Superb training ride

Training route to Royal National Park

This morning had great conditions for a training ride. I was up at 5h45 to catch up with a group going to Waterfall. Riding in a group past Sydney airport is essential as the route takes one on the airport freeway,and that is not a place that you want to be in a small group!

Once we got to Waterfall (about 50km mark), a couple of us turned left, into the Royal National Park. Its amazing how much cooler and wetter its in the park, amongst the trees, than out on the open road. My legs were still feeling the after-effects of last weekend's riding I think, but eventually I got used to the hills again and really enjoyed the climbs.

Route profile and riding speed

After the ride through the park we re-joined the maid road, and a different bunch of riders back to the eastern suburbs. Looking at the stats (available online at Garmin ) we climbed a total of over 1100m, which is in excess of the daily total climbing on all but one day of our Headride tour from Adelaide to Melbourne - that's a relief. Our average speed was over 30km/h which we'll probably exceed if we ride well in a bunch on most days.

Today was the last of my longer training rides, and I will not do much riding this week, so that I am well rested before the first day next Saturday.

Headride