My ride the Lobster (RTL) qualification ride: [Team required]

[nexty]

Day #2 - Sydney Olympic Park
Originally I was going to ride down the M7 cycle-way and back (80km) but due to the remoteness I opted to do this ride at Sydney Olympic Park - this later payed off dividends!


My setup consisted of a Nimbus 36" w/TA Tyre running at 32PSI; pretty stock standard but the setup was different to what I rode over in Vietnam for Uninam:

Magura HS33 brakes removed as I broke it last week whilst doing some technical Muni. (Manly Dam)

T7 Handlebar and rail adapter removed!
On the final day of Uninam my KH rail-adapter+T7 setup went pear shape, with the KH seatpost join between the post and rail-adapter becoming loose which resulted in the seat twisting whilst riding. After much running around and politely asking (begging) I was able to borrow Hannah Bischof's KH fusion+seatpost (no T7/handle) setup - the difference was immediately apparent my Unicycle felt like a Unicycle again!

The handle is small on the KH Fusion but I found that if I copied the way Ken Looi rode (upper body completely relaxed; hands supporting each other similar to CPR) I was able to do distance with ease. I'm not against handlebars, I just believe that the T7 is not the answer and something similar to Corbin's setup is the way to go.



ASSOS Chamois Creme (butt butter) used instead of regular ani-chaffing creme; one final tip picked up from Uninam (Thanks Christof!)

I started off the day with a light breakfast of potato mash+salt+pepper, which has been my staple 'feeling hungry, must eat' for the last couple days to load up on Carbs. Arrived at Sydney Olympic Park at 11 with the plan to do as much hill work as possible to cut down on the amount of KM's required by looping around the areas highlighted in pink:



1:00pm - Issues with my left 125mm crank, cycled over to the bike hire store within Olympic Park and had a really long talk with the bike mechanics there whilst they fixed it up.

Here's a maintenance tip for everyone - There are four possible positions to attach a crank, try all four and choose the one with the least play and then use loctite; lots of it

2:00pm - I started to get hungry, really hungry - checked my GPS and it reported 40km (score!) so I rode away from the Olympic Park up to the Rhodes Shopping mall to get some food and then disaster stuck!

The Garmin 305 GPS was no longer attached to my backpack!

My entire backpack was ripped apart and emptied it onto the ground, in a frenzy - all the elevation data from the last couple hours of riding - GONE and I WAS GUTTED, to say the least!

I immediately got back on the Uni and started to backtrack through the path I had just taken, asking cyclists and park if they had seen the GPS but in the end gave up and headed to Subway!

Two footlong subs later (Italian BMT/Meatball Sub) I rode over to the Bike hire shop again to ask if someone had handed my GPS in when I noticed that they had a Velo 5 cycle computer in stock - one quick phone call to Ken Looi and consultation to these forums, we figured out the correct calibration and I was off again.

4:00pm - Two friends turned up on bikes to help with pacing and to keep me company (thanks Mik and Jess!) and we rode all around the park, doing scenic exploration as they had never been here before.

6:00pm - Friends leave, things start to get dark - very dark so I had to change my route to do loops around the telstra stadium.



6:30pm - People start turning up to the Telstra stadium in droves, turns out the footy is on and in a couple hours the entire area will be filled to the brim with drunken revelers. A cyclist wearing Lyrca to a motorist in Sydney is like red cloth to a bull; A unicyclist doing laps at speed around a stadium wearing lyrca to a drunk footy fan is target practice. I rode over my car and changed into fresh (dry) gear and continued riding.

8:30pm - 50km on the cycle computer (90km total) I start to recognize symptoms that I am all too familiar with. On what was to be the final lap, half way through I become confused - not recognizing the area around me - wondering if I had somehow deviated off course. Then it hit me, I had been in the saddle for two hours solid and was close to bonking and so I decided to pack it in.

The great news is that my legs feel fine and I'm thinking about going out for another largish ride tomorrow.

Stats:
Temp: 13-20 deg c. (55f - 68f)
Top Speed: 47.5km/h (29.51mph)
Distance: 90km (55 miles)
Ascent: 800m / Descent: 800m / Night Riding: 20km
Final Rating: 236

[nexty]

Day #1 - Cokering to Work
Not much to say here; woke up at 4am and road to work on my Coker instead of the usual KH29 w/big apple.

The ride went well but riding footpaths and stopping at traffic lights slowed down the average speed greatly.






Distance: 34.91km
Time: 2:53h
Avg Speed: 12.1
Top Speed: 34km/h down the Gorehill freeway bike lanes.
10km night riding / 1539 elevation / 1707 decline.
Rating: 291

[chuckaeronut]

I must admit, you have good taste in subway sandwiches! :-D

Fun rides, looks like with lots of climbing; on your Day#1 ride, is that gain/loss in meters? If so, damn, that's a lot of climbing!

[nexty]

Originally Posted by chuckaeronut

I must admit, you have good taste in subway sandwiches! :-D

Fun rides, looks like with lots of climbing; on your Day#1 ride, is that gain/loss in meters? If so, damn, that's a lot of climbing!

Yep, in meters but is GPS based.

Yesterday I went out and purchased a Edge 305 which has a barometric altimeter so elevation data will be more accurate from this point onwards.

Today I used 110mm cranks for the first time (previously the lowest I've gone is 114mm) and I was able to free mount with no difficulties but had trouble getting used to the cranks as they are made out of steel (heavier!)

The weather degenerated rapidly right after lunch - stayed out there until it started to rain; 14c and 22km/h avg winds.

Whilst doing loops of the ANZ stadium I ran into a random Unicyclist doing trials who was a complete unknown and had been riding by himself for the last two years. He wasn't aware of any other Sydney riders or the Unicylist community; hooked him up with the details and he ended up riding a Coker for a couple laps - first time on a Unicycle bigger then 20"




Motion based stats available from here:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/player/5683394

Still hunting for a team