Southbank to Southport Bike ride Sunday 12th October 2008
Team Wilson Cylcing Squad: Catriona, Billy, Papa Billy, Ben, Gwen, Sean, Bill, Tom, Simon, and Candice.
11 Wilsonites (including some honourary Wilsonites for the purpose of this tale) set out amongst nearly 8000 other cyclists for the 100km bike ride from Southbank to Southport. Now if you think about it, 100km’s, it’s not really that far… yeah right….only if you are cruising down the M1 at 110kn/hr in a car with tunes flowing and not remotely noticing the hills. Between you and me, there is a ridiculous number of hills between Brisvegas and the GC and just quietly, they are not really hills…I’d describe them more like mountains. At this point I feel I should point out that this tale of adventure and heroism is written from the perspective of a rookie cyclist so please keep this in mind during your read.
The challenge…by the way it wasn’t a race… kicked off for most of us at a lovely 6.45am excluding of course our cycling star Bill who got off at around 6am. However in relation to when the pro’s started (at 5:30am) we had it good! The first 37km leg was by far the easiest, it flew by relatively quickly, with an easy 15km lead off down the busway. The rest of it cruised by OK as we made our way to the first stop at Eagleby.
Tom, "The Twins" and Catriona
1st leg highlights/what the? moments:
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Poor unfortunate other 7800 riders who didn’t get one of Catriona’s goodie bags with deliciously tasty snacks
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Bikes with clip-out shoes and riders falling off said bikes because of forgetting to unclip (namely Sean)
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Shared moments with a traffic islands and gutters, tho managing to stay on the bike which was remarkable in itself (I nominate myself here)
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Cardboard tasting energy bars at the rest stop
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A certain child claiming to have eaten 11 bananas… sound questionable doesn’t it! I’d like to challenge him personally just not when I have to ride another 60 km!
The second leg was a gruelling 40 km to Coomera. We hit an onslaught of hills at this point, hill after hill…. We also travelled through the nice and flat depths of Beenleigh.
Who would have thought there would be so many corn fields, felt like in the movie signs… Did you know there were corn fields in Beenleigh????
2nd leg highlights/what the? moment:
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The most wonderful tasting powerade you could ever imagine (at the 2nd rest stop), its never been so refreshing!
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Gwendolyn powering up every hill- even with her questionable gears, it’s still very impressive!
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The uni-cyclist! Amazing that on one wheel he was beating so many of us on two and a question we all pondered was, how does a unicyclist go down a hill???
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The five-people bikes with trailers for kids!!!
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Wondering what those people were doing riding in the other direction and the realization that they had already finished the race and were on their return leg before we’d even made it to the Coomera stop! It was slightly alarming and personally, left me in awe and questioning their sanity simultaneously
Candice rehydrating with "the most wonderful tasting powerade you could ever imagine"
The third and final leg, even though a much shorter 23km’s, seemed much longer. Fatigue was strong and I should mention at this point that every time we had to jump back onto our bikes it was just that bit harder to do it and took just that little bit longer for the glutes to go numb again! The best of us finished in about 4 hours, the next of us in about 5 hours and the rest of us in about 6.5 hours. BUT we all finished!!!! Yey!!!!! Not everybody can say they have ridden 100km!!!
Ben (foreground), Sean and Gwen "relax" after the monumental undertaking
3rd leg highlights/what the? moments:
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The four-way cycling relay (Olympic style)
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Finishing before the organizers had started to pull down the finish line
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The early team members waiting at the end to cheer the rest of us on
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Receiving our finishing t-shirt
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Finding out that the first rider crossed the line a mere 5 hours earlier
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Finding out that the winner of the Melbourne marathon ran at a speed faster than we had been riding
This concludes the remarkable tale of how 11 Wilsonites journeyed to the Gold Coast one fine October Sunday. In finishing I would like to congratulate all 8000 riders who completed the Gold Coast challenge but especially big congrats have to go to all the Wilsonites who competed. Thanks also must go to the kind volunteers and police men and women who said hi and gave us a few encouraging words as we passed.
Tale recounted by
Mantis “never again will I ride 100km without training” Bywater