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Category Archive: charity bike ride
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The amazing tale of Kacie & Dani
A month or so ago I was contacted by two inspiring American women who are training for an ‘ultra’ cycling event called Race Across America. It’s a 3,000 mile or 4,828 km ride that has to be completed in nine days.
I always thought that undertaking a long ride like Melbourne’s Around the Bay which is 210 km was a pretty impressive feat. That was until I heard from Kacie & Dani.
I asked them a few questions about their quest.
My annual trip to the cycling mecca of Adelaide
I’m writing this on my return flight from Adelaide after spending a week enjoying Australia’s own UCI cycling event, the Tour Down Under. For those of you who don’t already know about it, it’s a six day professional men’s road racing event held every January centred around the South Australian city of Adelaide.
It was my sixth visit to the southern capital for the race and it’s great to see it continue to grow in popularity with lots of locals coming out in support as well as interstate and international visitors.
For me it has always consisted of two key components – the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) ride in the Barossa Valley and the Tour Down Under itself.
Mental preparation for a cycling event
When I first started doing long rides, my training and preparation was almost entirely based on my physical readiness. I’ve always understood the big role that mental preparation plays for elite athletes but I never thought I had anything in common with them.
After four years of cycling, I’ve done quite a few charity rides and a small amount of racing and I always get very nervous beforehand. But I’ve never known how to overcome it except to just accept that it happens and live with it. I’ve also thought that my anxiety was more a female trait so I was interested to hear pro cyclist Luke Durbridge in an interview after he won the National road race championship last week say that he was shaking on the start on the start line because he was so nervous. It made me feel less alone.
Training for a long ride for female cyclists
Smiling after 160 km in January 2012
I’m not sure how other cyclists define a long ride but for me it’s anything over about 100 km. For others, it could be many hundreds of kilometres or even as short as a 50 km ride like Sydney’s Spring Cycle.
In planning my training program, I firstly factor in that I ride on a regular basis, usually about four times per week with a total of around 150 km so I’m fairly ‘bike’ fit. However the ride I’m undertaking in about four week’s time is 160 km (or a century if you’re from the US) so for me that means I have to undertake some extra training. I’ve done the same 160 km ride a year ago so I know what to expect but this time I’d like to do it better and improve on my time.
Most things I’ve read on this subject and other more wise individuals say that you don’t need to ride the full distance in training but you do need to up your kilometres and get some extra ‘kms in your legs’.
How to descend on a road bike
When I first started riding I thought the only thing you really needed to know about descending was to grip the brakes tight and pray it was over soon. As I’ve developed more riding skills I’ve learnt to enjoy descending and although I’m far from mastering it, I feel a lot more confident and am going a lot faster than before. My fastest speed I’ve ever clocked up on my trusty Garmin 500 is 61 km per hour which was in a recent charity ride which has some excellent downhill sections (and of course the matching uphills).
The following article is reproduced from a fantastic e-zine & website called Women’s Cycling.ca. It’s a free cycling resource for women that contains a heap of great articles just like this one. Thanks to Laurel-Lea Shannon who is the founder of the site and the author of this article. Laurel-Lea resides in Ontario Canada and she tells me that one of her regular contributors Diane Stibbard is an Australian who now resides in Canada. Over to Laurel-Lea………
My JDRF ride – reaching the next level
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) annual Ride to Cure Diabetes is pretty special to me because it’s the reason I started my love affair with cycling three and a half years ago.
This was my fourth time I had participated and while a lot of people think that raising $3,500 to do the ride is a huge challenge, for me riding the 160 km course was far harder.
In my previous three rides I’d only done the 80 km course which was hard for me the first time (only four months after I started riding) but it had become increasingly achievable.
So I spent the past few months training which really paid off and I’m very pleased to say I completed the ride successfully. For those who like a few stats it took 6 hours 33 minutes at an average speed of 25 km per hour. In fact it was 164 km.
The JDRF ride is an 80 km circuit around the beautiful Barossa Valley. The 160 km ride is a clockwise lap followed by an 80 km anti-clockwise lap. It’s undulating for the most part but in some parts hilly. Harder than the 210 km Around the Bay in Melbourne which many other riders agreed with me.
What type of bike for me?
Me after a cruise around the block
I hope you don’t think from reading this blog on a regular basis that I’m an elitist road bike snob because although I’m a very keen road-biker I’m also keen to get women to ride bikes of any type. I ultimately believe if they catch the bug they’ll end up on a road bike, but really any riding is good in my view.
Last weekend I did a few laps around the block on my sister’s new comfort style bike. It was sort of fun rolling along with my seven year old nephew in tow and his father right behind him keeping guard. Here’s the photographic evidence. No lycra in sight!!!
So I’ve done my research and thought I’d give you a simple run down on the different sorts of bikes you could consider if you’re just starting out. My first bike, other than the ones I rode as a child & teenager, was a road bike but many people work their way up. Plus, there are plenty of people who are very happy to have a bike to just ride with their kids or use it to get to their local shops. All fine by me. All cycling is good in my view.
Setting a goal and sticking to it
Read my guest blog on SheRides Cycling about setting a training goal.
My 2011 Gong ride
Me on the Sea Cliff Bridge during the ride
I completed the Gong ride for the fourth time yesterday and thought it timely to tell you about my experience in the hope that it will encourage more female cyclists to participate in future events like this. Each state around Australia has these types of events that are run annually.
Firstly, it was all good from my perspective so don’t be expecting to read some gruesome tale here. Beautiful conditions – warm and very little wind.
I did the Gong ride for the first time in 2008 about five weeks after I’d started riding so you can imagine that three years later it seemed like a completely different experience. My first attempt was the shorter version from Heathcote to the Gong which was about 55 km.
Sign up for a cycling event – a great way to set a goal
About six years ago, before I took up cycling my sister-in-law Tina suggested that I sign up for a fun run to give myself a training goal. At the time I was a recent convert to jogging for fitness (and despite all my cycling I still jog two or three times a week) and had no idea where it would lead me. Tina is a personal trainer and she uses fun runs and other events to encourage her clients to set fitness goals.
Well it worked for me, firstly with my jogging, and it has since worked well for my cycling training. In fact at the moment I’m training for the Triathlon Pink which is in October. That was Tina’s idea as well and she’ll be completing it with me as well as my friend Shiona (also a cycling friend) and my other sister-in-law Bec.
Because this is a cycling blog I’ll focus on cycling events and their benefits but the same theory can apply to any sport that has public sporting events like swimming, kayaking, walking, running and many more.
Tina and me after finishing our second JDRF ride together
If you read my story you’ll realise that I actually took up cycling nearly three years ago to participate in a charity bike ride – The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Ride for a Cure that is held in the Barossa Valley, SA in January every year. I’ll soon be training to participate in my fourth JDRF ride but this time I’m upping the ante and have signed up to do 160 km. The first three years I completed the 80 km course. The first time I completed it I was thrilled and amazed at myself. Imagine how I will feel after completing twice that distance!
So in coming months I’ll be training hard, doing lots of long rides to get myself ready to ride that distance. I’ll also be feeling good because I’ll be raising funds for a fantastic cause – to find a cure for diabetes. If you’d like to help me out with my fundraising goal of $3,500 please follow this link. At the time of writing this blog my total is $400 so I’ve got a way to go yet.