Last time I did it, I was away from home for 4.5 hours straight, which involved about an hour getting to the start, an indeterminate period spent standing in a queue to register, 2.5 hours doing the ride, half an hour recuperating at the end and then another half hour or more to get home.
This time I was a lot more organised. I registered on-line weeks before the event, which meant I got my ride number and paperwork sent to me in the mail well before it was ride day. There was no standing around outside a tent at the start waiting to pay. That's such a grown up thing to do. The result was that I had a low-ish ride number around the 1000 mark (not that it means anything - except that I am getting more organised as I get older).
I did a bit of number spotting at various times to try to guage how many people had entered. I saw the odd number in the 7000 range, but because I started early, I would have missed about 3 hours of registrations when they hand out thousands of numbers. It will be interesting to find out how many did it in the end. Probably well over 10,000.
The weather forecast was for a hot and windy day of 33 in town and 35 to 38 out west, so I resolved to leave as early as possible. I initially aimed to get to the start at 7am, but that proved a bit overambitious. By the time I got up, had a coffee and toast, put my still damp riding clothes in the dryer and pottered around a bit, I was out the door at 6.45am instead of 6am.
This is the top of Lilyfield Rd in - you guessed it - Lilyfield, with me on my way into town (that hazy thing in the background). It's 7am, and I have already hooked up with another cyclist at this point. You can just see a policeman on the other side of the road, getting ready to do traffic management duties for the next 5 hours or so. Hope he's got a few cans of cold drink in his car.
This was a quick photo taken whilst going over the Anzac Bridge - down there is the lead car (an RTA maintenance vehicle) and a police escort for the first riders. There were 10 or so very fit and fast buggers hooning across that bridge down below. All of them of course are hiding behind the uprights in this photo. According to the timestamp on the photo, they are 20 minutes from start time.
By the time I got over the Anzac Bridge and into Pyrmont, I was in a group of 10 riders that were all going to North Sydney for the start. The reason I didn't stop and take a proper photo of the first guys back on the bridge is that I didn't want to lose this lot. Once you get into a pack, you don't want to leave it. Must be a thing from our fishy past - not wanting to leave the shoal.
Being the last day of the Motor Show, there was some sort of exhibition of flash cars on the Darling Harbour bridge. As we went over it, they were driving these sort of cars onto the bridge as well. Some were pretty cool. It was a good juxtaposition between one form of transport (the bike) and the other extreme (complete petrol head). Most of the cyclists in my group affecting an air of lofty disdain, but I had as good a look as possible - ie, without oggling a car and running head first into a pole.
I didn't have time to stop and check out the shiny engines, but all the owners had their lids up and were wandering around inspecting chrome braids and polished inlet manifolds.
Red and yellow were the order of the day for these things.
It was at about this point that I realised that I had left my pump at home. I washed the bike yesterday - for the first time since mid-winter, and took the pump off in order to wash the frame properly. And of course I forgot to put it back on, which meant that I was almost into town when I realised it was still at home on a shelf. This annoyed me intensely, as I have been on the wrong end of quite a few flat tyres in my time, and have learned to never go anywhere without a spare tube and a pump. I figured that I could always borrow one from a kindly soul if I did get a flat, but I hated the idea of it coming to that. The concept of not being self sufficient is just too horrifying for words.
No hitty the glass today though. Thankfully.
Once we got off the Darling Harbour bridge, we started seeing lots of bikes coming the other way on the roadway.
Then it was onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge (this is the gulag section). Most of the riders I was with had clearly never ridden on the bridge before, as they had no idea how to handle a tricky lead-in section about 3 minutes back from here. There is a bastard of a corner that you have to pretty much do a U-turn at, and it confuses all first-timers.
We made it to North Sydney in one piece - on the other side of the road are all those that have gone through the start gate. It was like watching the hordes of Genghis Khan going the other way.
The woman at the end of the yellow barrier was taking photos of lots of people - except me.
The gaggle of riders on the other side of the barrier are having some sort of professional looking group photo taken.
Mum, kids, the whole thing.
Man on phone, trying to find his mates. There was an awful lot of this.
The first of about 50 flat tyres that I saw.
The approaches to the bridge - we're coming up on the tollgates at the northern end here. These two were riding together - I took this to illustrate all the different types of bikes that were out and about. I saw two idiots on unicycles some time later, but was not quick enough to get a photo of them.
I took a photo of that "bombed out" building last weekend. This is just a different view of it - a different perspective.
Riders struggling up the hill to the toll gates. It looks so easy in the car. I was annoyed here as we came down the ramp from near the old Blues cafe or nightclub or whatever it was and I was trying to just open it up and hoon down the hill at 70 km/h, but my path was infested with people doing about 30 at most. Aaaarrggggh.
Family out for a ride - note the kid on the back of Dad's bike.
Approaching the toll booths again, with the first glimpse of the bridge in the distance. It gives you an idea of just how long the approach sections are (and how many buildings had to be flattened to build the approaches - I am reading a book about this at the moment).
No toll today.
Someone with a stupid thing on their helmet - the first of many that I saw. I think this is a parrot.
Note the pair of pedestrians on the left - probably wondering why there are 10,000 cyclists going past them on the road.
Nearing the bridge.
Obviously heading for Darling Harbour to be added to the cars on the bridge being displayed.
Someone who forgot to put on the sun screen before he left.
I worry that I am turning into a bridge-spotter (like a train spotter). Just look at all those rivets! Note the big gap here between the metal part of the bridge and the stone abutment on my left. The big stone towers have no structural role to play at all - they just look good.
More rivets. Lots of rivets.
An ambulance - no idea why it was there. I managed to pass it without being run over.
A stone thingy at the other end of the bridge - and more rivets.
One of many groups that stopped for a photo opportunity partway across the bridge.
Like I said, there were many groups taking photos.
Looking back at the bridge.
The Cahill Expressway was closed for the morning. Last time I did this, some people got confused at this point and went left onto the Cahill. Didn't see anyone do that this morning.
More tollgates. No tolls again.
Note the sign for "lavish apartments" in the background. What is it that makes a place "lavish"? I thought it was the furniture and fittings, which are put in there by the person that lives there. When you buy an empty apartment, it is not "lavish". It is an empty box.
Stupid bloody sign.
An extenda-bike thing with kid on the back. Very nifty idea.
One thing that got me was the number of people riding bikes with plain old-fashioned pedals. I know that the cleat-type pedals that I use have been around for years, but they clearly have not taken on with a significant number of cyclists. I guess people are very conservative in some areas, and pedals are one of them. I have spoken to a number of people that have stuck to their old pedals because they worry about being "trapped" in the pedals and falling over when they come to a stop.
That said, I remember having a look at a cabinet full of pedals in a bike shop not long ago. I was contemplating buying some new shoes and wondered whether I should change to new pedals at the same time. There was not a single pair of "old" pedals to be seen in that case. Clearly, bike shops deem them to be "beneath" them, so they only sell fancy new modern stuff. That's a bit silly, given that so many people clearly prefer the old style pedals that don't even have toe clips.
Snobbery perhaps? There are some technologies that are clearly superior, and they take over the market so quickly it's amazing - like digital photography. There are not many people around who will only buy a film SLR camera anymore - the benefits of digital are just too overwhelming, and most people get it straight away. The don't get cleats though. The industry has a lot of work to do to convince non-regular riders to change over.
In case you are wondering why anyone would bother with using cleats, it's all to do with power transfer. I wear shoes with very stiff soles - they barely flex at all. When I push my leg down, most of the power of that stroke is transmitted to the pedal instead of being lost in a flexing sole, and because my foot is fixed to the pedal at the most efficient spot for power transfer, I get more power to the ground. Mountain bike shoes tend to be more flexible and comfortable than road shoes, but they are all too narrow for my fat foot. I would wear a soft and flexible shoe with cleats if I could find a pair that fits. I am stuck with hard shoes because they are the only thing that I have ever found to be wide enough for my feet.
Going around the wool stores in Pyrmont. This was a deadly place to take photos thanks to the terrible state of the road surface. I took a photo, put my camera away and then hit a huge ripple across the road (the kind of ripple that you get after a major earthquake or a decade of no maintenance) and would have lost it if I only had one hand on the handlebars.
I took a photo of this crane and building from the Anzac bridge not long ago - here's the view from down below.
The bridge from down below.
Juxtaposing old and new - this is the control cab thing for the swing bridge that I am riding on at this point. It needs a coat of paint.
The worst bottleneck on the whole ride - here we are about to join Victoria Road. You have two complete lanes of cyclists coming around the corner from here and they get squeezed into a pathway about a metre wide as they go through the lights. I am surprised that no one fell over trying to do this. It was a shocking spot.
Ha ha. Bin Riden.
More bottleneck photos (which really don't do it justice).
There is a certain group of cyclists who are of the insane-green or anarchist tendency, and they love to cause havoc and hate the police. I didn't see any of that ilk today. The Spring Cycle is all respectable mums and dads and that sort of thing, and they just loved the police presence - mainly since it stopped us from getting run over (which is a nice change). The absence of the usual hairy legged ferals was quite refreshing.
The worst thing about stopping here and waiting for the lights was the heat. It was starting to warm up, and the only thing keeping me cool was the breeze you get from riding along. Being packed in with a few hundred sweaty bodies meant that the temperature around here was about 10 degrees hotter than it was at any other point, and the humidity was also around 100%.
Lilyfield Road. The first photo in this series was taken from the top of the hill in the distance. Looks a bit different now. This gives you an idea of the sort of crowd that took part. If this many people commuted by bike, I'd probably get really upset as I normally put the hammer down on this hill, and I got stuck behind a wall of once a month cyclists who were one step away from hopping off and pushing. Aaaarrrgghh squared.
Another big gaggle going through Rodd Point. Like I said before - Genghis Khan and his hordes.
These poor buggers in the Jeep wanted to turn right across the flow. I think by the time I got here to take this photo, they had been waiting for some time. They looked less than impressed.
Note the recumbrant up the front on the left chatting to the cop. I only saw 2 or 3 recumbrants all day (they barely outnumbered unicycles) and I have only one thing to say to them - "Get a bloody move on!"
Because a recumbrant has 3 wheels and does not have to worry about tipping over if they go below a certain speed, they can dawdle along at less than walking pace. Which is exactly what every recumbrant I saw was doing. Blasted slugs.
Heading over the Silverwater Rd bridge (I think). Like I said, I am turning into a bridge spotter. Note the old part of the bridge on the left - the bit with the raisy-uppy thing.
Nice day to be on the water. Much more sensible than riding around in the heat.
Going over the old railway bridge over the Parramatta River. I have been over this plenty of times on a weekday, and at most seen one other rider. It was packed today - no room for passing.
Newington Armoury - and a welcome ice cream truck. As I found out at this point, J had raided my wallet the night before and left me with no money at all. So no ice cream for me.
The end - the Olympic fountain at Homebush. This is the thing that Cathy Freeman stood under at the opening ceremony. I put my camera, phone and wallet into a plastic bag and then rode under it. Bliss! Unfortunately, it only cooled off my back. I should have gone back and second time and tilted my head upwards to soak my front as well. The water fairly pounds off this thing - it's not a gentle stream by any means, and it is bloody cold as well! I think I wasn't game to go back for a second go after feeling just how cold it was first time around.
From here, it was a half hour trip home, which meant going against the flow for part of the way. I had to wait at a few intersections for a break in the bike traffic coming the other way - it was like Beijing I suppose. Worse than peak hour traffic on Victoria Road.
Since getting home, I have eaten 3 meals and had a 3 hour sleep, and I now need another feed. I have also been pouring the water down my throat, and am still thirsty.
A good day. A good ride.
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