111.59km / 5:44:44 / 1276m / 18.4°C
My first Audax ride for quite a while, the stars all aligned with a ride on an available day and not too far away so I could get there and back. Still required getting up at an unpleasantly early hour as far as I’m concerned.
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Minor headache at the start, I couldn’t find it! Stupidly had thought I “new” where it was leaving from and got to that park only to find that nobody was there and that I couldn’t find any of the ride details through my phone, the emails, or even the contact number of the organiser. Luckily another rider made the same mistake and turned up, then rang a mate and got us redirected back into town!
Average of 18°C for the ride doesn’t quite convey just how cold it was at 7am at Little River, down around 7°C as we started, then 27°C at the finish. I think everyone was expecting the warmth, but not the cold start
Faffing around meant I left about 15 minutes after the start so hardly saw a soul, only another four or five riders all day! I’d also decided to only print the cue sheet rather than load the GPX track into my Garmin, and some of the cues were a little… curious. A few turns up and back a side street where they’d clicked just off the main road I guess, and “turn left into C141, 2.5km turn right into Switch road” omitting that you had to turn left into the C141, ride 2km into Anakie to the checkpoint, do a u-turn, go back to the C141 junction and 2.5km the opposite direction!
Switch road is an awesome dirt road route through the Brisbane ranges, mostly along the plateau at the top, but dropping down three times along tight s-bends into a gorge and back out the other side.
Very little other traffic, a few too many high speed close passes on the more trafficed roads, a very enjoyable northerly tail wind on the way back towards Little River, and for a surprise at the end, a couple of kilometres or mountain bike track around the base of the You Yangs
Clear sky, 12°C, Feels like 10°C, Humidity 71%, Wind 3m/s from N - by Klimat.app
Riding 493rd day in a row, including my ;
Garmin | Strava | ridewithgps
