No rest for the wicked...
I've just gotten back from my big Newcastle to Gold Coast ride and already have the next trip planned.
This week one of my co-workers said that he's still keen on doing a ride to Sydney as we had discussed earlier in the year and I told him that I have been planning to do my "maiden imperial century" from Newcastle to Sydney.
maiden = first, imperial = miles (160kms), century = 100
So the aim would be to ride more than 160kms in a day and from where I live now in Mayfield, Newcastle to where I used to live in Manly, Sydney happens to be 161kms :)
So, we said we'd aim to do this ride in the middle of November, a month from now... What I didn't realise, is just what kind of hills lie between Newcastle and Sydney. I've only taken the train between here and Sydney and have no idea what the roads are like.
Then I started planning the trip and got a bit of a scare!!!
This picture shows the elavation (HILLS!) between Newcastle and Sydney and unfortunately it is much worse than anything I have ever taken on. IF I had any hills like this on the way to the Gold Coast, I would have walked up them. If I'm cycling with somebody else, I'll feel guilty about slowing them down and hope that I'll be able to cycle up most of the hills. Well, the highest points in this ride are 275m and it looks like I have to go up that twice, once starting just after the 72km mark and again starting just before the 108km mark.
The King Edward Park hill that I aim to build into my morning ride and which is basically the steepest hill that I've taken on is 100m high - these ones to Sydney are almost 3 times as high as King Edward Park!!! What have I gotten myself into???
Well, I did say that I'll train till early next month (3-4 weeks), have a test run up some hills around here and then decide whether I'm ready. I want to do it at some point, just not certain I'll be ready within a month.
So... On Tuesday morning I weighed 126.5kgs and today I weigh just below 124kgs. Obviously I can't keep up that speed of weight loss (not healthy or possible), but I will aim to lose another 6kgs before the trip, maybe even 8kgs. Weight makes a big difference on a bike, especially up hills so If I can weigh 8-10kgs less than usual, I should do much better up hills.
Then, starting tomorrow I'll build the King Edward Park hill into my morning ride. Probably aim for 3-4 days per week so that my legs get some time to recover as well.
There's another hill that I could build into my morning ride that a little higher than the King Edward Park hill at 125m and if I hope to do Sydney in a month from now, I better take that one on within the next 2 weeks also.
No idea how this will go... My aim for the rest of this year was just to get comfortable with the King Edward Park hill and I thought I'd think about that second hill towards next year... Now we're kinda fast tracking my hill climbing skills. Don't know what's possible, but it will certainly be great for my overall riding ability if I can improve my ability up hills.
