To Ride or Not to Ride........Kata Tjuta to Yulara

Saturday morning 17^th March, Roger was in Alice Springs,  Matt and Ben were in Perth for Matt & Lucinda’s wedding, (any excuse not  to ride guys!...oh and Congrats on your wedding Matt & Lucinda) Leon was also away and Christian was working.......Mandy and I were looking at the weather deciding if it was too windy to ride, I wanted to wait and see what it was like tomorrow but Mandy convinced me “we have to learn to ride in all weather conditions”....who was I to argue

We loaded the bikes onto the car, got water supplies and off we headed to Kata Tjuta, we were not impressed with the wind as we drove out as it seemed very strong and blowing in the wrong direction for us riding back, we were both questioning our decision to not wait until tomorrow...but “onwards and upwards” as they say

At 10:30 Mandy, after a couple of happy snaps, was on her bike and off up the HWY towards Yulara, some 50 + Kms away. I got my bike off the car, IPod on; Cyclemeter started and followed Mandy about 5 minutes behind. The first few Kms I thought the ride was going to be a easy ride as I was averaging 29-30Kms per hour for the first 7 Kms....this soon dropped to low 20’s and High teens for the remained of the ride.

16Kms into the ride was the first time had could see Mandy since she left the car park, and when I did manage to catch up some tourist driving the opposite direction was trying to talk to her out his car window explaining there were camels ahead beside the road....Thanks mate...trying to ride...see plenty of camels out here.....

The wind was relentless, full on head wind 30km per hour the whole way, temperature was 34c so we were getting really impressed half way between the car and home..........

I stopped for a break at 25 Kms and waited for Mandy to arrive...when she caught up said she had been shouting  for me to stop as the camels, the ones I did not see, were running along the road beside her and would have made a great photo.......After our break about 2 Kms on a herd  of camels came onto the edge of the road, the big Bull Camel walked into the middle of the road and just stared at me while I got closer and got the camera ready...He took off into the bush with his herd before I was in range and missed another good opportunity to the Camel, the road and the Rock in the one shot......

42.5 Kms we stopped again at the Lasseter hwy and Uluru Road for a short stretch and rest....on the home straight now with only 10Kms to go and on familiar road... Of we went and it seemed like we had not been riding at all, wind behind us and a smooth road, average speeds crept up to 30km per hour and in no time we were home...ready for the Couch.....But NO, we had to drive Mandy's car back out to Kata Tjuta and pick up my car first that was still at the Walpa Gorge car park

52.79Km in total, 2:15:40 ride time and a severe Wind/Sun burn in true cyclist patterns on knees and arms...a great ride after long procrastination of “to ride or not to ride”

Now we have had two 50+Km ride under our belts, next weeks ride Yulara to Curtin springs (85kms) should be easy?

STATS

Finished Cycle: 17/03/2012 1:13:44 PM

Route: Kata Tjuta To Yulara

Google Maps URL: http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/fd0b/fdf0/4e45/44af/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20120317-1033.kml

Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/zPrIw7

Import URL: http://share.abvio.com/fd0b/fdf0/4e45/44af/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20120317-1033.kml

Ride Time: 2:15:40

Stopped Time: 25:04

Distance: 52.79 km

Average: 23.35 km/h

Fastest Speed: 40.55 km/h

Ascent: 79 meters

Descent: 164 meters

Calories: 2238