Good fucking ride today. Just over 100kms and a lot of brand new roads which were fantastic. This time it was Tom and Nick — who I had not met before. Scotty got a bit excited last night at Archive so was AWOL. Ry Ry had something come up and Shirts was just well, Shirts — a man of mystery.
Conditions were a bit “shit”, but thankfully there wasn’t much rain, just really wet and grubby roads. Traffic was pretty light seeing as it was a public holiday.
So it was mostly Tom navigating today and he led us down Logan Road then left at Broadwater Road just past Mt Gravatt. Then we were on Mt Cotton Road hooking right at West Mt Cotton Road and up that tough little pinch. At the top is a little village of really old and cute-in-a-dilapidated-way houses.
We saw a bunch of kangaroos but no koalas.
You could see the Gold Coast from up here:
After smashing down that little mountain we headed south again and then left at Carbrook towards the Bay. We finally got some tailwinds here after battling head or crosswinds all morning. The road surface was so smooth and sitting on 40km/hr was effortless.
It would be nice to take Shirts down here one day, let him loose, and see how long we could hang onto his wheel at 60km/hr.
The road swung directly north and we were now in rolling hills. Wet, but very pretty fields all around and glimpses of the Bay and the Islands to our right every now and again.
It was quite a surprise to come upon this place which has some significance to certain people who might just be reading this.
At Cleveland we said goodbye to Nick who had already that morning smashed out a riverloop and was feeling a bit tired.
So Tom and I headed home the most direct way and then my front derailleur was suddenly stuck in the little ring. My whole gears had been misbehaving all weekend and had I just put it down to a worn-out chain/cassette. So it looks like I have to change them now.
Tom is a MASTER of rolling epic distances in the small chainring so he was quite excited by this. I wasn’t that enamoured and the smash down Camp Hill was pretty boring not being able to generate some serious wattage.
I said goodbye to Tom at Carindale and got home buzzing with that blissful glow only the best of the best rides can deliver.
POST SCRIPT (plus bonus pics)
The cat left me two presents the past two days, in the same spot, where I make a pile of my cycling kit for easy access in the morning. Naturally she was just making sure I had enough protein for the ride. Thanx puss.
DJ GLAD RAPPA 