flat century

What better to do on a holiday Monday than to spin down the freeway. The plan was to make it all the way down to Mandurah, following the Kwinana freeway, but I left too late, so had to settle with Rockingham.
The path along the freeway is truly glorious - dead flat, super smooth, quiet (only passed a half-dozen other people in 3 hours) and, if there's no wind (like today) Fast!.
All the way to the Rockingham beach strip is about 112km, with the full run to Mandurah more like 170km.

The singlespeed sits very comfortably at 29km/h at a cadence I can keep up happily, so it was a great run. The only downside of this ride is that there is no climbing, so no descents = no rest. I got just under 4 hours of fairly intense spinning.

Meandering through the Kwinana Industrial area on the way out led me to this sight: I waited for some time for it to move like the giant robot in "The Incredibles", but no such luck.

Stolen from The Incredibles

Quick, call Frozone!

Though a ride like this could be seen as fairly dull, the monotony of the cadence and terrain gave me a good opportunity to fine-tune my gear - a few millimeters adjustment on my cleats relieved the pins and needles I've been troubled by in my feet, and incremental adjustment of my saddle is helping the sore spot I build up on my backside (seems my pelvis might be placed not-quite-straight). At the end, there's always a reward at the end :

City from Mt Henry Bridge - 20km to go.

I took this photo as I put on my jacket - the temperature plunged to a blistering 19 degrees C! - and the guys just below me on the sand pulled in a brace of very nice looking Bream as I paused.

Rides like this require a certain luxury of lifestyle that allow blocks of time to be devoted to "going for a ride". I compounded this luxury today by paddling on the Canning River with Chris. Right in the middle of the city, this is an amazingly quiet and beautiful piece of the world. Again, dolphins were splashing about as we went past - surely this is a healthy system!

Chris on the Canning River

Noticed I'm still in love with the panorama feature on the phone?