Photos of our first bike trip

Last week my neighbour Maria like many people was asking me about the upcoming Africa trip. The conversation went something like this;

Maria: So have you been training?

Hap: No, we will just start off doing 50km a day and then build up.

Maria: Have you ever biked 50km before?

Hap: Ummmmmm, no.

It was quite funny, here I have been telling people all along that we will be starting off doing 50km a day (I heard from someone that is an actual cyclist that’s it’s a good starting point) as though I’m a seasoned veteran and know what I’m talking about. And it wasn’t until Maria asked me that I realised I have never cycled 50km in my life.

Well, at least now I can say “Yes, I have”. To tell you the truth I was rather happy how it all went, my body felt good and so did the bike, and I was quite surprised that my bum didn’t feel like I had fallen asleep at Elton John’s pyjama party.

Although I learnt one lesson, rehydrating after cycling 60km with beer is not a good idea. And whilst in the midst of rehydrating with beer, if you happen to experience the most excruciating cramp of your life and find yourself sliding under the table trying to move your leg as far away from your body as possible you can only expect your mates to help you once they have finished laughing, put down their beer, taken photos and laughed some more.

Umm, I think I just contradicted myself above. Apart from the hellish self inflicted cramp the first night, the body felt pretty good. I think the Melbourne cycling culture helps,

Anyways, here are some photos of Mandy’s and mine first bike trip.

Day 1: I was like a little kid before Christmas. The two previous nights I had been up till 2am preparing the bikes and gear. This was my first time hopping on my bike all loaded up. EXCITED!

Day 1: Mandy’s bike parts still hadn’t arrived so she had to do it all on her $30 bike we picked up from a garage sale when we arrived in Melbourne a year ago. This photo taken in the rain in central Melbourne enroute to the train station.

Day 1: 30 minutes after the previous photo the sun came out, and like a tattoo’d, black jeans and Jim Beam T-Shirt bogan getting his photo in front of his V8 Holden Commondore, I had to do the same – minus everything in the example I used.

Day 1: Mandy with the bikes for our 1 hour train trip to the peninsula.

Day 1: After cycling 60 km we made it to our destination at St Andrews beach where we had a house rented with mates for the weekend.

Day 2: A bit of beach action.

Day 2: We did a 40 km round trip to the pub in Portsea for Lunch, friends drove, Mandy and I biked. Once again the victory photo after a day in the saddle. Apparently my hair style is all the rage in the cycle touring community.

Day 3: Easter Sunday. What better day for a day of rest. Beach and back yard cricket day.

Day 3: I used every excuse to try out all my gear. It was common throughout the weekend to hear my mates saying “Hap, we’re going to the bloody beach not Africa, you don’t need your GPS, walkie talkies and dry bag”

Day 3: BYC

Day 4: Home time. Packed and cleaned. Then met for fish and chips and beers at Flinders. Everyone pictured in food coma above. Was OK for them, they were heading back to Melbourne, Mandy and I had another 20 km to cycle to get to our proposed camp site. Note to self, fish and chips and beer don’t go well with cycling.

Day 4: Arrived at campsite to try out our camping gear. We only cycled 40km this day, but the weekends festivities and cycling had caught up on us. We were both in our sleeping bags, Mandy asked me what the time was, I checked my phone and it was 6.20pm!

Day 5: Woke up full of beans, 60 km ride back to the train. Found some cool bush trails.

Day 5: By day 5 I had a bond with my bike. On the bikes we met heaps of helpful people, a lovely couple told us about this bike path that led all the way to the train station. Oh yeah, we found out the hard way, cycling on narrow roads in Easter traffic don’t mix. Oh yeah, when planning a route, just because the paper is flat doesn’t mean the roads will be!

Mandy’s stallion of bike lapping up the sun and view.

Day 5: Another 60km day, that was a grand total of 200km (actually was more as the GPS ran out of batteries for awhile). The first cycling trip can be put down as a success. We are planning one more trip when we have all our gear (more camping gear arrived today, and Mandy’s bikes parts).