As mentioned, I was talked into riding to Nyabing today. I was a little intimidated. Until now the furthest I've ridden is 45km. And that's a fair haul on a bike, really. As always, my biggest fear is that I am not going to make it or I am really going to slow everyone down.
We went out strong and I was delighted to have stuck with the pack - Helen, Carl, Amanda and Ian - at 35ish km/hr for the first 20km. But then I ran out of puff and started to fall back. Helen was great, and pulled the group up a little to keep me with them, and I did manage to stick with them at a decent pace through to the half-way mark. We all stopped for a bite, a drink and a relief for 5 or so minutes and then carried on.
Carl stayed back with me (because he'd already done 120km earlier this morning!) and Amanda, Helen and Ian went out ahead. I was sitting on a fairly steady 27-28km/hr, which was quite good and kept the other three in sight the whole time. In fact, as we neared our destination, we actually gained on them and managed to keep up, so the five of us all rode into town together, which was really nice! We came in at just over 2 hours. Including the ride from my house (about 2.6km) it was 2 hours 10 minutes. Excluding that, it was 2 hours 3 minutes! That's not bad, considering I was planning on needing 2-1/2 hours to complete the run!
Now, granted, we had a tail wind, and as I mentioned before, I love a tail wind, so I know that I wouldn't have done this well had we been working with a cross- or head wind, but I don't care, I'm still proud!
I completed the distance! One more benchmark to tick off!
One thing that had me quite puzzled, though, is my speedo. My bike told me I was travelling at 27km/hr, but Carl's said 30. However, our distances seemed to match: over 100 meters there was no difference. So how could he be going faster than me when we are going the same speed? It was strange.
As an experiment, I passed him and got up to 30.5km/hr and his speedo said he was going 30.7. But I was passing him. Figure that one out! I worked out my average over the distance and the variation is minimal compared to my speedo: speedo says 27.7 and calculator says 27.87.
I am reminded of my rowing machine that always shows a heart rate while I'm rowing, even if I'm not wearing my chest strap, and I am always left to wonder if I can even consider trusting the heart rate that displays while I am wearing it. Should I bother to trust the equipment? Maybe this is a sign that I should avoid getting new shiny toys, as they just can't be trusted? Or maybe it's a sign that says I should get new toys because mine are old and breaking down, and new ones will be more accurate...
Well, now that I've showered, eaten and bragged, I need to go have a nap! :)
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