Saturday 27th December - The pain in the Heat!

AM
200km ride. (Garmin got 190km, 6:36, ave speed 28.6 on Auto - which always slows it as) I know it was around 200km, 30km ave and 7 hours ride time. Was just a little slower than last week, but I went further, worked more and conditions 20% tougher with heat and humidity so I was pleased.

The Garmin cannot do satellite for over 7 hours, so I lost signal with approx 20 minutes to go, also my roadie computer is playing up so thats inaccurate too.




I was so exhausted today by the time I returned from my longest ride ever. All in all it was a satisfying session, however on such a long day out it was expected that there would inevitably be some ups and downs, literally.
Well st start it was very humid and warm today, humidity would have been close or higher than 90 percent and it was a good 10 degrees hotter than last week which took its toll on all. The ride up from home to hornsby was done solo, as I was meeting the HERT squad at Hornsby, saw Jeff at Roseville, knee hurt a little and i just made it in time to join in with the group.
I took more than my fair share of turn on the ride today especially in the first half and so I suffered later, however it meant I worked solid and turns seemed to mostly rotate between 3 sets of riders up from, all up there were 14, some from last week and some others, at one stage around 90km in I was setting a nice strong pace on the front up from Wisemanns sitting on around 36km/h before hitting the hill solidly. The breaks were really needed, but Im sure I now need to see Mark re some better nutrition planning as I was Bonking by the time I hit Hornsby and rode solitarily home at a low pace, I crawled inside and ate and had to rest for 30 minutes before really able to do anything. I also got a flat at the 160km mark, not pleasent it was so hot (probably not the only reason, probably cheap) the tyre levers were bending and rendered useless, and I just managed to get one under the tyre, as sweat dripped into my eyes as I got baked in the sun, the Hert boys all waited (Thankfully) and Mark lent a hand, Gas in I was away again to finish it off.

A storm has just hit so finally its cooling down a little, Peroni and cricket - ahhhhh!