Assessment ride heat and pain!!
Today myself and 4 other Tour riders completed the TdC assessment ride for February. It just happened to be one of our hottest days this summer!! We definitely earned our stripes today!! Riders today were Paul Egan, Peter Oost, David Halliwell and Martyn Ellis.
The requirement was 180km and 2,000m climbing. We started out at 5am under a bright moon from Bulimba and rode up to Mt Nebo, and then part of the way up Mt Glorious (which has some very nasty steep bits). At this point we had already reached our climbing requirements. We then descended down into Samford on a very dangerous, steep and winding road. It was still relatively cool at this stage up in the rainforest, at least compared with what was to come!! I felt good going up both mountains and found a nice pace to just tap away, and get up new PB up Nebo. This is a great 17km training climb, which I am feeling good about as my times keep improving. Once we went through the quaint village of Samford we then hit suffer fest city with the heat on what I term the Seven Sisters (or the Seven Bitches today). More elevation is gained from this 20km stretch as well. It then flattens out as you get closer to the coastline. 
At this point we bid goodbye to Martyn (guest rider) as he just was suffering and did not need the km’s that we do as full riders. Luckily we had a gusting tail wind for most of the way home (except when it was a cross wind and tried to blow us clean off the bike!!) This photo is taken at the southern end of the Hornibrook Bridge, which at 2.7km is the longest bridge in the southern hemisphere. The temperature at this point was bordering on ridiculous, and given that there was only 4 of us, the ride was much harder than it is in a large peloton (where you can hide behind someone to get a break more often).
Only thing to do after a very hot and hard ride!!
At the end of today the stats were 167km with 2,738m climbing over 6 hours 35 minutes. I probably lost around 2kg, drank 3 biddons (800ml each) of electrolytes, 4 biddons water, 1 can cold coke, ate 2 energy bars, 1 finger bun and 2 hot and mushy snakes. It was a very tough day in the office and some found it very difficult but still managed to meet the targets. Kudos to all my fellow riders.
So my summary for this strength and climbing week is 449 kilometres and 6,077 metres climbing. Well on target. So looking forward to the recovery week ahead!!
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