Narrowneck - Sunday 13th May 2007

I managed to convinve 4 of my friends that it is a good idea to come riding with me in the Blue Mountains and being the great friends that they are, they willingly accepted!

So, Sunday morning, (left to right) Rebecca, Roelf, Sam Al and myself headed to Katoomba to ride Narrowneck again. It's probably a 40km round trip, well actually maybe 45km for us considering we got lost trying to find the start.

I must say I found it a lot easier this time than the first, I must be improving after all. My fear seems to have gone and I am now more than happy to fly down hills at crazy speeds. The thought that I may hit a rock at the wrong angle and stack it over the handlebars resulting in broken bones or death occasionally occurs but I try and put that to the back of my mind! The uphills are still a struggle but I didn't get off as much as the first time, so I think that may even be improving.

I think everyone else had a great time and for people who hadn't ridden bikes for years and not really offroad I was extremely impressed! I certainly wouldn't have been able to do that at the start of my training. Well done team...look forward to riding with you again soon!

Homebush - Sunday 5th May 2007

Mick and I had planned to head to the Royal National Park to ride a selection of tracks close to Loftus Oval, we met early at Central Station, bought tickets only to discover that the platform was closed and CityRail had decided to do track maintainence - DOH!

So, we racked our brains and decided to ride to Sydney Olympic Park. We left the city via the Anzac Bridge, crusied through the Rozelle Mental Hospital (luckily we managed to escape without them locking us up) and then down to the Bay run and on towards Homebush, was all going well, it's all pretty flat so was fine, until the bike signs got really cofusing and we found ourselves on the highway! Too late to turn back we braced ourselves, peddaled hard and managed to survive the cars speeding past at 100kmph and a seriously scary junction.

We finally made it to Homebush where we crusied around some tracks and eventually found somewhere to stop for lunch. Refuelled we headed back to the city, also via another strange route. For the first 10km or so we were on the Parramatta Road! By some form or a mircle we managed to survive that too and made it home in one piece.

I reckon I rode about 50km and Mick 65km...well done us!