did an inveontory and realized I only had 2 muesli bars, my Ringarooma water, a very yucky tasting energy bar and one bottle of powerade to get me there.

However, once back on the trail things started looking up, the first section of road was again surrounded by these purple flowers, I’m sure they‘re introduced, but god they’re pretty.  This road eventually dumped out onto a slightly larger road, where I turned left and after a slight initial uphill climb, I followed this road down to another junction onto what look liked a blue metal road, but wasn’t, on my right.  This was a fast, furious descent.  In fact it was a bit too fast as I whipped passed the innocuous track that I was supposed to follow into the pine plantation, only saving myself from further hurt by luckily checking my GPS and realising I had to turn around and retrace my route back uphill for about 500 metres.

The section through the pines was overgrown, and the track abused by motorbike riders, so it was cool, but not brilliant until dropping down beside a gorgeous creek which I stopped at whilst crossing and finally got some water which tasted good.  Unfortunately I over consumed and as the trail turned fairly sharply upwards I found myself feeling a tad nauseous, and pushing a lot more sections than I would have hopped.  I also realised about here that I was in pretty bad shape energy wise.

Perfect water and rest stop

 

The track however was in brilliant shape, it wended up past a few old grandfather trees emerging out of the rainforest under-storey, before looping round to the left  and emerging into more open forest and plantations as the track continued ever upwards to the sky.   

 

Eventually there was a it of a downhill spin, and quite a few junctions (thank god for my GPS) before the trail emerged out onto a huge quarry on Paris Dam Road.  It was a bit depressing to see a sign pointing to Weldborough, just 4kms away.  I’d been riding for 3 hours.

Proceeding straight across Paris Dam Road I headed up what looked like an inviting track, but I realised five minutes later that I had taken a wrong turn and that I should have gone along a less substantial track.

The official track was another nice piece of disused plantation trail, and was fairly flat for the main part until just before emerging out near a little dam (Ma Mon Chin Dam) where, despite my misgivings, I refilled my water bottle before continuing on.

The next section of the road just blurs into pain.  I remember the first bit which was uphill, but rideable, and I was actually feeling pretty good, but then it emerged out onto a more significant road before immediately turning straight up a steep hill alongside a pine plantation.  This was the section that knocked the fight out of me.  At one stage I got so light headed that I almost passed out, and I was reduced to pushing my bike 20 steps at a time then resting.  Even when the trail flattened out a bit my legs just had no energy and I pretty much pushed nearly all the way to the trig point, only really managing to ride the last 100 metres there.  I took the obligatory photos, sent Jacinta a few text messages, and ate my last muesli bar and drank some powerade.  I think it was 4.30pm.  A bit late for lunch.

So pretty, but so stuffed I couldn't really appreciate it.

Some of the 360 degree views from Trig Point.

It was only later when reading the route notes on the Blue Dragon race that it suddenly clicked that this was the way down, not up.

Praying that the track was mainly down hill, and getting pretty cold, I continued off along the trail.  I think I glimpsed Willem and Robby from last night camped off the trail at one point though when I got closer, I couldn't see them, just their tyre marks in the mud.  The first kilometre was as much up as down and I just gave up at each small incline and pushed.  I really was in survival mode.

Cleared road - bonus!

Thankfully the track started to turn downhill soon thereafter. and other than a few accidental detours at some junctions, I actually enjoyed most of the descent as I dodged rocks, washouts, log litter and various other traps for the unwary.

The trail wove down through mainly quiet roads, and some of the riding was just pure joy.  I almost lost it in one washout just before coming to the dam, which was a pleasure to cycle along, and I even enjoyed the last little uphill section from the dam before a mad descent back into Derby.

Ah well, we are on Forestry Roads after all.

I recall thinking here, wouldn't it be better to have come up this way?

Cascade Dam

A last lovely piece of trail near the dam.

Enjoying the last climb, just up from the dam.

All up today was simply some of the best mountain bike trails I’ve ridden in Tasmania, and combined with the Blue Tier Descent yesterday this area is head and shoulders above anywhere else I’ve yet ridden.  

Despite my sore legs, scratched body and aching back I’m simply in love with this place and just want to spend some more time exploring them there hills … What's more now that I know I went around in the wrong direction, well I just gotta come back and do it the right way around.

The only problem is I have no brake pads left after the last two days efforts ...

View Route (Google Earth)

Blue Tier Heaven

Hobart 268km, 3.5 hours ...

5am alarms are always a joy, they taunt you with the previous night’s enthusiasm to leap out of bed and set off early into the day.  Mine also hit me in a deep phase of my sleep cycle, so I found it hard to string enough coherent thought together to even find my alarm, never mind turn it off and get out of bed.

30 minutes later though, I was packed and in the car heading down onto the Southern Outlet, double shot latte in the coffee mug and last night’s freshly baked bread sitting beside me for breakfast.

I flicked on the radio to be greeted by Guns N Roses singing November Rain and listened to the lonely lament just as the sun lifted above the horizon and sparkled off the Derwent River:

Do you need some time on your own?
Do you need some time all alone?
Everybody needs some time on their own
Don't you know you need some time all alone?

I did, I definitely did, and I found myself singing along at the top of my voice. Yep, it was time to travel north.

Today’s plan was to head up to the Blue Tier in the north east of the State and have a play on the mountain tracks I had heard of up there.    

After a pit stop in Campbell Town for my usual brekky sub, plus an extra one for lunch, I headed out towards Evercreech Forest Reserve to stretch the legs for twenty minutes doing the White Knights walk.

Kind of cooler in the pics than in real life.

I could climb that ...

White Knights.

White Knights. Definitely look more specky in these photos.

 

Whilst the trees (reported to be some of the highest in Tasmania) didn’t actually impress me that much, I did like the EverCreech campsite and couldn’t help but plan an Enduro event in my head as I drove, and then walked, what looked to be some ideal cycling tracks …

From the Reserve, I tentatively continued along Evercreech Road hoping it would take me somewhere other than a dead end, and breathed a sigh of relief when it finally emerged out onto Mt Albert Rd, where I threw a right with plans of dropping out onto Argonaut Road and then hopefully taking a shortcut into either Pyengana or up onto the A3 highway.  I managed the Argonaut Road bit, but then saw no turnoffs so ended up in St Helens despite my little backroad shortcut and probably 45 minutes later than if I had gone along the highway.

To then add insult to delay, I filled up at the BP, only to drive 30 metres down the road and see petrol 10cents a litre cheaper at the liberty petrol station.  No mind, onwards to the Blue Tier.

Looking professional ... but no one to see me.

It was around 11am when I finally topped out at the Pominea Car Park where the Blue Tier ride and walks start from.

I was in a bit of a fugue by this stage, not really sure how deeply I wanted to commit to the day after so much driving, but I decided to head around as far as the top of the Blue Tiers Descent and see how I was going.

20 metres down the track, I was presented by my first quagmire of the day.  At this stage, I was still in the dry, cosy mindset of my ride, so I attempted to ride along the side of said quagmire only to pretty much immediately hit a soft patch resulting in me throwing my right foot down into a large puddle to save the rest of me following.  25 metres into the ride, this wasn't a good start.

That little sign in the middle is a cyclist sign.  The puddle is wet.

Only another 20 metres after that, the track branched with a nice dry, fast looking trail off to the right, and a muddy, boggy, uphill path off to the left.  Very clear signs indicated that walkers were to go right and cyclists, of course, were to go left.

The first half kilometre of the circuit is along an old abandoned trail, and I spent much of it slowly gliding through very long puddles praying that I wasn’t about to get drenched.   

It's puddle time.

The riding was however still fun enough.   

I stopped at an old sawmill interpretation sign, where the track entered the myrtle forest which the trail then wended through all the way around to the Blue Descent junction.   

This section was both brilliant and frustrating.  The forest was just gorgeous, as most myrtle forests are, and some sections of the trail were fun riding, but overall I found myself confounded by the numerous roots and deceptively soggy patches which just ate up my tyres and may as well have been brick walls given how effective they were at stopping me.    

Suffice to say that progress through these few kilometres was slow and erratic, and in my head I had written this trail off as being for the intermediate to advanced only, and in my more honest moments I added "less weighty" to that category, as in big, fat heavy people, such as me, who sink into every mud pit might not enjoy this ride as much as those who are less weighty.

Fortunate warning as track drops half a metre into a creek.

Wellington Creek, not quite room for the beach towel ...

Relics of the tin mining past ... or maybe just previous walkers.

Typical riding around the Wellington Creek Loop. Camera doesn't do it justice.

Mercifully, the trail eventually exited out on a bit better trail at the Blue Tier Descent junction, but I’d had enough at this stage, so instead of going left down the descent, I headed right back towards the car park.   

The 3kms or so back to the car park were fun riding.  The track mainly followed an old, overgrown, gravelled road alternating through myrtle forest, then open plains and back into scrubby regrowth.  There were some nice boardwalk sections across streams and peaty bogs, and let’s face it there’s not too many places in the world where you find yourself dodging wombat scat as you fly across duckboard bridges.  It was whilst dancing my way through this section, probably just as my confidence was returning, that I hit one nasty spot where my front wheel disappeared into an invisible wet patch just as I was coming onto a duck board section resulting in the bike stopping and me catapulting over the handlebars.  Thanks track builders, I really enjoyed that.  Good laugh.

About a kilometre from the end I ran into a nice couple out prospecting which broke up the silence (did I mention how quite it was up there?) and then my ride finished on a high point as I emerged back on the trail head to realise that I’d just come in from the walker section … they hadn’t sent cyclists off on a different route to walkers, they just sent us in opposite directions which makes a lot of sense as it stops us emerging out behind walkers.

The 7.8km (6.8km by my GPS) circuit took me less than an hour, so I had lunch at the picnic area (there’s great tables, chairs, a fireplace and camping areas up here), read the paper, went for a brief stroll around the Goblin Walk, and then decided that I was getting cold so jumped in the car and headed out with my tourists hat put firmly back on.

Anchor Stamper (short 230m walk in from road).

Exited via Anchor road, which would be a beautiful ride, though it’s all uphill, or downhill depending on which way you go, stopping to have a brief look at the Anchor Stamper (old Tin mine crushing equipment) and to do the Loop Walk out to  Halls Falls which was a beautiful little diversion, and would be a great place for a swim on a hot day.  Definitely allow the time to go and visit everything, and if you can’t marvel at the falls, then marvel at the accuracy of their signs.   They don’t talk about 200 metres to such and such, not even 220 metres, nope it’s 216 metres to the weir, 142 metres to the falls.  I kind of wish I had my GPS to check …

Halls Falls

Signs for those who like to know exactly how far they have to go.

Fully playing out the tourist role, I also stopped at the Myrtle Walk coming into Weldborough which I had driven past on numerous other occasions and promised myself I’d visit.   

 

"Grandfather" Myrtle.

This short 10-15 minute walk actually blew me away in the way that I had expected the White Knights to back at Evercreech.  Just staring up at “Granddaddy Myrtle” was ... humbling.

I pulled into Weldborough Hotel about 3pm feeling a little like I had wasted the day, and determined to do more tomorrow.  I went into the bar, and checked if they had a room, “Yep, but given it’s peak season, we won’t be able to do you a discount so it will be about $70”.  I said no worries, but wanted to see the room, which was nice enough (it had a bed), and then on the way back to the bar to take my booking, the guy goes, "OK, look I’ll let you have it for $60".  A bit bemused as I was sure I’d said OK at $70, but not about to argue the toss when it goes my way, I thanked him, agreed to the lower price and started to chat to him about the micro-brews they have at the pub as he made the booking and put my credit card through.  Not really paying much attention to the booking process, he asked me to wander around to the other side of the bar to enter my pin number, at which point he said, “Look, tell you what you can have the room for $50”.  I never knew I was such a good negotiatior, but agreed again to this lower rate as I put my Pin number in. $50 or a double room (Fairly basic, but clean) with a continental breakfast included.  Now that’s hard to beat in peak season.

Somewhat pleased with this turn of events, I got a bit of my energy back and decided to drive up to the base of the descent and maybe even ride a bit of it.   

Turns out you can't drive up very far, maybe a kilometer, before the road turns into a trail, but on my high (I do love saving money) I pulled the bike out and at 3.47pm set off determined to just see how far I could get by 5pm, which would give me an hour to get back to the pub in time for dinner at 6pm.  The guy had been very clear that dinner would be served from 6pm to 7.30pm.

It’s amazing how little things change your day, I would have kicked myself if I hadn’t down this ride.   

Starting up the Blue Tier Descent

It just got better and better ...

All this, and just for me!

The ride starts going uphill almost straight away, and keeps heading that way for quite a while.  The track is hard, but wet in places, and rocky and rutty the whole way.  The grade is just enough to keep you working, but ridable for most fit intermediate riders or better, and it is just awesome.  It pushes up through wet forest with ferns everywhere and old myrtles and man-ferns all around you.  I tried to take some pictures but just couldn’t capture the colours, but really didn't care because when you're enjoying yourself riding up a track, and you know you get to come back down again, well, the riding doesn't get much better than that.

After about 20-30 minutes of climbing, the trail heads down again for a bit of fast relief, which I found a little hard to enjoy as I was watching my watch concerned about missing dinner.  It soon flattened out though, went past a plantation on the left and then came to a T Junction where I turned right up towards Poimena and what I considered the Descent proper.

After a bit more flat, fun riding the trail crosses the first decent river, which was about 30-40cm deep when I crossed, but rideable, and then after a bit more flatish riding, the trail starts climbing again.

Other than one steep, granite flow stone section which started with a very, very intimidating boulder, and a few other short steep pinches where I lost my wheel, I managed to pretty much ride up most of this section to the Wyniford Weir sign. 

Yea, this bit was definitely beyond me.

Challenging on the way up, but a blast on the way back down.

Creek number 2

It was hard work, no doubting that, but the technical challenge was fun, and I loved every second of it.  The technical section ends just before you dive down and cross the river for the second time, and from there it’s a fairly easy (but not easy) ride up to the Weir, where you turn right to continue up the descent trail.  I was getting awful nervous at this stage as my watch had clicked over to my turnaround time of 17:04, but my GPS showed me it was only another 600 metres or so to a track junction.  After a moment of indecision, I decided I had enough time to continue on ...

Thankfully, by this point I was getting towards the top of the plateau, and although there are some steep pinches, both up and down, the riding got faster.  The only set back was when I got to the next “junction” shown on my GPS route, I found it didn’t exist.  It was 17:16 by this stage, so I was really torn as I was now so close to the top.  It didn't take long for sense to prevail, and with a smile on my face, I just decided to miss dinner and keep going.   

There were two more deep river crossing before I rejoined the loop track, both of which I had to carry through after the water stole my momentum and almost threw me off (I was over knee deep in both creeks) then after one final short push (I was beat by this stage) up from the last creek, I found myself triumphantly standing at the loop junction.  It was exactly 17.30, so it had taken me 1hr 40 minutes to get up.

I gave myself all of 10 seconds to celebrate, then turned tail and began the descent…

I’ll be honest and say that whilst pushing up quite a few of those sections, and after my problems hitting rocks and stuff earlier today , I had settled in my mind that this was only a track for the intermediate to advanced to descend, and I was feeling pretty humbled and inadequate, but as I started to descend, the bike just felt good underneath me and I found myself hurtling down sections I thought would be unridable, and even charging back up pinches that I was sure would be beyond me going in the other direction.  I was back at the weir junction in half the time it took me to get up, and thundered down all but two smalls sections of the main trail (one my front wheel slipped, and I just wasn’t prepared to try that last boulder drop).  I also discovered a new passion for flowstone granite riding, it was just awesome fun.

Before I knew it, I was back down at signed junction at the bottom of the descent and starting my way up the climb in the other direction.  I have to admit my legs were pretty tired at this point and my energy levels low, but I still managed to cycle up all but the last 50 metres of the climb, and it only took 10 minutes or so, before settling in for another furious and fun descent back to my car.  It was awesome.

I was well on track to get back to my car about 18:15 (45-50 minute descent) when I came around a corner pretty much at the bottom of the hill to see a kid pushing a fully laden mountain bike towards me, as I pulled to a stop, his two parents, and two other adults, all with heavily laden mountain bikes came around the corner.  They were all pushing, and all looked stuffed.   

How not to do the Blue Tier Descent.

We had a bit of a chat where they told me they were heading to Pominea to camp, I explained and pleaded with them to turn around, I explained that they hadn't even begun to do the difficult sections yet, that the trail just wasn't made for laden cyclists, and that they should just head up the highway, dump their gear at Pominea and cycle the trails from there, but although four of them wanted to turn back, there was one older German guy who just wouldn’t listen and he forced them all on.   

Seeing the argument was lost, I told them a few options for camping, shook my head, cycled out the last few hundred, very easy, metres to my car and threw everything into the back and raced to the hotel.

As it turns out I still had time for a shower, and got into the bar by 18:45, where I saw two cyclists who I thought I had passed earlier in the day coming up form Pyenagana.  I later learned that they weren’t, but they were still a pretty cool couple and we ended up having dinner together and swapping travel and adventure stories.  Robbie, the female, even owned the same bikes (Trek 4900 and Trek Evo EX8) as me which was kind of scary, and Willem had bilt a couple of kilometres of cycle track on his land.

The Pub made a great meal, and the micro brews and ciders were awesome.  I had a Hazards Ale which is my new favourite beer, plus  a couple of Bulmer Ciders which they had on tap.  I retired to bed about 9pm after having a flick through the mountain biking magazine they have in the corner which had the best rides in Australia.   

Tassie’s best rides were listed as Mt Wellington, Blue Tier, Dismal Swamp, Montezuma’s Falls and some private cross country track near Devonport.

The Mag finished my day on a high when it said the trails were for intermediate to advanced and noted that body armour was recommended for the descent… maybe I’m not such a wuss after all, or maybe I was just lucky.

Either way as I drifted off to sleep, I knew one thing .. I was in Blue Tier, Fat Tire Heaven.

Two Centuries

Chalked up two century events this weekend, one good, one sort of disappointing.

I chalked up the first century on Saturday morning by riding the planned 100km route for the 2011 PMM Real Esate Community Cycle Challenge.

I had planned on joining some riders I found on a cycling forum who were doing the ride at 8am Saturday morning, but when I rocked up (admittedly at exactly 8am) there was no one in sight and so I ended up doing it on my own.  There was a bit of a westerly blowing which made a few sections a bit of hard work by myself, but I still managed to average slightly over 25kms/hr (1,390m ascent) and brought it home in 3hrs 50 mins.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you the exact speed, distance or time because I inadvertently discovered that the little yellow button on my cycle computer is the pause button. I had pressed said button when heading out of Richmond (just to see what it did) and I only realised what it actually did several kilometres later, which to be honest kind of annoyed me as I was "time trialling" along this section and so all my hard work went to waste.

I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself (if admittedly also pretty darn sore) on Saturday afternoon when I stepped on the scales to weigh in at 97.9kgs.  I realised that most of this was water loss - I was 1.5kgs lighter than when I set off that morning, but my polar heart rate monitor assured me I had burnt a massive 9,500 kilojoules and having weighted in under 100kgs every day this week, except Monday morning, it was looking like my first sub 100kgs weigh in was a sure thing.

So, I celebrated a little bit when I went to an afternoon tea and allowed myself a few sausage rolls: They were home made and super yummy.  Then I figured that given I was 2.3kgs under my limit I could afford noodle box (satay chicken, yuuuuummmm) for dinner.

Still feeling pretty confident, I stepped on the scales Sunday morning to be greeted by a scary number 99.9kgs.  Somewhat in shock I quickly jumped onto the other set of scales which reported 100.2kgs.  NNNoooooo!!!

I dealt with this dietary dilemma by heading out to have breakfast with Stephan (mistake number three), then suddenly realising what I had done heading out for a late morning paddle to see if I could at least dehydrate myself a little bit and stay under the 100kg mark.  I had been so confident.  Post paddle, I weighed in at 99.6kg but still had dinner between me and my weigh in the next morning.

I decided on tacos:  Only three small shells, and lots of salad.  I felt I should be safe, I went to bed a bit nervous, but also a little cocky.  Things had gone so well this week, I just couldn't envisage going back over 100kgs.  Surely there would be an after-burn effect from all my cycling?

So this morning I stepped on the scales for the official Monday morning weigh in.  This is the only weight in that I write in my diary in Pen.  That's what makes it official.

The numbers started churning, and went straight over 100kgs ... 100.6, 100.1, 99.9 (yes, my new scales are just like the Biggest Loser scales they oscillate for a while before settling on a final weight) 100.1, 100.0 ..... 100.0.  They'd stopped.  I couldn't believe it.  I jumped off and onto my second set of scales ... the one's which usually increase my weight.  I nervously waited as it ticked over and spat out a weight of ... 100.0kg.

I was in denial, and so I stepped on the first set of scales again ... 100.0kg.  I couldn't believe it.  So, so close and yet so far.

I had lost 1.5kgs for the week which I should be happy about, I had ridden a sub four hour century which I should be happy about, but so much hinges on my being sub 100kgs (my training program doesn't allow me to run until sub 100kgs) that it is just frustrating to now have to wait another week.  Still, I still have two weeks to go before New Years.  I can do this.

Next week - no Noodle Box.

Do we have a contender?

One of my aspirational goals out of all this fitness stuff is to get into a bit of road racing with the vet club, however a friend of mine who rides with them keeps giving me the strong message that I'm probably not fast enough yet.

The other week he told me I should aim to do the Casino to Kingston via Bonnet Hill Ride (out and back) at around 25km/hr.

My first attempt last week, I clocked in at 24.3km/hr.

Just repeated the ride at lunch today, and finished the 25.3km ride in 55min and 36 seconds .... that's an average of around 27km/hr and I was a bit wary on the descents due to a lunchtime rainshower. I was stoked.

Unfortunately, by way of epilogue, after thrusting my GPS in front of Don expecting at least some words of congratulation, instead his response was simply "Should have told you to aim for 30km/hr".

30km/hr it is. I feel like a puppy trying to get a pat on the head.

All hail the hail

Just went for my first attempt at a lunch time ride.

Braved the traffic up  Davey Street as far as the Southern Outlet turnoff, then headed into South Hobart where I started the clock when I hit Cascade Road and continued along up Strickland Avenue, final destination Fern Tree.

Extremely windy ride back down the hill, but freaky part of the day was that I got hit by a hail storm up at Fern Tree.  It was a blue sky day.

Ride felt good, enjoyed the hill, really gotta fix those spokes of mine though.

Almost overweight



recreation, just imagine it says 102.8kg

 I stood on the scales this morning to be greeted by an annoying number: 102.8kgs.  Just to be sure that this was about right I then went and stood on my second set of scales, which unforunately confirmed the diagnosis of 102.8kgs.

This is a slightly annoying weight for two reasons.  Firstly, because last week, after being very dehydrated  following Sally's Ride the day before my official weekly weigh in, I had weighed in at less than this (101.8kg from memory) down from 103.6 the previous week, but more-so, because according to the standard BMI calculation, I will 'officially' move from being Obese to Overweight at, wait for it, 102.7kg.  Soooo close.

I did however expect this.  Firstly I knew I was very dehydrated from Sally's Ride, and most of my weight loss had been due to water loss.  I knew this because I had weighed in on the Saturday morning before at 102.4kgs, and I didn't think I'd lost 0.8kgs in fat from one walk and one ride in two days, but also because I felt strangely deflated, and almost borderline sick last week, and actually pretty much stopped doing any exercise on Wednesday because I had a splitting headache.

That's why I didn't panic this weekend when I realised that I was going to go up in weight, in fact other than a fun, but good, workout on Saturday Morning paddling from Kingston Beach south sitting about 2-5metres off the shoreline the whole way, I pretty much did nothing all weekend and allowed my mind and body to get well and positive again.

I did however write myself a training plan.  Well, scribbled a few things I'd do this week with an eye towards competing in the Summer Survival challenge in February 2011 if it goes ahead:

My idea of a training plan ... scribbles on paper blu-tacked to wall.

The downside of this "training plan" was that when my alarm went off at 5.30am this morning, I did actually have to get out of bed, despite still feeling pretty run down and fluey, and managed to get myself organised enough so I was down at work and wheeling my racing bike out the door about 6.30ish.

My aim was to cycle over to Kingston Beach and back via Taroona to see how long it would take me.  This being the road bike section for the Summer Survival Race if it goes ahead.

I had no expectations, I just wanted to set a benchmark.  It turns out it took me about 1hr 18mins (just over) at an average speed of 24.3kms an hour.  This included the sections too and from work to the Casino and also an easy loop around Kingston Beach.  I had a chat to Don here at work and he tells me a time of 25kms/hr is good, so that's my target now.  The good news was that the riding felt good.  I pushed myself, and was really at my limits several times, but at worst I only pulled back a little and kept fighting most of the way.  I think 25kms/hr is realistic.

So this was a good morning for me: (1) I got out of bed, and basically my training plan is all about trying to make better use of the morning for training, (2) I felt good and set a reasonable time, and (3) I felt much. much, much better when I got back to work than I had when I set off.

Swimming as usual tonight (1.5km laps) as I figure these two exercises work different muscle groups, and then just my normal walk to and from work tomorrow.

25 days to go, and 2.8kgs to loose ... it's coming down to the wire, but I still believe.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I have two sets of scales.  Basically, my old scales were fast dying, and yes it may have something to do with all the weight placed on them, so I bought a new set recently, but I can't convince myself to get rid of the first set now as I kind of like having the ability when I stand on one set and don't like the result I see to be able to step on the other and see if I get a result more to my liking.  I don't call it cheating, I use the word averaging.