Achieving a cycling goal

sagetracey

My husband and I have discovered a love for cycling and it has become a major part of my weight loss journey. The unexpected side benefit for him has been a significant improvement in his cholesterol levels as he exercises more. We have hooked up with a local group of social riders and I have become involved in the organisation of an annual charity ride through my Lions Club.

Our medium term goal is to complete the Great Victorian Bike Ride in November this year while our longer term goal is to complete the Lions Ride for Sight in April next year. Both are multi-day rides with 100km plus days. My husband has become increasingly worried about his ability to complete such a distance, despite the fact that both rides have multiple breaks during the day.

So this Easter we set ourselves a short term goal of riding a 75km+ day. We camped at Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula with a group of dancing friends for the Easter break and while everyone packed their dancing shoes, husband and I were the only ones to pack our bikes.

Saturday night was spent was the RSL Club where we all danced the night away to a great local band. Sunday morning our friends slept in while DH and I rose early, ate a good breakfast, checked the bikes and hit the road.

We rode to Sorrento for morning coffee then out through Portsea to Point Nepean and the Portsea Back Beach. A couple of navigational challenges meant we saw more of the Peninsula than we had actually planned, including two visits to St Andrew's Beach! Back into Rye for a lunch stop and walk out on the pier and then it was down to Dromana for another coffee stop.

Most of our riding was on quite busy roads but there was usually a bike path or decent shoulder for us to use. The Mornington Peninsula is a popular cycling area so there were plenty of other riders around and the traffic was largely aware and considerate of cyclists. We made sure that our hand signals were very clear and I am sure that helped at some of the busy roundabout intersections!

We took the Bay Trail from Dromana back to Rosebud. This is a shared path, mostly packed gravel, that meanders along the foreshore, through kilometres of camping/caravan grounds. Apart from one fisherman who had his multiple rods laid out across the path at a very narrow point and who told us to use the road(!), this was a leisurely way to end our day.

All up, we rode 83km and felt quite good. We didn't push the pace but we certainly achieved our goal and DH now realises that he is more than capable of achieving a 100km day. Stay tuned for the next instalment (but not for a couple of weeks as our son gets married on Saturday-week!)

RedSunshine365

Sounds like you both had perfect experience and are well on your way to reaching your goals. Nice job!