A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby foo on patrol » Fri Mar 09, 2018 5:00 pm

With this sort of crap in your system, you shouldn't even be riding. :idea:

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby Kronos » Sat Mar 10, 2018 1:31 am

Nope, no riding, bed rest or you'll end up with pneumonia. I'm serious. Viral pneumonia is a complication of the viruses that cause colds and the flu. That stuff will drown you alive from the inside out.

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby singlespeedscott » Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:36 am

Riding with a cold is ok as long as you dont over do it. Unfortunately LDR doesn't understand the concept of not over doing it :)
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby Kronos » Sat Mar 10, 2018 2:29 pm

singlespeedscott wrote:Riding with a cold is ok as long as you dont over do it. Unfortunately LDR doesn't understand the concept of not over doing it :)
I don't either when I get into things, I've had a chest infection before as complication of not stopping while a little bit sick.

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby g-boaf » Sat Mar 10, 2018 4:17 pm

foo on patrol wrote:With this sort of crap in your system, you shouldn't even be riding. :idea:

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This is good advice.

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:25 pm

singlespeedscott wrote:Riding with a cold is ok as long as you dont over do it. Unfortunately LDR doesn't understand the concept of not over doing it :)
:lol: Today being a wonderful example!


See when you are sick, your temperature goes up as part of the process of your body expelling whatever it is causing the illness. Riding a bike raises your temperature also, therefore riding and getting hot as hell must be enormously beneficial!

No really, I just hate sitting around, and haven't found it to be of any benefit in reducing the length or severity of colds. I do try to just spin easily but like scott said, I haven't quite got the hang of that yet :mrgreen: .

Words and pictures tomorrow!
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby Kronos » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:32 am

I've had real anthrax... Yeah, nah but salmonella which is basically typhoid but a different strain. Panadol will keep your body temperature down. What you have to worry about in general (besides secondary infections) is also cooking your body from the inside out. Your organs will begin to shut down at 40degrees and without proper treatment you'll go into heat stroke and die. It's 100% treatable but its not worth the risk really.

18months ago now I spent 3 weeks in a hospital bed with salmonella montevideo, it was chicken from that Asian place near the pawnbrokers in Noosa Junction. I was running a temperature of 38.9 when admitted, going to the toilet 50 times a day, and suffered extreme dehydration, loss of all electrolytes, secondary infection leading to dysentery and bleeding from the bowel. I'm pretty lucky to be here.

No need to mess around when you're sick, but that's a bit of a digression. The point is if you're suffering from a fever take some panadol and it will lower your body temperature.

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:25 pm

With the rain STILL going and my driveway looking like the Somme, I decided a quick trip to somewhere drier was in order to avoid cabin fever. A quick look at the BoM website showed no rain west of Kilkivan, so a spin on the rail trail between Murgon and Kingaroy would be ideal. A moderate southerly would make the return to Murgon a bit easier too.


The last time I'd done the South Burnett rail trail was on a frankencross, after slogging through the disastrous Gympie Council section, so even with my lungs in a bad way I was expecting much better things with the TT bike.

Murgon to Wondai is mostly a very gradual uphill which was tough on the CX, this time round it was very pleasant with the trees taking the sting out of the headwind, and I snagged 4th place for the segment. That was about the end of the good news for the ride down though, as beyond Wondai the trail is a lot more open, and the headwind was much stronger than I expected. I also didn't realise that the trail is almost entirely uphill for the first 29kms, and rises 200m over that distance. Even in good shape that relentless grind takes a toll.


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Once past Tingoora the descent (all of 50m over 14kms) allowed me to rest a little, but the howling headwind kept my average speed to a mere 23kmh. Bumping into Some Old Bastard From Sydney on an old Cannondale tourer didn't help either, as I was trapped listening to his tales of taking the bus from Sydney to Caboolture for what felt like hours. When I finally escaped I made a mental note to ensure I was going as fast as possible past him on the way back.


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I eventually reached Kingaroy much later than I expected, but in good spirits with the prospect of surfing that cold wind back north.


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After a short rest at the station and a Clif bar (appropriately enough, peanut flavoured), I dawdled around a couple of blocks to have a look at the house my Aunty used to live in before gathering my thoughts for the next effort. At the best of times I'm no sprinter, all the more so with a cold, so a constant steady effort using legs rather than lungs was in order.

Sitting on 34kmh up the first climb to Crawford was a good sign, topping at an easy 47kmh on the gentle downhill towards Memerambi was even better! I felt fantastic, especially when i flew past Some Old Bastard at Tingoora as he made his way back to Kingaroy.

Coming past the creepy abandoned dairy co-op building east of Wondai the cracks started to appear, and with the wind now more at my side, the average speed started to drop alarmingly. I popped coming out of the crossing of Barker Creek a few kms from Murgon, and hung on for grim death trying to stem the haemorrhaging average speed. That was not pleasant, nor was the half hour or so after I finished, but the job was done. SIX KOMs in all, the most satisfying being Kingaroy to Murgon by over 4 minutes!

With properly functioning lungs, there is a whole lot more speed to be had, and I can't wait to go out there and get it. Take note Gympie Council, I'm sure I'm not the only one champing at the bit to go straight past their section of the trail to spend time and money in South Burnett Shire.

In spite (or perhaps because) of feeling like death post ride, I'm much improved today, and should be fine for some easy spinning tomorrow.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby singlespeedscott » Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:13 pm

I might have to venture out out to Kingaroy and check it out.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby kb » Wed Mar 14, 2018 12:46 pm

ldrcycles wrote:
singlespeedscott wrote:Riding with a cold is ok as long as you dont over do it. Unfortunately LDR doesn't understand the concept of not over doing it :)
...

No really, I just hate sitting around, and haven't found it to be of any benefit in reducing the length or severity of colds. I do try to just spin easily but like scott said, I haven't quite got the hang of that yet :mrgreen: .

Words and pictures tomorrow!
There you go. No problem with the concept. Just the execution details :-)
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sat Mar 17, 2018 10:23 pm

With the skies FINALLY clear I unhooked the Shiv from the mag trainer and got on the road on Friday morning. Oh man it felt good! A bit too good unfortunately, at nearly 38kmh average for the first 8k. I cracked and dropped back to around 33, then like a dog choking itself on a chain I drafted a truck and that blew me up completely. It was still great to be out of the shed, and 28kms at 33av is a useful effort.

Being the 5th anniversary of my wedding to Mrs LDR, riding after work was definitely out of the question. Champagne and KFC is perhaps not an ideal athletic diet, but every now and then it's ok :) . I'd forgotten how much champagne disagrees with me the next morning though, so it was a SLOOOW start today! As that wore off though, I realised something else wasn't right. Tooth infection, hooray :evil: . After a bit of stuffing around I got my hands on antibiotics and they're already improving things significantly.

I'm already lined up for another Kingaroy sojourn in the morning, so we'll see how that goes.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby Sirrus » Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:53 am

ldrcycles wrote: I'm already lined up for another Kingaroy sojourn in the morning, so we'll see how that goes.
I look forward to reading about the adventure.

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sun Mar 18, 2018 11:13 pm

Didn't go quite according to plan, but a good result all the same :) Proper write-up to come tomorrow, Facebook post (https://www.facebook.com/LDRcycles/post ... nref=story) has the short, social media friendly summary.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Wed Mar 21, 2018 7:38 pm

Sorry for the wait, I couldn't quite manage to get enough uninterrupted time to get a post together until now.

For various reasons I wasn't able to get underway until 7am, which meant starting in Murgon after half past 8! (I'll just say I was working on "pro time" shall I?)

As with the previous week, there were plenty of clouds about, but no rain. The wind was supposed to be "gentle" and ESE, it was actually not far off what I encountered last week, and due south, making the ride down another slow grind. I started off with a hard effort for the 13km to Wondai, 2 minutes faster than last week for 3rd overall. I need to get the average from 31.6 up to 33.4 for the KOM, and I'll definitely have that in a few weeks time.

After Wondai I settled down and just got on with the job, before long the graffiti covered train carriage south of Wooroolin came into view.


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I'd like to know what the go is there, on one hand it looks pretty crummy and is missing some windows, on the other hand it has a satellite dish on it in good condition. In any case, it marks the top of the 29km climb from Murgon, although the remaining 14kms is more open to the breeze, so doesn't offer a whole lot of respite. It didn't feel like a fast ride to Kingaroy, but I took more than 12 minutes off last week's time and got 2nd overall. I have a sneaking suspicion that is just down to being the only person to have ridden it on a TT bike...

While trawling Google Maps I had noticed the Mt Wooroolin lookout was a few kms out of Kingaroy, and looked like just the ticket to get the total for the day up to the 100km mark. It looked like a flat ride out to a very small hill, but then I should have learned my lesson about Google Maps after the Warwick-Stanthorpe horror a few years ago...

So it was that I came over a little rise on Haly Street to see a dirty great mountain in the distance and said to no one in particular "What the hell is that?!". I kept going, and as I got closer I saw a huge scar straight up the side of said dirty great mountain, which looked a lot like a ridiculously steep road. It was. Being on a TT bike, with 50odd kms ahead of me, I walked most of it. The view at the top was worth the hassle though.


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I had my peanut Clif bar and headed back into town, noting that the wind direction was starting to shift :? . I crossed the Bunya Highway and took off north, only to find to my disgust that the wind had swung to the east and was going to be a cross-headwind for the ride back. My legs were also quite uncooperative after the detour to the lookout. I applied myself as best I could, leaving a little in reserve for the last stretch between Wondai and Murgon, as I was sure I could improve significantly on my previous effort there.

As I rolled into Wondai it was clear that Clif bar alone wouldn't be enough to get me to the finish line, and I stopped at the IGA for some black gold (aka can of coke). I was expecting it to help, but I didn't expect to be back up to 38kmh within a km! That only lasted a few kms though, before my legs cracked and the speed suddenly dropped off. Threats didn't work, so I tried the good cop approach and convinced them to wind back up over 30kmh again. That lasted until the last creek crossing, where they exploded completely and refused to have anything more to do with this ridiculous undertaking. The last 3kms into Murgon were VERY slow and painful, but I had put in enough early on to still snatch 2nd place.

What was worse, I was at 96kms, so had to drag myself through town and back again to get to 100.1kms. Still, it beats riding in the rain!
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sun Mar 25, 2018 10:27 pm

Ok hopefully this is the last week long stretch between posts! This week has again been interrupted by CONSTANT on/off rain, not enough to cause flooding and make things interesting, but easily enough to turn the whole world into mud and slush.

With the flat road legs developing nicely, it's time to sharpen up the climbing legs. So it was off to Gyndier Drive with the Vivente on Tuesday for some repeats. I wasn't expecting much, but managed 5 repeats in just over an hour (PB for the slightly longer 5 repeat segment is 58:35). After a rest Wednesday I headed out again Thursday morning, only to have the rear inner tube fail before I had covered even a mile! Sure it was the cheapest I could get, but less than 30kms is still pretty bad. With time short I took the hint and mounted a new (2nd hand) Schwalbe trainer tyre and did 45mins on the trainer. I was pleasantly surprised at just how much smoother and quieter it was, but riding on the trainer still sucks :) .

I grabbed a new tube from the LBS on the corner and was able to get back out for 5 full length repeats that evening. With the rain working on the large amount of leaf litter on the road, the descent was seriously slimey, so the 1:07:54 I posted would have been 1:03 or less in the dry. Again, enormously encouraging given how little climbing I've done so far this year.

Friday was limited to just 15 mins on the trainer with some efforts thrown in at the end for good measure.

And then today! For the 3rd Sunday in a row it was off to Murgon, and like last week it was a very late start, not getting underway in Murgon til nearly 9am :shock: . The wind forecast was for 11kmh Easterlies all day, so no assistance, but by the same token it shouldn't have unduly hindered me. Except that it was actually a 20kmh South Easter :evil: . Well stuff it, I thought, I want to give the southbound run a proper punch anyway.

I improved my PB from Murgon to Wondai by another 25 seconds, and then kept the pressure on. From Wondai the climbing really kicks off, and with far fewer trees there's nothing to stop the wind doing as it pleases. Wondai to Tingoora still went nearly 2mins faster, then Tingoora to Wooroolin (including the dreaded Tingoora Cutting, which does a marvellous job of funnelling and concentrating the wind straight into your face) bang on 2.5mins quicker.

Passing the dilapidated carriage at the top of the trail, the wind got stronger, but I was ready to sink my teeth into the downhills, and I hit 41kmh on the way to Memerambi, and 43 just before Kingaroy. I ended up taking 12:21 off my PB for Murgon-Kingaroy, and got the KOM by 6:49!

With the super late start, I was keen to keep the pace up, so after scoffing part of a Clif bar and some Coke from the nearest servo, I got straight back into it. Having pushed very hard on the way down, and knowing I couldn't rely on the cross/tailwind to hold, a very carefully measured approach would be needed.

Just before Wooroolin, I passed an older bloke making gradual progress on a basic old MTB. How gradual? I had overtaken him just south of Wondai. He had done 15kms in the same time I had done 40! It seemed we were both enjoying our chosen pace though :D

Just before reaching Wondai, I took stock of my condition (a bit battered but still solid) and remarked out loud how marvellous it was that the wind hadn't changed direction all this way. Boy was that a mistake! Hand on heart, literally the second those words passed my lips I got smacked in the face by a northerly. WHAT. THE. HELL.

The torrent of abuse I unleashed at the sky had no effect (though it did make me feel a little better) so I knuckled down to try and keep the average speed from blowing out. I went much better than I expected for the first few kms, but around the 82km mark the cracks started to appear, and after the Barambah Creek crossing I blew at 85kms. I was properly gone, so the final couple of kms into Murgon were a very painful sub 20kmh crawl.

All in all, 87.7kms in 3:03:52 including stops, with 2 well earned KOMs and 2 2nds. I'm delighted with how my legs are performing (and looking :wink: ) and that plus planning on the Innisfail-Cairns record ride underway has me fired up to go even better.

Weather permitting, there'll be more hill repeats this week, and I'll be progressing towards the next milestone goal, which is to get my 41.37km Noosa TT loop under an hour. So far my best is 1:10:51 for a 35kmh average, I want to be up to at least a 40kmh average before the Cairns trip at the end of June. A tall order, but then I'm 6'2 so it shouldn't be an issue :lol: .
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sun Mar 25, 2018 10:29 pm

Oh and I have to share a dad moment with Winnie.

Talking to Winnie last night about wild dogs and why Daddy shoots them.

W: But we don't shoot wabbits! (Apparently all wabbits belong to Winnie and I'm not allowed to shoot them anymore)

Me: Yeah yeah I know.

W: We don't shoot wabbits, and we don't shoot the geese, and we don't shoot boys.

Me: Hang on what? We don't shoot boys?

W: (firmly) No we don't shoot boys!

WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?!

*desire to purchase shotgun intensifies... :lol:
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:14 pm

Ok another week without posts but it's worth the wait!

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings were all spent on the trainer, even the distraction of ateupwithmotor.com articles on the laptop was barely enough to make it tolerable.

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With the skies unexpectedly clearing on Wednesday afternoon I leapt at the chance to get out on the road, and did the 41km Noosa loop in a reasonable 1:15:38. The highlight was chasing a bus on Noosa Parade, I topped out at about 55kmh, which I'm very pleased with given I'd already done a solid half hour trainer session in the morning, and the TT bike isn't particularly well suited to sprinting.

With accommodation in Kingaroy booked for the family on Friday night, I was up at 3:30 to try and get enough time to drive to Murgon and fit in an Imperial. Unfortunately Winnie woke up too, and demanded food, so I didn't get on the bike in Murgon until just after 6.

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That reasonably early start meant there was barely a breath of wind to begin with, but after Wondai it started to build and got very strong after Wooroolin. The other thing building was clouds, as I came over Carriage Hill the horizon was dominated by a dirty great black wall. Within a few kms I was approaching a white curtain, which looked a lot like rain. Somehow it was light enough that I barely got any more moisture on me than doing a solid trainer session. Considering the cold wind and not-rain, I stopped only long enough in Kingaroy to inhale the customary Clif bar before heading north again.

The return was a reasonable 28.3kmh average, but in spite of measuring the effort carefully, I still cracked at the creek crossing before Murgon. The plan was to do a 70km loop out through Cloyna and Hivesville, but it soon became apparent that wasn't going to be viable, so I had to settle for 94km. Then it was back to Kin Kin to feed the cows, pack the car and head west again!

Being in tourist mode, we stopped at Kinbombi Gorge for Winnie to see the turtles-

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(baby for scale)

And then at Wooroolin Wetland bird hide-

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We checked into our motel (Kingaroy Country Motel, cheap but nice) just before 5 and headed for Mt Wooroolin to see the sunset.

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:47 pm

Naturally, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to go riding out of Kingaroy on Saturday morning, so I was up a bit after 4 and on the road at 20 to 5. My proper front light is a bit fiddly to fit, so I just popped on a "be seen" type job expecting the sun to be up by the time I was out of town.

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Well, no. It was damn dark, the big full moon doing only a little to help. With the expected headwind lined up perfectly with the arrow straight road, it was a slow spin for the first few kms out of town. At the 8.5km mark I suddenly noticed my speed picking up quite dramatically. It took me a little while to work out I was going downhill (like I said, it was jolly dark) and it continued for 4.5kms. Now the scenery on said downhill (or what little I could make out) was very nice, but Google had not indicated any sort of significant undulations in the loop I had checked, and dropping for 4.5kms meant that at some point I would have a fair few metres to go back up again.

The road through Barkers Creek and on to Nanango was very pleasant, not least thanks to the almost complete absence of other humans. After a quick stop in Nanango after 41kms into the wind, I finally turned northwest and had the wind at my back. That helped when the climb finally came, though it was quite gradual and no great trouble.

The most unexpected and delightful part of the ride was finding the last 8kms into Kingaroy were ever so slightly downhill. With the wind blowing well, I opened up and averaged 42.1 with a top of 47.2. Great fun! Even better, the D'Aguilar Highway led straight to the front door of the motel 8) .

As soon as Mrs LDR told me the motel had a pool, I had visions of jumping in it after riding. Well remember we're talking about an unheated pool in Kingaroy on the last day of March...

It did a passable impression of a pro ice bath, and while Winnie wasn't keen on swimming with me, she was happy to stand at the end and call out "Ready, steady, go!" for me :) .

After a warm shower had taken care of a shivering Winnie, we packed the car, grabbed some food, and headed for the Bunya Mountains.

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Unfortunately it turned out the only easily accessible lookout was closed, so the only views we got were glimpses through the trees as we drove, but we still enjoyed about 4kms of hiking in the rainforest.

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On the way home we stopped off at Gordonbrook and Bjelke-Peterson Dams, and despite being incredibly tired I got some work in on the new paddock for the cows.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby singlespeedscott » Sun Apr 01, 2018 4:15 pm

Another great post. I love the Bunyas. I would love to do an up and over and return on the pushie one day.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby TheWall » Sun Apr 01, 2018 7:43 pm

Some good write ups there mate and a great photo of the silos!

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:52 pm

singlespeedscott wrote:Another great post. I love the Bunyas. I would love to do an up and over and return on the pushie one day.
Thanks, I'm already looking over the map to work out a route to take in all 3 climbs.
TheWall wrote:Some good write ups there mate and a great photo of the silos!
Thanks, I'm stoked with how that photo came out, might get it on a small canvas at officeworks.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Wed Apr 11, 2018 9:36 pm

In the interests of actually getting a post up, I'll skip last week, as my memory is already a bit hazy on most of the rides. Besides which, none of them were a patch on Monday :) . With work starting to relax a little as we head into Winter, I'm finally dropping back from the 6 days a week I've been on since about last February.

I had mentioned this to Mrs LDR a couple of weeks ago, so it wouldn't be necessary to remind her when I had a long ride planned for my first Monday off...

Up at 3:30am (ouch) and off to Murgon to escape the hills and intermittent rain on the coast. I checked Meteye before leaving and Kingaroy was showing exactly zero kmh wind. 1.5hrs later between Murgon and Wondai there was just a breath of wind, but then immediately after Wondai up it came :roll: . I popped onto the highway for a km or two to try it out, but the surface was no smoother or quicker than the trail and while the traffic on the highway was light and sensible, the trail has none whatsoever so back onto it I went.


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The spin down to Kingaroy was uneventful, and after a quick stop to grab sunscreen I was off on the Nanango loop I took on Easter Saturday. Being able to see where I was going was most enjoyable, and I took the Barker's Creek downhill 2 whole minutes faster. With the constant headwind sinking it's teeth in, I was flagging a bit by the time I reached Nanango and finally turned after 84kms. The climb up through Coolabunia to the lavender farm was a rather dull crawl, livened up a bit when I got a text from Mrs LDR asking if I was ok because "it feels like you sort of disappeared this morning?" Just my luck to marry a psychic!

Now I should have been relaxing, but with the wind at my back, the average on an embarrassing 24kmh and 2 delicious 1% downhill segments in front of me, I had to let rip. I topped at bang on 50kmh and averaged 45.1 for a little over 3kms, enough for 8th place (and 6th on the 5.4km segment at 42.2kmh). Fantastic fun though that was, I was now urgently in need of a big pile of calories and headed for the nearest servo.

Now it should be a simple task, walk into servo, walk out with meat pies, coke, and chocolate milk. Well the drinks were there, but no pies. "The oven's broke, we're waiting for the electrician" the lady said in her barely decipherable Scottish mumble. Damn, off to the sandwiches then, and I go for a ham and cheese croissant that looks like it's been on the floor of my car for a few days. "Oh I only put that one in there a moment ago, it's still frozen", huh? I finally get a very average chicken and mayo sandwich and settle down outside in the shade. At that point Mrs LDR rang, and she was so confused about how and why I was in Kingaroy that she forgot to be angry. Perfect! :mrgreen:

While I wasn't overly happy over missing out on my meat pie, I had rested enough and set off again. Another uneventful and relatively slow (although far nicer with the tailwind) stretch ensued, the only unusual thing I remember being a large black slithery thing near Tingoora. I was hanging on better than I expected on the tough stretch from Wondai to Murgon, and got back to Murgon station with 151km showing. As I suspected, not enough, so off I trudged towards Cloyna (somehow getting a 4th place at 35.8kmh) until cramps and the clock convinced me to turn back for another 10kms of headwind back to the car.

In the end, 170kms (I really wanted 175 just as it sounds nicer) for my first Imperial in I really don't know how long. It's unlikely I've done one since 2014 so I'll go with that. Looping from Murgon out through Cloyna and Byee will get it up to 200 which would be great for next Monday if I weren't saddled with a dentist appointment :evil: . Sooner rather than later though.

Filling up in Murgon for the drive home, I finally bought the meat pie my heart so desired. Only to leave it on the counter and not remember til Goomeri :oops: . And then the Goomeri servo had no pies either so I had to make do with a crumbed sausage. For crying out loud! At least I made up for it by having 3 pies for dinner :lol:

Tuesday morning the plan was for 20kms of the gentlest spinning, but then I had a bus present itself and next thing I'm doing 50kmh along Hilton Terrace :roll: . In other words, my legs felt a lot better than I expected :D

Today (after my "recovery" ride yesterday) more intense riding was in order, so I smashed myself silly on 4 Gyndier repeats (which would have been 5 if I'd been up a little earlier). That hurt, but it also felt damn good :D .

Off to bed now, the intention is for 40-60km of very fast TT riding around Noosa in the morning.
"I must be rather keen on cycling"- Sir Hubert Opperman.

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foo on patrol
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby foo on patrol » Thu Apr 12, 2018 10:53 am

Did you ride between Murgon and Nanango? Because I pasted a bloke that was about 12klms from Nanango that reminded me of you. Black knicks and a blue or dark purple with black top.

Foo
I don't suffer fools easily and so long as you have done your best,you should have no regrets.
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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Fri Apr 13, 2018 9:34 pm

ldrcycles wrote: Off to bed now, the intention is for 40-60km of very fast TT riding around Noosa in the morning.
I love it when a plan comes together :) .

My legs were a little tender from the hill repeats the day before and there was a fair easterly blowing which would mean a headwind on some of the more difficult sections of the loop, but the spirit was willing :) .

The first loop went well, with no interruptions from slow cars, and as I came along Beckman's Rd to finish the first 20k the average was sitting on a very nice number, so I knuckled down and started to really motor. Coming onto Noosa Parade for the second time there was the possibility of a bus to pace, but my legs were lacking the top end kick needed to get on and I let it go to avoid blowing.

Through the roundabout at Hastings St and back west, the wind wasn't helping a lot, but it was there, and I flew past a couple of the Strade Bianche blokes at nearly 50kmh. A couple of PBs ensued (in spite of an oblivious woman in a corolla pulling in front of me at a roundabout) and I got to the end absolutely shattered.

My previous best (on March 1) was 1hr10 for a 35kmh average, and my target is to go sub hour before the Cairns trip in June. Thursday morning's effort was 1hr6 and 37.2kmh :mrgreen: . Just having fresh legs and no headwind would see me over 38 so I'm over the moon with that progress. After the 3 months of slog to start the year my body is really responding, and both physically and mentally I'm feeling fantastic.

This morning I wanted 60kms of easy spinning, and I got 55. A cardboard recycling truck presented a beautiful target for pacing and I had to just stare at my front hub until it was out of sight, talk about torture! :lol:

Some more steady TT riding tomorrow morning, then Sunday is the Anzac .303 shoot at North Arm Rifle Club, starting early and finishing late so we'll call that a rest day :) .
"I must be rather keen on cycling"- Sir Hubert Opperman.

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Re: A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Part 4- The Comeback!

Postby ldrcycles » Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:08 am

Short of time yesterday morning so only 36km, but that was enough to get me through the 3,000km mark for the year, and 345k for the week. Between the Anzac shoot today (just about to leave now) and the dentist tomorrow, I'm expecting next week will be pretty mild in comparison, but I'm already looking ahead to a possible double century next Sunday followed by an Imperial (plus catching up with foo in Nanango) on the Monday.

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And yes, given how much better the result is off my potato phone, you can expect a hell of a lot of sepia pics from here on :lol: .
"I must be rather keen on cycling"- Sir Hubert Opperman.

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