Having been distracted by the new trail bike recently, I was quickly running out of available days to knock out a solid metric century ride this month. It was going to have to be today. I knew this Saturday most of The Herd were away doing triathlon things (ewwww) so it was to be a solo jaunt through some familiar countryside.

Any long solo ride means spending a lot of time with your own thoughts. Luckily I rate my own company so I am never bored or short on internal monologue. In fact I quite like the time to myself, interacting only with the occasional cyclist passing in the other direction and the waitress behind cafe counter. It’s a peaceful change to busy modern day-to-day life. Let’s not get too deep though, onto the ride.

A 6:30am sunrise start and a chilly shock as I clipped in! I hadn’t done my due diligence weather check and by the time I was out the driveway I knew I’d made some poor clothing choices. My Garmin showed 5 degrees C. That’s the Tasmanian summer for you, ever unpredictable! I’m glad I grabbed my long fingered gloves and gilet, but I could have REALLY done with arm and leg warmers too! I spent the first 40km trying – and failing – to spin some warmth into my legs. They protested for well over an hour until the sun finally broke through the morning cloud. Sorry knees, it won’t happen again!

On my January Resolution Ride I didn’t take any photos, so I made sure to rectify that this time around. There’s a time for hard charging non-stop riding and there’s a time for soaking in the scenery. This ride was firmly in the camp of the latter. In fact I don’t think I pushed 100% on any section. A proper endurance building weekend ride.

I stopped to refuel at the 75km mark. A quinoa slice (WTF!) and double shot cappuccino to power me homeward. Red Square Cafe in Cambridge isn’t the most scenic place to stop, but it’s convenient.

The sun was well and truly out now and it had turned into a cracker of a morning. Leaving the cafe with the wind at my back I pedalled over the causeways. A fisherman was hastily filleting a brace of very undersized looking Flathead as I rode past. If somebody is filleting their catch right away, chucking carcasses back into the water, you can almost guarantee the catch was not legal size. Even my passing glance could spot that his fish were well under the 32cm legal limit.

The last section towards home is a bit of a shocker. A fast drop followed by a draggy climb up the highway. Having two lanes of 100kph traffic whizz by when you’re crawling at under 15kph is not fun, especially not with 100 kilometres in the legs. It’s the only road home though so there’s no getting around it. Just keep pedalling. I plugged away thankful for no close passes today, turned off the highway and rolled the final couple of km home, stopping the clock with a shade over 105km / 65 miles on the Garmin. All done and dusted before 11am, gotta be happy with that.

Job done, legs done, Saturday morning done right!