Day 3 Canberra to Adaminaby (yeah I hadn’t heard of it either – but very freindly country town)
Not sure how to start this one…….mixed day for me today, I really battled with the ride in some sections, mainly due to soreness and fatigued feeling and the road feeling ‘dead’ once the rain came down about 60kms out from Cooma.
The day began as usual in the dark, but in downtown Canberra, its also typically foggy and we had the pleasure of riding first up to the new Woolies shopping centre near the airport. A quick 11kms to get the legs turning over, wow did my legs feel sluggish and heavy! Then I settled into the saddle – ahem, that hurts!! 🙁 Not wanting to put too many nasty details out there, but am currently ‘doubling up’ on chamois, by wearing padded undershorts under the bib-knicks, but 6-8hrs in the saddle takes its toll.
We arrived to a fanfare of kids doing stunts on jump bikes in the carpak and a massive breakfast of B&E rolls (and barby sauce of course), fried rice fresh fruits, cereals yogurts and toast complete with honey straight out of the comb.
2 live crosses to Channel 7 Sunrise morning show saw my peleton not leave until 9am, some hr behind the first two peletons. We hit the highway headed for Cooma, and upon climbing the first descent hill we rose above the fog and revealed a cracking day’s sun. Off with the arm and leg warmers and continuing along the highway. 60kms in we stopped for a welcome coffee from Tom and Jerry again, a quick couple of pics and lamingtons and muffins.
Somewhere before Cooma, I began to feel the monotony setting in, which is a bit unusual for me, then the signs of rain were showing – bugger! A few spits and things then got a little less enjoyable today, but I had to just remember what and why we are doing this and press on. I withdrew into myself a bit from here and just kept plodding the pavement. Great now I needed to pee and it was 20kms still to Cooma. Raining and need a piss, what a great mix! Every leg up motion doesn’t help any either!
Arrived in Cooma – visitied the loo and a hearty lunch hit the spot. We did not have a lot of time so of again to Adaminaby. Knew there was climbing on the way, but was not prepared for a 9km ascent at 6% gradient
‘Climb at your own pace’ was the call, and yep that means the strong ones start digging in…. I kept a rhythm gong and was happy with the pace until a few riders began to pull a gap so a few more watts and efforts went in to it. Funny how low the heart rate now is on climbs seeing as fatigue is well evident. I topped 162BPM today and that was only brief. My average was only 125 today. Upon reaching the top we pulled over had a drink refill and waited to re-gather.
Our climb was rewarded with a good descent, but a headwind also made itself known. I did some time on the front, but was flagging very early as was quite tired by then.
Very cool to have a new RC helicopter cam as part of the media kit today too.
Off to bed now,
More tomorrow (and big climbs I am told – but picturesque)
Todays stats 178kms, 2100m ascent 311 TSS
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