CWA - Cat with Attitude: Day One

So here we go - 'hop on ya bike!' and off we went, happy. Bike has been 're'serviced, body has been refueled, sock has been changed (and the single thrown away - deal with that sock monster in my washing machine! Now I may pull a pair out of the wash!!). Now we just had a 'mere' 46 kilometres to get to camp - how hard could it be, we had already completed over 70...
This is when we discovered that there is someone with a serious sense of sadism on the planning crew of the Ride to Conquer Cancer. Feeling fantastic, we all head away from lunch in our own time... to be faced with a hill that cars drive up by dropping to first gear! This hill is one serious hill! Apparently it is 1.4 kilometres with a gradient of 12% - are you reading this? I'm talking to you serious cyclists. This is one of the places you need to come and visit. This is the wall of the Wivenhoe Dam from what I understand. I'll be putting a Garmin post up (which I will pinch from one of the other riders' data) at the end of the Ride Adventure blogs to show you all where we went. This is truly a challenge. Every single person that rode their bike past us (while we were walking our way up - this is going to change next year - we WILL conquer this crazy, mad, sadistic hill!!) Carly yelled encouragement to... by name... loudly. In their wiseness, the organisers of the Ride had provided every single participant with name plates that had to be attached to their bikes, which meant that when you felt like you couldn't go on, a friendly voice would yell out encouragement - it was truly fantastic! The atmosphere that this one little idea created, made this one of the best events that Carly has ever participated in, and she has done a few!! It was my first!

Top of the hill = stop, nibble on something sugary, rehydrate, then jump back on the bike, get down low and go, go, GO!!! OMG - so much fun! The wind in my ears at 70km an hour, bring it on, again and again and again. Yeeehaaaa! Now I understand what Carly sees in thrill rides!

After this HUGE hill, we had several others and it all started to become way tooooo much, we began having random discussions with strangers who would get halfway up the next hill and then fall off their bikes, cleats still attached! We, of course, had to do the right thing and stop and walk with them! The brain started to give up before the legs towards the end of this section. Carly kept trying to not pay attention when someone in front would give up and get off their bike, but, it gets really hard to keep going. The last hill of this section, we forced our eyes down to the road and made a pact to not look up until we got to the top, short and steep, go legs, go legs, go legs. Push down, Pull up. Don't stop! Next thing, rewards! At the crest of the hill and looking at a descent so sweet with a sweeping bend on a cambered road. Yay, this was going to be fun!

It was so good! Down the hill, wind in my whiskers, round the sweeping bend, nice lean in, and what do our eyes see ahead of us?! The last Pit Stop! It took sooo long to complete this measely 22 kilometres, but there it was - done! Only 24kms to go until camp. Rest, rehydrate, munch a little (don't you love cut up orange pieces, it reminds me of school sport at primary school!), spoke to a few Ride people sho reassured us that the rest of the ride was a breeze, the hardest bit was all over and the last part was basically a nice easy long cool down. Carly's been a fitness trainer for a very long time, her interpretation of long cool down and their's conflict completely! Although, nobody ever said that this ride was going to be easy and if it wasn't a challenge, it wouldn't really be worth it, so hear me loud and clear. This last '24'kms was anything but easy.
I am pretty sure that I haven't mentioned that Carly has a little computer on her bike, it has 8 functions, but on this ride, the most important function was the ordometer. Throughout the ride it has given us hope, we look at it to see how far we have been and to see how far we have left to go for the day. We were pretty proud of ourselves. We had covered the k's and definately only had 24kms to go to reach the campsite at 118kms. So we pushed over the hills and dug deep for this last stage. The hills that apparently didn't exist, they weren't long - just crazy steep little numbers! We didn't walk one, it was after all, the last stage for the day. The fun part was down hill on them! Short and fast.

Obviously not us! Someone very happy to be at camp!

<><> <><> <><>

This doesn't look like 118kms! Doing it hard!

Then according to my ordometer as we were approaching the very last kilometre we had another hill, slow and steady up, followed by the same style of down. I noticed a tourist street sign (you know those coloured ones that point out tourist bits to check out) stating Somerset Camp, but no little 'Ride' arrow indicator that we were to turn at the street, so we kept pedaling on. Glance down at the ordometer, it now says 119km. I'm wondering if this is time to turn back, when I see one of the 'Many Cyclists on Road' signs, so we are obviously going the right way. Next, we catch the warning, right turn ahead sign, see the friendly police officer watching out for traffic on the corner, look beyond him and see it! Yes - IT! The sign that says '120kms'. We have ridden 120kms so far! Head - you really need to stop having an impact now. No chance. The last 550 metres of this route was the slowest on two wheels yet! The speedo kept telling us we were well below average speed as we tried to force the legs to keep on pedalling, it really couldn't possibly be much longer. 8kph... I am ashamed to write it, but there it is. That was our top speed as we road the very last leg to camp. On the up side - we did it! We had made it through Day 1 without getting swept! We rolled into the campsite at just after 2.30pm, 120.55 kilometres from where we started at 6.30am this morning.

Tent city - here we come! Pick up our bag, camp mat and sleeping bag and consider sleep first, that is, until we get under a stiff breeze downwind of ourselves and realise that we cannot possibly put up with that in the confines of a tent!! So, we get our stuff back to the tent, grab a change of clothes, towel and toiletries and go join everyone for the one hour wait for a shower.... so worth the one hour wait for the shower!!! I have never known a shower to feel so good - and I didn't even pedal, that's what I brought Carly along for!!