Southbrook (like Southpark but with cows)

Monday night I decided I'd go have a look at one of the southern roads out from the city, in the hope it'd be flatter and easier to get some miles in. And besides, I didn't want to ride bloody hills again this week! I'd missed doing any riding the previous week and was desperately wanting to do some exercise.

The weather has been atrocious up here the last few weeks, with howling winds blowing day and night, and freezing temperatures. Last week it actually snowed up here in the northern suburbs! And this is Queensland for goodness sake. Toowoomba is turning out to be having an extremely cold winter this year (just my luck).

To counter the cold, I rugged up with a thermal top, winter jersey, and a spray jacket over the top, as well as wearing long bibs in an effor to stay warm(ish) while I was out. Leaving in the dark also meant the temperatures were dropping quickly so I had to hit the road as soon as I could after work, otherwise I might have wimped out and stayed in the warmth of my tiny cabin.

The road out was pretty uneventful (just low rolling hills) and wasn't too rough this time, and after consulting Google a couple times I found the right road (it can get confusing in the darkness), and seemed to be flying along at a rapid pace in the big ring. The sky was clear and the stars were out. I even saw some falling stars which buoyed my spirits a lot. It was a great night for a ride (if you count riding alone in the darkness, on a lonely country back road, with no "roadside assist", in the middle of nowhere fun).

I saw some lights in the distance and thought that I'd made the outbound trip much quicker than I'd anticipated. That was a premature thought though, and as I got closer to the lights I realised that it was some giant cattle yard loading cattle into equally giant trucks. The smell reminded me of growing up on our family farm in my younger years, and it brought back a lot of memories of dairy's and hay, milking cows and fresh manure. 

I continued on and came to my target for the night, "Southbrook", a small community with a few small houses nestled in amongst similarly small hills, and of course the ubiquitous pub full of locals who it turned out were only too happy to call out to me and have a chat about what I was doing and what type of bike I was riding. One local thought he knew about bikes and said "is that one of them new graphite bikes?". Seems steel is all the go up here apparently according to the locals.

I'd mistakenly thought that the wind had dropped, being away from the range. It wasn't  till I turned around to start the journey home that it hit me in the face, the wind that is. Yep, nothing like a fierce headwind to make you realise that a tailwind is only helpful when you're coming home on a ride! So the entire way back I was chewing the bars and trying to get as low as possible to both stay out of the wind, and to maintain some possibility of forward momentum. Turned out to be far tougher than I'd envisaged. That and getting "slightly" lost again and going off in the wrong direction... I'm definitely making a (bad) habit of that!

Coming out of a place called Wyreema, I'd missed a turn somewhere and ended up on an unknown (to me at least) road. At least the small sign I did see said I was heading back towards Toowoomba. Small mercies eh?

Eventually I made it back to the cabin and safety. Beats riding these country roads while dodging large trucks and assorted locals who don't realise they can actually dip their lights, instead of blinding you like something out of one of Spielberg's "Close Encounters" movies.

A definite plus up here is the seeming lack of rubbish on the roadside likely to cause a flat tyre. I've been up here 4 months now and have had no issues at all, either bike wise or in respect to flats. Toowoomba residents mustn't have heard about the tack problem down south in Melbourne yet. No doubt if they had, someone would think it a great laugh. Once again, small mercies.

Stay right side up and enjoy the ride. Until next time.

The Intervening Weeks

After some time away from this blog, I've come back! That may, or may not be such a good thing depending on your viewpoint, but nonetheless here I am.

Where am I at, fitness-wise?

I haven't given up on the idea of Everesting just yet. I'm stubborn if nothing else. I am planning on how best to go about it once again, especially now that I know just how much it entails, and how important having a support team is. My issue is I'll most likely never have that support, and so I need to plan meticulously around it. Both physically and mentally. My last attempt was going OK until I made the fatal mistake of calling home and heairng the discontent with my activity. Won't do that next time!

One thing with working in Toowoomba is there's no lack of hills. In fact, that's about all there are! There's not a lot of flat ground unless you're willing to venture way southwards, which I haven't done (yet).

Despite not getting a lot of riding in, due to the fact I spend half my life driving back and forth to Toowoomba, those rides I have done have been memorable, usually for the roughness of the roads, and the prevailing howling westerly winds! I've been trying to increase my distances up here of late, both for weight control and as a way of stifling the inevitable fitness loss from lack of exercise.

I've done a couple decent rides, this time away from the horrors of the Great Dividing Range and it's killer hill climbs. They might be fun, but some days you just don't want to face them!

My first longer distance ride, was to a place called "Goombungee" (92k's). The name sounds like a town you'd find in New Zealand, given their passion for having people jump off huge structures, attached to a rubber band of rope into icy water. Unfortunately this was not the case. There was no icy water (just icy wind), and no rubber bands, just lots of incredibly rough roads traversed with rubber tyres instead. After initially trying to find this place a week or two previously, I'd abandoned that ride after getting very lost in the darkness. This time I was determined to find the place.

The night was pitch black dark, and the thoughts of what may be in the forest and beside the road kept me alert and a little anxious. Creepy roads leading to a dimly lit, small country town where the only thing open was the pub. I'd had to get off the road several times for trucks passing through, but it was better to move off the thin strip of bitumen than get run over by 22 wheels moving at high speed. At least, as compensation of sorts, there were no huge climbs, only rolling hills, although these came with their own special brand of slowness - the wide, tyre sucking bitumen kind. They quickly sap you of energy, and it's often easier just to down-shift and stay seated and spin your way to the crest.

Riding at night in the country is a different experience to that of the city. There are no street lights, only the occasional intersection or a lone light in the middle of the darkness denoting a new direction to be followed in the future. The roads are thin, often with unseen potholes and broken pieces of bitumen lying across the road, and thus it's a process of staring at the road and also trying to see what's up ahead while all the while trying to maintain forward momentum. It's a balancing act. Some nights I wish I had a big spotlight attached to the bars instead of small, but reasonable Ay-Ups. I'd also (luckily) bought 2 seat stay mounted lights in case the main light gave out - it did half way back  (my own fault - forgot to charge it properly).

But you gotta embrace the challenges I guess as life throws them at you. I will Everest before the year is out - just when is all up to me and circumstance I suppose. I now have to find the time, no, I'll change that, make the time to do the appropriate training.

Stay right side up. Until next time.