Riverbank Ramble 200km permanant.

Blog back from the dead. Wowsers be gone.

I'm dead keen on getting the Year-Round Randonneur Award for completing 200km rides in 12 consecutive months. It's good to have a goal - even if it's a mad one. To that end, yesterday I set off on the Riverbank Ramble 200km permanent. A permanant is like a normal audax ride, but you can do it any time. Permanants are recognised for local awards, but are not Brevets de Randonneurs Mondiaux homologated. It's good you should know these things.

The ride is a delightful trip up the Derwent River, to the vicinity of Ouse, then back down. It's pretty low-traffic despite taking in some of the Lyell Highway and features some fun hills - 2000m of climbing in all.

I set off slightly after 7am and cruised over Bonnet Hill before passing through town and heading up the bike path. The 500m climb up to Glenlusk was the first major challenge of the day, but I took it easy, stopping at the top to put on a raincoat to ward off the odd drop of rain. Off once more I passed New Norfolk, opting to stop at the roadhouse at Bushy Park where there is always a warm welcome.

After a 20 minute break it was back on the bike for the delightful section through to Westbury, and then the hills beyond. No major dramas through this section although I was running a little slower than I would have liked - possibly the effect of some harder training rides during the week. Lunch at Hamilton boosted my strength and the hill just outside town provded to be no major challenge.

Downhill at last, although the joy was tempered by a niggling headwind which slowed my efforts to make up some time. By the time I got to New Norfolk again I was starting to flag so I took a break and topped up my energy stores. My lower back was hurting a bit, I suspect because I hadn't been moving around on the bike enough.

The last 50km, though flat, was a bit of a grind. I cruised back to Granton and cheerfully picked up the bike path through Claremont to the city. I took an unscheduled stop to chat to some new Audax riders who'd just finished the Port Arthur 200km and pushed on the the final 15km. Despite feeling a bit ragged by this point, the final ascent of Bonnett Hill didn't prove too problematic, and I arrived back at the car a shade under 12 hours, with a riding time of just over 10 hours for the 207km.

I'm pretty happy with the effort for my first ever solo 200km. Double centuries are generally a bit of a test for me, particularly the hilly ones, but this ride is a delight. I recommend it to anyone.

(Photo taken up near Longford during my failed 300km attempt a couple of weeks back.)

5,265km so far this year.

Riverbank Ramble 200km permanant

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Tell me the old, old story.

There has been a lot of anti-cyclist rants in the nation's newspapers over the last few days. No sooner had I posted about the Brisbane bus assault there was a second such attack in Sydney. This time the cyclist was arguably in the wrong. Despite the fact the bus did nearly kill him, the rider was illegally on a bus-only stretch of road. Still, the incident provoked the sort of predictable outrage I normally ignore. Like rubbernecking at a car crash sometimes I just can't help myself but read this garbage.

Someone called Michelle Cazzulino at Sydney's Daily Telegraph headed the charge, with an extraordinary rant under the headline Idiots on Bikes Powered by Smugness. It was not only poorly written but poorly argued. A professional journalist should be able to be better than this, because even the most committed cyclist will enjoy an original take on the age old debate. Poor Michelle proved herself unequal to the task - it's pretty sad for her when an inflammatory piece on a hot-button issue attracts just 26 comments online. Not much in that one for those of us who ride because we enjoy it, or because it's a practical way to get around or to stay fit, or to save a few bob on petrol or parking each day. It's a bit sad too when the News Ltd One Degree global warming campaign is trying to encourage people to ride their bikes instead of driving.

Token right-wing Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine was next, again with nothing new to say. Roads are for cars, she says, forgetting buses, trucks, motorcycles and, gasp, pedestrians. I hope you get run over crossing the street Miranda, I really do.

There's nothing new, not in the columns themselves, nor in the tides of impotent rage from either side. But even as a few dumb columnists plow through the motions of causing division and beating up whipping tribal hatreds one more time, people are dying because somehow as a society we can't find a way to co-exist on the roads.

It's a shame nobody can muster the same sort of outrage we've seen this week when someone is killed - but no, that sort of response gets saved up for when a newspaper columnist's drive to work is slowed by a few seconds or because their body image is threatened by someone wearing lycra. It's a funny sort of society we've made for ourselves.

But at the heart of it, maybe no one really cares. Just this week, a driver in Adelaide who has killed two people in identical accidents at the same intersection in seven years was described as a river of "limited aptitude, competence and temperament" by a coroner. A driver so bad, so dangerous to us all, that her licence was suspended taken away from her for a staggering 18 months.

I wish it wasn't so, and I also wish that every time this debate flares anew, those of us who cycle and who drive and who pay the taxes which build our roads could come up with a better response just ranting on the internet.

4664km so far this year.

Blown away at the Mallee Routes

To be a randonneur is to invite a certain amount of discomfort into your life along with the rewards from one enjoys among the long hours in the saddle, the hills, the weather and the other assorted perils of the road. This year's Mallee Routes opened the door to discomfort rather wide, with the strongest winds I've ever ridden into, magpie attacks, and rain and hail thrown in for good measure. Hard times seem to be a feature of this ride: 2006 and 2007 were tough outings for me too and last year, which I missed, was apparently pretty windy too.

On paper this can be a wonderful ride through some wonderful countryside. There's a dinner on Friday night for the riders who gather from Adelaide and Melbourne and from even further afield. The accommodation at the Hopetoun bush retreats is top notch. The Mallee country is flat, the weather is usually warm and the Victorian country roads are quiet on AFL Grand Final day so it's a good time for a ride. The route passes through seemingly endless wheat and canola fields and lovely historic country towns. There are ride choices from 50km to 600km. I was intending to ride the 200km event, but despite the gloomy weather forecast, was talked into signing up for the 300km by ride organiser Peter Annear. My plan was to decide along the way - reverting to the 200km distance if the weather was as bad as the strong winds, rain, hail and possible thunderstorms the forecasts seemed to suggest.

Things didn't look too terrible at the 6am start and despite a bit of wind I made a pretty reasonable getaway riding in the small groups finding their legs on the long straight run towards Warracknabeal. A very quick stop at the roadhouse and I was again on my way - passing the 100km mark a few minutes under four hours. The tailwind along the leg to Birchip was phenomenal, pushing me along at a steady 30km/h. After a short stop to take off some clothing I found myself motoring down a slight incline at 44km/h chasing down a rider I'd been chatting away the miles with. I reached Burchip for a burger by 11am. My average speed at this point was over 25km/h and I was feeling strong.

Getting a tailwind like that on the outbound leg means you're going to have to pay the piper big time on the way home. It's a Mallee Routes tradition. Back on the road, the wind increased and big black clouds rolled in. The rain started, then some hail. I was drenched by a passing car which hit an inopportune puddle. Somehow despite all this, I was feeling pretty good and was still toying with completing the 300km course. And then the wind got really serious.

The weather station at Hopetoun Airport records a steady increase over the day. What started as a 20km/h westerly lifted into the 40s and 50s by 11.30am and the gusts were rolling in at 70km/h - a pretty forceful 20 metres a second. On the flat and largely treeless plains there isn't much to stop the breeze. As I turned west alone into the wind and made for Woomelang pub, my progress slowed to a crawl - 15km/h, then 12km/h, twice even forcing me to stop and wait as the most violent squalls hit. Grinding away in a gear I usually save for climbing hills, the 60-odd kilometres to the finish seemed to take forever. My mate Steve, who finished earlier, rode out to offer some company on the final slog. In the event, while my first 100km took under four hours, my second took six, and was much, much harder. My average speed for the day was just 21.6km/h. Still, I felt good and finished strong. It's a funny world in which 200km is a ok day on the bike.

Full respect then to the riders who managed to finish the longer distances: particularly the unstoppable Peter Heal who ride 600km in 26 hours. Because I didn't finish the course I nominated for, my result is a DNF, but finishing a 200km ride in under 11 hours in those conditions was a pretty good test. I love this ride, but next year I'll give some very serious throught to manning a checkpoint rather than again suffering like a dog out on the road!

4319km so far this year.