Saturday, September 11, 2010

Friday, September 10, 2010

My longest ride so far......... since transplant.





My longest ride so far.........




It's true, yesterday Melbourne was blessed with some mild Spring weather, we had a top of 16degC for the tenth day of spring. 
I had a good excuse to test out my sons  WeeHoo kids trailer. We packed a picnic lunch, grabbed all the extra things you need for a three year old, change of clothes, nappies, etc. and headed for the Dandenong creek bike path which was the route I use to commute nearly every day to Monash Uni for work. (22km one way, did it for 20 years)

I was so happy to be out with my son riding, it's nearly a year since my Stem cell transplant and it's taken awhile to get to this. 

Things have changed along Dandenong creek bike path since getting Lymphoma, for starters there has been a 8 lane toll road built near it, and the trail has been concreted, it used to be hard packed gravel which I enjoyed as it felt as you where out in the country.





View Larger Map

Above: the new toll road which is now built.



View Larger Map


Above: the duck board track near Burwood Hwy.






We had travelled 12km when we came to the Burwood Hwy road crossing, now I used ride along the raised duckboard track next to the creek, but that was closed due to doing works on it. (A cyclist had slipped of it, hit a tree with his head and was killed :-( ). So it meant going over the new bicycle/pedestrian bridge over the Hwy. The overpass had a easy enough grade, even though I was pulling 30kg behind me, btw I had to use my lowest gear on the mountain bike.

Once over the other side, the trail followed the tollway, which was noisy and windy, I wanted to get back to the duck-board track which would linked me with the quiet path to Jells Park. But I couldn't do that safely until it was fixed. I decided to turn back and look for a sheltered spot to have lunch. We found one away from the concrete path, it was on a grassed walking track which lead you to a bird hide over looking a small lake.

After lunch we continued along the grass path, when we came across a huge puddle which was 3m x 3m wide, there was no way around it we had to go through it, Lochlan was excited when we splashed through the water and wanted to do it again! No luck sunshine!

We made it back to the main path, and continued along the Dandy creek path until we got to the Heathmont netball park, next to the Belgrave train line. From them on its a 6% climb to Heathmont station track. My heart rate was going the roof so I decided to walk it, I looked around to see Lochlan fast asleep.

Stats: we rode 25km, was out for 3hrs, climbed 170m. I was pleased with that.





Saturday, September 4, 2010

Holidays

Just got home from 7 days in FNQ Cairns, that's Far Nth Queensland for people who don't know.
Four days of 29degC rain, and three of sun. Nice.

Sent from a Apple itouch, bestest Carl.

My news http://carlhemmings.blogspot.com/