It’s tough getting out in the morning when it’s so cold but I managed to drag my butt out for Alan’s first ride since the baby. Nothing interesting this ride, just a good ride from Abbotsford to Murrumbeena to Mordialloc and back. I think it was just under 90km for the morning for me.

Somebody tell me how he does the hand trick at the start.

Keith Barry: Brain magic

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conditions - brief light showers
distance: 49km
avg speed: 33km/h
avg HR: 150/min
max HR: 178/min

Today was a slow-slow day; a good day to take the Tarmac out for a test ride, and see if it needed any tweaking.

The difference between this frame and the Giant is amazing. The ride is smooth. I’m so used to feeling every single vibration through the aluminium frame, this frame feels like I’m running semi-soft tyres it’s so different. This bike is light. It just surges forward with every pedal stroke. I think the Ksyriums help as well, because I can spool up to cruising speed pretty quickly now. Despite the lack of weight, this bike does feel very well planted though. The carbon dampening really helps to keep the tyres in contact with the ground, rather than skipping across bumps, as some light bikes do.

HR data is for the actual NRR component only. Avg HR of 150/min looks more realistic now. Although this was meant to be a slow-slow day, someone decided to kick up the pace from Black Rock onwards. I don’t have a computer installed yet. Avg speed at this point felt like about 35km/h into headwind. I managed to hang on, but had to work pretty hard to do so.

distance: 51km
ride time: 1hr 46min
max speed: 50km/h
avg HR: 133/min
max HR: 179/min

My 2nd attempt at this. Much easier this time around, since I knew what to expect. I made a point of trying to clip-in faster, accelerate faster and roll a bit closer to the wheel in front. I knew today would be a “slow going-down and fast coming back”, so I mentally prepared for this. I tried to ride efficiently going to Mordi and conserve my legs. I didn’t get caught out by accelerations this time, and I think it paid off. By the time we got the roundabout, my legs were just about nicely warmed-up.

Of course, I’m still near the back of the peleton as we clear the roundabout. I anticipated the pick-up in pace, so when it happened, I was ready. I latched onto the tail of the bunch and just powered. In fact, I was powering along so well, I had to keep hitting the brakes to stop crashing into the guy in front. I’m not sure what the speed was at this point, as I was busy concentrating on not crashing into the wheel in front of me. It felt like about 40+km/h. My computer max speed says 50km/h, but I don’t know if that could have been on a downhill at some other point.

The adrenaline rush, cruising at max speed was awesome. I was taking deep inhalations to maximise my O2 intake, but I didn’t even feel tired. I felt like I keep going for ages. (as opposed to last week, which was a slow return, and yet I was still feeling quite tired). I was cruising along in this kinda Zen state for a good few kms, until the bunch hit a red light at Beamaris. About 5 guys ran the red light. I prefer to obey the law so I stopped, with only a few other fellow stragglers rolling up behind me. I tried to set the pace for a working group to catch up, but nobody else was interested. Eventually I just sat up and cruised home. Man! Once you get dropped from the bunch, there is just no way of catching up. I could only just see the mass of red tail-lights ahead of me for a few minutes, and then they were gone.

I kept up the pace going home, to about 35km/h, dragging a couple of other stragglers with me. I think I kept the pace up, because I didn’t want the humiliation of getting caught by the 6am bunch. At least, I managed that goal.

I’m annoyed because I don’t really know how long I would have lasted, because my run was stopped prematurely. Oh well, until my next attempt then. Wow, this is seriously addictive.

After piking on cycling to work today (laziness), I decided to go explore a little around my area after work despite getting home a little late. Found some recommendations on bikely, and headed off towards a hilly route near my area.

Approx 3km from my place.
1km in length.
Gain of about 70m according to bikely, hence roughly 7%.

I think this could be the start of a new love-hate relationship….

Well, let’s just say that this was a once in a lifetime experience of a different kind - one that I won’t do again in this lifetime! Don’t get me wrong, I still am a big cycling fan but I really do prefer watching it on TV where you get to see the lovely mountain top views with castles etc, but more importantly, you get to follow the action when it’s on TV.

Anyway, this trip was a bit of a last minute thing organised by Gin, and I figured why not. Especially if Cadel Evans was in with a chance of becoming the first Australian to win the Tour de France. Gin and I booked Eurostar tickets during the week and we left on early Saturday morning. First time I’ve really traveled via the Eurostar and let me just say that I love it! Instead of catching a bus/train for 40-60 mins to get to the closest airport it was a 15 min taxi ride (we were going to catch the tube but there were delays) to St Pancras International which is the station where the Eurostar departs, right at the northern end of the city. And then when we arrived at Gare du Nord in Paris, it was just a 10 min walk to our hotel.

The Saturday we arrived we pretty much spent walking around Paris as it was a nice day. Gin and I have both been before so we took it at a very leisurely pace. Actually, the first plan was to try and get a train out to Saint Armand Montrond to see the time trial but I’d already checked for tickets during the week and there didn’t seem to be anything available. Still, when I did get into Paris I did try briefly asking information whether there were any trains out to St Armand Montrond. No one seemed to even know where this town was so I pretty soon gave up.

Aside from stuffing ourselves with French crepes, escargots and beef tartares all weekend, we did catch some cycling on Sunday. Woke up late and ate lunch along the Champs-Elysees which was already starting to fill out at this time. We found a spot about 100m from the sprint point (which I initially thought was the finish) and pretty much camped (stood) there for the next 4 hrs. I wandered off at some point to see if I could find a better location on the other side of the street but no luck (I think you’d have to get there before 12pm). Anyway, whilst I was waiting (standing), Gin wandered off to do some shopping and general entertaining to keep herself from getting bored. She came back with food and water on occasions, and she also found the corporate areas and where the finish line actually was (at Place de la Concorde, down the other end of the Champs-Elysees). Somewhere along the way, we managed to pick up those big green (foam) hands as well that you always see on TV. I guess they learned their mistakes from making them out of cardboard.

Anyway, at about 5:30pm, the peloton arrives. It was useful as we had this Parisian uni student next to us and so we kept on asking him questions about what the commentators were saying over the loudspeakers. Apparently though for the previous 3 hours or so whilst I thought they may have been talking about the race or maybe just general French news, they were actually advertising! (With intermittent bits about the race). It all kind of made perfect sense though as about 1hr ago the ‘publicity caravan‘ arrived and all it was was car after car after car of advertising from the sponsors. They didn’t even throw out any freebies!

There’s a video on my Facebook of the peloton arriving and I think Gin’s comment at 0:21 is a classic and pretty much sums it all up. I’m glad I’ve done it but I don’t think I’ll be going back to watch any part of the TdF live any time soon.