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Its back !

I'm back on to  cycling...this time with a mission !! Alternating between misty and misby is working well and I'm enjoying my rides immensely. The weather is playing up a little bit now and then, but I have enough cold clothing for now.

Looks like the indoor trainer is going to be a garage ornament for at least sometime now :) Anyhow, the break I took from cycling has worked well for me. I can recall me gazing out at all the cyclists and smiling to myself and thinking that, yes, someday soon I will brave the cold, the wind, the weather and most importantly laziness and be one on the road in the bike lane, not stuck in the car. 

Just taking a day off biking and driving to work made me feel like I was stuck in some sort of an urban trap with no place to wiggle. Cycling in the bike lane, ironically feels like freedom !!

Misty goes for a ride !!

I had resolved on Friday that my roadie was feeling leftout  and therefore needed a good ride on Saturday morning. The excitement was so high that I could only about sleep for 6 hours that night. 

I researched on good ol' bikely the route I wanted to take. I generally don't stick to the specifics. I try to get a generic idea of where I wanna go and note the street names so that I can find my way back and then take on go by impulse and take short detoures along my planned route. 

I also thought it'd be a good idea to map my route on bikely and the result is below: 

The route is about 98% accurate and I'm still trying to work my way through it.  I thought it will be fun to post the route there, just for my reference and for anyone who is game ! 

The ride's actually quite a moderate effort. I went for timing on this one. Riding on Gungahlin dr is quite a pleasure. The bikeways are wid'ish and some very nice views of the roads below. There was some construction work later on the road and the bikeway was blocked. Fortunately it was downhill with a speed limit of 40. So I'm sure I wasn't holding up any cars. Having said that, I feel riders in Canberra enjoy a greater level of understanding with the motorists.  

Anyhoo, the keywords for this ride were: barton hwy, gungahlin dr, lady denham rd and then finding my way back.  I was actually hoping to go all the way to Yarralumla and back, but I was enticed by the black mountain peninsula and I just rode along from there. 

I must say, getting lost and finding your way back and finding things familiar things along the way is a great feeling.  As I was riding along the lake, I must confess I had no clue of where I was and where I was heading, apart from the direction. I stumbled across the ANU, Sri Chinmoy run , some musuemy thingie and finally, that park below commonwealth dr !!! That was a "all roads lead to rome" feeling. Of course, in Canberra, all roads lead to Parliament house, as they should !

Anyway, after confirming that it was indeed commonwealth dr, I started the ride back. I was absolutely sure that I will not take the same route back home! I got drawn to in this thing called the William Hovell Dr. Boy o' Boy was that a ride. It's a classic middle of nowhere kinda ride and I had no idea where I was heading. Half through it, I glanced at a sign on the opposite side and it said "City" in that direction ! I really didn't want to turn back, so I thought, heck, this is canberra, eventually I will get somewhere I know.

The timing really was "eventual" ! The ups and downs of that ride took a toll on me, but I found elixir in finding "Belconnen" way. I never knew it starts at a suburby area ! Cycling down that way, I was damn tired and about to doze off when a magpie attacked me ! That really woke me up and kept me going for the rest of the ride.

All in all, a great ride. Bikely/Google Earth estimates are between 45-53 kms.  I gotta say, this is the loooongest I've ridden on Misty. The longest ever, was of course the 100km briz-goldcoast ride, but that was on my hybrid. 

Ironny is such that, you buy an indoor trainer and it prompts you to more rides outdoor !