Week 2 - Saturday Bike Ride

Headed out with Gert, Kahu and Speed for a bit of hill work on the Dunedin hills. The plan was to head out from the Turboplex up Sepentine Ave, over the top and down into Kaikorai valley.

First thing I notice as we are climbing up Serpentine is that I am going to go blind. You just can’t ride a bike without glasses no matter how cloudy it is. It’s just so much better with sunnies on. So a quick stop into my house to get the glasses and keep of climbing up to the top of mornington before dropping into the valley.

Once in the bottom of the valley it’s a climb all the way, we all tuck our heads down and start grinding. I am feeling quite strong as the last couple of weeks of going hard is starting to pay the dividends I need for this biking caper. I can feel my breathing is a lot more efficent and my legs seem to last well.

We keep on climbing way up past Wakari and up past Ashburn hall. It gets a bit more challenging as we turn off onto Whare Flat road and on up to the Bullring, they call it the bullring because the fence looks like a big cattle corral. A quick rest at the top and a fuel up with some sandwiches and It’s time for the screaming bing ride down the hill back into town. I tried to video it and it was a 15 minute clip so you can imagine it’s quite the exhilarating ride down that hill.

We cranked along George street and and headed into the North East Valley up to Bethunes Gully and Forrester Park. As luck would have it the Specialised Bike crew are having a demo day. We lose no time lining up some serious bikes to go for a fang let me tell you a 29er with dual suspension sure beats the crap out of a 20 years rigid Scott bike. (not that I am ungrateful Speed)

After having a wee run around the track I soon find my legs giving up on me, a kind sandwich from Gert and a coke from the boys and I have enough gas to head home . Great day out Total disstance 42.46km

You can check out the course here http://runkeeper.com/user/PaulSouthworth/activity/60365032