Riding my bike, I’ve got a goal

In the last few weeks I’ve gotten more serious about taking part in the Bicycle Queensland Wilson HTM Brisbane to the Gold Coast Cycle Challenge. It’s a 100km jaunt from Southbank to Southport. I figured that I needed to be riding a lot more in order to get my fitness and stamina up to par, so I’ve actually gotten out on the bike and ridden a bit. Father’s Day helped by providing some cross-training (I scooted around Mt Coottha/Gap Creek for an hour or so and really enjoyed myself), but most of my riding has been on the roads.

One of J’s mothers’ group friends (Elissa) is planning to take part as well, so we’ve ridden together on several occasions, hoping to make a regular training partnership. Last Saturday we got to the park under the Story Bridge at Kangaroo Point, for a total of 50km by the time we got back. It was a nice run, but we could have pushed it harder. Today with Tim I went up the back, twisty-windy way on Mt Coottha. Took us (well, me!) aaaages to get up from JC Slaughter Falls to the ABC broadcast compound. I do hope that we’ll be able to make a regular training ride. After all, there’s the Mt Coottha Challengeto train for. Tim did the climb this year (I only did the 35k easy ride) and I want to do the climb next year as well.

One thing I’ve actually been using my phone for is Nokia SportsTracker, which makes use of the accelerometers and GPS receiver in my N95 and mashes that up with Google Maps to show me where I’ve been, how fast I was going and what the altitude was. The web app mentions a heart rate record as well, but I haven’t got a gadget to do that yet.

Anyway … my goal is to be riding 100km every week. Not just until the B-GC100k on 11 October, but continuing. I need the exercise, I need to do it as a way of de-stressing, and heck, I just want to – it’s fun!

Tomorrow Tim and I (and probably Elissa) are going to do the Kangaroo Point trip, my goal is to do it faster than last Saturday. That’ll actually give me a 122km result for the week, which will be very nice indeed.

For those interested in the tech, I’m riding a GT Avalanche 2.0 mountain bike with Specialized Fatboy slicks front and rear at 95psi. While I’d love to get a road bike, right now I’d prefer to spend money on my family. I’ll live.