5 cols – with a new machine to boot

chaos again in my world with work. big changes though, work and i came to a smart agreement and i have now upgraded my work machine to a 15′ MacBook Pro i7. it allows me to go to meeting and present work isolated from others. so it has been a fresh start and i have had to set it up which has taken about a week to get everything back up and running perfectly – apps, log-in, etc etc.

with it being so close to the fling i bribed management into allow me one last big ride. 5 of us set out on another 5 cols epic. this time with 2 new riders it was always going to be a bit slower but its so worth it. the introduction of new riders to the cols epics is really inspiring. they always love the ride and without a doubt return home much stronger a rider.

we met up at churchy’s kicking off with four of us – myself, churchy, dave and newby trieu. we then made our way down to emu plains and picked up the other newby victoria. setting off the plan was the basic 5 cols, OBR, lappo, bowen, kurrajong [with opal], alpé de heights. sadly i had been a complete idiot and smashed out a drunken affair on friday night for no apparent reason. it was stupid and i knew i was going to pay for it on the day, considering i didn’t make it home till 7:30 saturday morning.

we ascended OBR, over to lappo – where we dropped victoria as he got a flat – then across the castlereagh freeway and onto bowen. up bowen which is still just nasty, then kurrajong. at kurrajong trieu had to wait for us at the bottom because he had a groin strain. it was a smart thing to do considering we still had the one climb left. we climbed kurrajong and then hit up the opal extension. holly shit that hurt. it was around about then that the friday nights 13hr party took its toll. i almost piked out but manned up and continuted.

the opal extension is a left turn of the bells line of road and because we so we badly explained it to victoria she missed the turn and kept going towards bell. when we met back up with bells line i asked a couple of bikey guys if they had seen her and sure enough they had. we had to set off to try and catch her before she did end up at bilpin! thats the thing, victoria is a machine. i have never met a women who rides like her. she just sits on a pace and rides. its great to see how strong she is. once we caught he we turned back, picked up treiu and headed home.

by the time we hit agnes banks for the turn off to alpé de heights i had started to cramp slightly in my thighs. no doubt again it was a left over issue from the friday nights stupidity outing. we climbed the heights and it hurt so much, not only due to the km’s in the legs but also because of the heat of the day. by that time it was getting very very hot and with little to no shade on the climb it was just nasty.

in all it was a great ride again. everyone did really well, trieu was amazing for his first cols ride and victoria blew me away. churchy took a bit to kick in but by bowen and kurrajong he was in a good place – beating me up those two although i had spent a lot of energy across the valley. as for ludenia once again he proved why he is an elite athlete. so strong