A crispy start Monday, the inevitable below zero finally arriving to christen our winter. Set off on a solo Cat lap at 5.46, felines in the distance (?) relieving me of a tortuous tempo, cobwebbed from a weekend off the bike. Foggy patches out on the track, a bike or two already heading back into town. Keen to get circulation going to prevent icing up, the heart rate climbed to 160 just 10 minutes down the road, but settled into a steady cadence, frosting the nose and ears though. Chilled skin and lungs wanted a shortcut home by Channel Rd, but the frontal lobe over-rode the somatosensory cortex to push on. My achilles heel heart-rate hovered at 170 westward in River Rd, trees stood ankled in fog against the full moon over River Rd, lighting the way where the headlight wouldn't. A parked ute's hazard lights cautioned a slow over the channel bridge, a k later five horses loose in the roadside fog bumped the adrenalin high, but steered safely around them. Several lights were spied behind on the turn into Kialla Central, motivating my pace, seems the Cats were behind, not ahead as thought. A slight pause at the highway for traffic drew their lights closer and my pace higher, driving onward to Conrod with a rapidly emptying tank. Relief cresting the dipper well ahead, crossing the line with a 500metre advantage my small victory.
Tuesday's threatening radar kept me indoors, could have squeaked in a circuit as it happens. Wednesdays tarmac was damp but the skies were clear to tempt some effort. Down to Kialla with Wozz to see who dared found WobblyTrev, Pistol Pete and Rocket the only punters. A hint of a northerly was kind for the first leg, then it was Wozz to match Rocket and me to keep up with Pistol while Wobbly sat glued to a back seat ride, echoing calls on a five second delay. Just a handful of Cats speared toward River Rd's dipper, Rocket & Pete providing the majority of our tow. I was palpably pedalling, profusely perspiring, pondering personal pulmonary performance, perspicaciously prefacing proper progress, poorly performing, paying price parring Pistol Pete's podium position pace on the northern ascent of the Broken bridges but no hope of levelling with his wheel. The drive home in Channel Rd wrung out the legs too despite some orchard shelter from the northerly, Rocket & Pistol's tempo clearly in a league others weren't in. Puddles aplenty had us tagged "the filthy five", copped a brief shower on the Bonanza from Wozza's wheel as a final rinse, it was nice to finally slow into town after a solid lap of the heart beating between 164 and 176.
A long hard bike session late Wednesday night had me near exhaustion, so turned off the TdeF and went to bed, Thursday morning's damp granting an extra hours sleep to recover from the 'noctournal' activity. A decent clean of the bike and itching to clock over a few k's Thursday evening was soon tamed by a late arvo shower to grease the road to unrideable.
A tough transition from under the doona Friday morning, climatised to the cool while filling the tank with porridge, but it was OMG on the transition to outdoors, wind chill from the WSW (an official "feels like minus one") making sopranos of any idle brass monkeys. Found Wozza on the Scott (of the Antarctic?) for the push down the main drag to Kialla, almost snap frozen in the process. Shane, Cougar, PistolPete, Rocket, AvantiTrev and Jase were the resilient ones ready to ride. Shazza's early exit led the way down Archer Rd, she turned west into the 20-28 km/h wind at Mitchell, we took the soft option pointed east. Pleased the grand canyon pot-hole in Kialla Central has finally been patched and glad to be settled into zone 3 on Jase's wheel for the steady tap along River Rd. (I'll bet the 20+ Supercats had headwind hernias westbound). Shane, Pete and Rocket headlined the northern assault in Boundary Rd, I mentally prepared for the Channel Rd torture. Jase had the pace to strive for, a slight speed ease kept the bunch together for the twisted trail homeward. Rather icy on the few open sections back to town but it felt so much better topping up the tank at home with coffee and toast, reading that Mawson station had minus 28 with southeasterlys blowing at 82-93km/h!
Week 29 125km YTD 7,676km
Word of the week
"Faarctic" (adjective) Extreme cold.
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