'Cars today are full of things that protect the driver: belts, crumple zones, airbags, ABS, electronic stability control..."
"And there is an element in the car that protects other road users."
"That part is in you. Drive with your heart.'
I started riding again in March, it was supposed to be so I could get fit enough to do the Sydney to Gong MS ride but it went a bit further, and no MS ride. What compelled me to want to do this ride again after over 20 years since I did it last? not sure.
In March I had no idea what cycling advocacy was, had no idea the M7 had a cycle path, knew nothing about cycle ways, bike lanes or shared user paths or road rules relating to bikes. With well over 800 000km of driving under my belt you could call me a typical motorist, not really aware of my options, not wanting to were cycle gear.
A friend at work (Todd) told me to get a Garmin 305 GPS heart rate monitor gadget, use the logging as motivation to do more exercise, it worked, a lot due to me enjoying graphs and figures.
So March saw 53km covered, painful and wanting to vomit after each ride. April it went up to 82km with more wheezing and physical rebellion , then May 251km, June 376km, July 471km.
With the extra time I was spending on the bike I thought maybe it would be a good idea to ride to work and use the transit time as my training. Problem was the gear I carry to work is not light, research on the web and I had an answer, Surly Big Dummy cargo bike. Put down a deposit late June I think in a bike shop that closed shortly after and took my large deposit, bastards. Some good people came to the rescue and I had the bike in late July.
August saw 816km covered, a marked increase due to riding to work.
In September I decided to join Audax which is a long distance riding group, also decided not to do the Sydney to Gong thing, Audax rides are $5 for members, the Gong ride needed a commitment of substantially more, cheapskate. The first ride I decided to do for Audax was 150km, isolated showers forecast for the day. It pissed down for over 8 hours, I was cold and had no wet weather gear, needless to say I failed the ride turning off for home and covering 148.5km on the ride and an extra 12km to get to the start line. 950km covered in September.
October 851km.
In my infinite wisdom I decided to attempt an Audax 210km ride in November even so I had failed the 150km ride. I achieved it but it was very hard going, the last 30-40km done mostly in the lowest gear and fatigued. I did not fuel my body correctly. 896km on the bike.
I decided to do the Audax Year Round Randonneur thing, 200km or longer ride each month for a year, more wise decisions.
The first 2 weeks of December I was sick, hardly rode, hardly did anything. I had another 203km ride on the 17th of December, better eating and felt good all the way. Somehow I managed 760km this month.
The year riding total being 5506km. A total of 290 hours on a bike. While my kilometres are less than what I have done in my car this year the hours are more. Cyclist or motorist? Pigeon holes are stupid things and only for pigeons.
Normal resting heart rate is 60-90 bpm, mine is 55bpm, I am Abby Normal.
Have I saved money by riding a bike? hell no. The car only uses 4.2l/100km so no real saving there. I eat twice as much my pants are now 1 size to big. The subject of fuel saving and eating bring me to this carbon subject we get bombarded with, while my fuel usage has halved I'd say my methane producing may have doubled, sorry atmosphere. I've also bought a whole lot of things to support my cycling so I am sure there was no carbon saving, there was definitely no money saving.
A fairly good year, ready for the next.
I make no apologies for taking photos of landmarks that have been photographed thousands of times before. I was on a ride with my son today and we rode across the bridge, around the Opera House and through the Botanic Gardens. We included a ride through Sydney University as well, a good round trip of 23km.
