4hour ride - 30min run... Taper, what taper!!!

Jacque kindly offered to pick me up at my place at 4:30am so that we could do a nice northside ride.  Craig needed the car to pick the kids up, so it worked out really well.  I owe Jacqe big time.

We left from Ashgrove with the rain coming down on us...  Sigh.  I am a bit over cleaning my bike to be honest!

We went up through Petrie, North Lakes, Scarborough, Redcliffe, Sandgate, Shorncliffe, Nudgee Beach and then on the bike path back to Jacque's place.

When we were up around Petrie and North Lakes I was really truly happy; the rain had stopped, there was very little traffic, we were clipping along comfortably, I was riding with 2 friends who I enjoyed the company of.  I was actually thinking that I am going to miss our long rides and was a tad nostalgic...

We stopped in at Redcliffe for a pit stop and continued on our way.  The wind was really horrible.  As we were just about to come over the Hornibrook Bridge the bike's were being blown around and you really had to keep your wits about you. I didn't dare take my hands off the handlebars to drink or eat!

This made the Hornibrook Bridge pretty revolting, poor Faye; Jacque and I followed her across so at least we got a little reprieve from the wind.  Faye ended up out the front pretty much the whole way home breaking the wind for us!  Such a strong cyclist at times I was working quite hard to hand on!

However, thankfully, we all survived the ride without incident, with the exception of Faye getting a flat tyre which she managed to change easily while Jacque and I watched on thinking that we really must practice that!

Jac provided some great Iced coffee's at her place which I like to call my 'recovery drink'.   We