So much for reputations

This morning I woke up not feeling very good. Stomach craps, diarrhea, and possibly one or two other things that I didn't notice. I decided to attempt a ride anyway, simply because I can. The opening was extremely sluggish (I later realised this was largely because that was where the wind was coming from), but I started to feel better when I hit the hills. The 14% climb loomed about 5km before Canungra, but strangely, it just didn't feel that hard today, and before I knew it I was through the town and on my way to the big climb of O'Reilly's.







Actually, this climb isn't so bad, the gradient is fairly easy in the early section (even if it does that for 15km), and while I didn't seem to have the motivation to really attack, I still seemed to be making surprisingly good time. Through the false flat, and into the ancient Antarctic Beech forests at the top, then onto the final assault of the mountain, the last 7km of the climb, where things get a little steeper in parts. Strangely, the steeper it got, the better I felt. The final act of this one is a steep section that the locals refer to as "Big Bertha" -- they claim it's 25%, but I think 15% is more realistic. Either way, once I got sight of the top, I was able to power over it, and crest the summit. After applying sunscreen, it was time for a descent, back into the town of Canungra, where I had a decision to make -- just how would I go about finding the extra miles to make up a century.

To the north loomed Mt Tamborine -- the road to get there was once rated in a magazine as one of the ten hardest climbs in the country -- and I suspect the person who wrote that article wasn't doing it as their "second" climb. After giving it much profound thought (i.e. "Ahh, sod it!), I decided to have a crack at it. The gradient on the road out of Canungra is 9% (according to the signs). Shortly after the Mt Tamborine turn-off, a sign says 12%. Around the next corner, another sign says 14%. That's the way it went for the entire climb (which is, in reality, only a few km long) -- 13%, 12%, the final assault of 14%. Actually, the final assault can be a problem -- it's a single lane section controlled by a set of lights at either end. If one is to do it without stopping, you can't afford to mess around.



I thought about attacking it, but that thought lasted only as long as it took me to feel the lactic acid of two mountains in my legs -- I opted for clinical rather than aggro. I must have made it look easier than it felt -- at least that was the impression I got from two motorcyclists at the other end. Now I could see the top, Mt Tamborine, this climb with the such a vicious reputation, was about to crack. I shifted upwards and finished the job with a traditional victory salute (a solitary finger raised). It was done. After a beautiful lunch on the mountain, and a screaming descent on the other side with sweeping views that lasted forever, I had one final enemy -- Wongawallan. I don't understand this climb, it's not big (only 130m), and it doesn't appear steep, but it always poses a problem. I'm not the only one who says this incidentally.

There's no point riding Wongawallan to survive -- you won't. You must attack, take it as a personal insult that this petty climb at the foot of Mt Tamborine would dare get in your way, it's the only way. By this stage my legs felt like lead, but Wongawallan, too, fell under the on-slaught. A few other foothills to Oxenford, and the edge of suburbia -- now I realised, that for the first time today, I was about to have a tailwind. After laughing in the face of a moron on Hope Island, who took about five years off his life by getting really angry about the sight of a bicycle on the road, before realising that either way, he was only going to go as fast as the rest of the traffic, I returned to Paradise point and charged down the coast.

Around Runaway Bay I had a minor problem -- I felt as though I needed to eat a muesli bar, but I'd eaten way too much on Mt Tamborine and didn't think I could eat one without throwing up. Then I began to realise that to do a ride like this, after the start I'd had, was something I may never do again. I was inspired, I shifted up a gear, and took off. It wasn't long after this that I had the pleasure of picking my way through the traditional Sunday afternoon gridlock on the Gold Coast, passing hundreds, possibly thousands of cars that were stuck (suckers!). I suddenly forgot that I was tired, although after I made it back home, I suddenly remembered again.

Beyond that there is little to tell, but if anyone is still reading this, I'd like to know something. I thought diarrhea was supposed to weaken the sufferer, not suddenly make them stronger and able to go further. How did this happen?