stats. Today 33.9km Trip total 34km
By the time I arrived in Warragamba I’d catalogued a few more minuses to sitting in the back seat of the bus — the seat won’t recline, and it was right next to the toilet, luckily the latter just stank in a chemical, rather than biological, manner.
Disembarking at around eight it was a typical start to the ride. Hundreds of people milling around, bags over there, bikes over here, friends over there, queue here, do this, do that….
As usual I’m feeling tired and sore, the bus trips and travelling to the rides always seem to do more damage than the rides themselves.
There aren’t so many of the piggies on the ride this year, in fact the overall numbers look down as well. Ron, Bushy, Lenny, Stu and Janelle are here, and Kevin is riding to Camden for the day — everyone else seems to have better things to do with their lives. Kevin and Ron were wearing dark glasses and drinking Red Bull to try and avoid their hangovers from a big night at the Walacia hotel last night. Luckily the Red-Bull promotion girls arrived at just the right time….
First coincidence of the ride was me discovering that Ron had bought a new helmet two weeks ago — exactly the same model and colour scheme as the one I bought yesterday.
I’d forgotten just how little cycling a lot of the participants here seem to do — my daily commute isn’t far, but at least half the people seem to have no idea on how to ride in straight line and not wobble out in front of anything and everything that passes. The closest call I had was with one of the police motorcyclists though! He passed down the wrong side of the road, then slowed and did a u-turn, unfortunately swinging into my path as I approached at around 50km/hr! Kevin was behind me, and amazed that I managed to swerve around the BMW, I think I was amazed too, none of it was planned, it was just the automatic reaction when 280kg of police bike appeared in front of me!
At Camden we set up camp for the first night as it started to drizzle, then the drizzle turned to rain while I crawled inside and slept for an hour or two to recover from the overnight coach.
A couple of hours sleep and I felt refreshed enough to face the first meal from Tom & Ben’s catering. Tonight it was a tasty lasagna, the only problem being keeping the rain off it to stop it diluting away! Then it was off to the bowling club for a beer and a brief hello to some friends, then up the street to the nearest pub for a few more beers and a few more hellos. Being a Saturday night in the pub, there was a strange mix of people, with Camden residents in their Saturday-night best on the one hand, and bike riders — some still in nicks — on the other.
Where?
Cootamundra(-34.65,148.0333333) Warragamba, Camden(-34.05,150.7)
