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.
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