Hilly Hundred

The long ride renaissance continues - I wanted to try the Roley hills ride again, this time taking it right up to the hundred and giving it a bit of a squeeze on the way. 102.5km, 4:01:26, average 25.4km/h with a top of 69km/h (I was a bit gutless on the descent, this time.) Climb on this one (thanks to IW's Garmin last time) is about 1000m.

The hills, without the prospect of any rests (last time IW was doing a slow grind session in the saddle and I was pinging off), were pigs. The big Kalamunda hill (at 18km - about 2km long) is just plain nasty. This is how you know it's coming :

Surprise!

A chap came out of his driveway while I took this photo and said "singlespeed, huh?" I said "yeeesss", to which he replied "Have Fun!" and walked quickly inside.
I think he was dialling an ambulance.

After the pig, the ride is relatively gentle rollers (relatively, I said). The singlespeed makes this fairly hard work, because I've got to power up, or fall off, and spin furiously down, to maintain some useful speed. Gotta get gears....
The road surface is pretty coarse in places, but all flat with reasonable shoulders / traffic visibility. I only had on bag of rubbish thrown at me today - from a ute - surprise surprise..... I was target practice for a bogan.

The reward of this course comes from country like this:

Canning Mills Road

And also from the sensational descent back through Kalamunda. Tip for young players (me) : toss down an espresso hammer gel about 5 minutes before the descent. By the time you've hit the flats at the bottom, you'll have the heartrate of a hummingbird.
My new favourite thing : If they served these in cafe's, I'd be there....

Recovery from this ride has been OK, so far. A litre of water, 2 big glasses of V8 original, half a packet of plain rice crackers and a beer (they just went together so well!) and a chocolate cookie. Quads are sore, but I'll so how they go tomorrow. Fuel on the road was : 3 litres water total trip, with an electrolyte tablet at start, 30km and halfway; banana at 30km, chocolate / peanut butter slice at 20km, halfway and 70km, hammer gel at 75km.  A month ago, I would have done the whole thing on a litre of water......

The next challenge is the 250km out past Toodyay - probably to be tackled a bit at a time. I figure if I slip in one of these rides every other week, in place of my long run, I can keep up the endurance fitness and enjoy more of this.

I am gritty with sweat-salt and dust, I have a shocking shorts tan-line, my bumhole is in the back of my neck and I stink. It's a good day.