Long Bike Ride with BTS

We headed out from Chalk Hotel at 7am - a very civilised time indeed!

It was quite a large group. Unfortunately, it took me ages to settle into the ride. I will get better the more of these group rides we do, but this one wasn't great. Because I was so unsettled (read freaking out!) I was wasting energy and got dropped on a few of the early hills. Not by a lot but enough. It was quite a tough ride and the pace felt as though it was on.

We rode out to Manly and Wynnum and then back which ended up being about 50kms. The view over the water was beautiful, it was a millpond with no clouds in the sky. We stopped there for a toilet break and then we were off again through Gumdale and Old Cleveland Road. By this stage I had settled into the ride and was feeling a lot more comfortable. Bronny took the ride and she kept telling me to move up closer to the wheel in front of me, whenever my concentration lapsed I would drop off the wheel, so I really need to stay on top of this so that it is second nature and that I can relax holding onto the wheel. I got better on the way back, so I know that this is something I can do, I just need to have more confidence and not spend half of the ride before I am comfortable there. I'm sure once we start our regular winter rides it won't take me long.

I felt OK with the distance, although at this stage I am out for the 160km Portfolio Partners ride as I think this is going to be asking too much! I'll see how I go and will probably end up doing the 100k instead.