100 km Prison Pedal Audax ride in January 2010
Aushiker | January 4, 2010 7:52 pmMy first “endurance” ride for 2010 was the Audax Australia 100 km ride, “Prison Pedal”. The ride organiser, Tony, describe the ride thus:
The Prison Pedal will be held Sat 2 Jan start time 3.00pm at DWP (Deep Water Point). To ensure a clean get-away from each south metropolitan prison we will be conducting our visits under the cover of darkness. At each prison we’ll engage in pillaging and debauchery – or maybe just get our cards signed. All rules are made to be broken …….. except the Audax lighting rules. Many of the places en route (Mundijong, Jarrahdale, Serpentine, etc) may batten down when they see us coming so it may be advisable to be fairly self sufficient re food, etc.
I signed up for the 100 km ride as a nice kick start to the 2010 season but prepared myself or the possibility of completing the 200 km ride just in case I was feeling pretty good, but the 200 km was but a dream. About 10 riders, maybe one or two more, got away from the start point at Deep Water Point at 3:15 PM, with four us planning to complete the 100 km route and the remainder the 200 km.
For me it became pretty clear early into the ride that I was not appreciating the heat and so any plans to do the 200 km route abandoned. I was also consuming a fair bit of water so was feeling it for sure. The 100 km route took us past the Rangeview Remand Centre and Hakea Prison where the proverbial group photo was taken. However, the heat was already having an effect with some of us not willing to hang around too long for the photos. Moving was better than been stopped!
From here we head off to our first control point at the Shell on Thomas Road. It was around here that I recorded the highest temperature for the ride; 49 C on the bike! I made the mistake of having a one litre ice coffee, thinking (a) thirsty and (b) need lots of protein and energy. Well I was thirsty refilling my bidons for the second time, but really 600 ml of Iced Coffee or Choc Milk would have done the trick. Instead I felt bloated and sick for quite a few kilometres. Something I really didn’t need.
I teamed up at the servo with Greg agreeing to complete the rest of the ride with him. From the control we headed off in search of Casuarina Prison. As it turned out the cue sheet had a right turn instead of a left turn, so we lost a bit of time before we realised this. We did visit Casuarina Prison but didn’t bother with a photo. Shortly after this point, Chad joined us and the three of us continued on our merry way south and then west and then once on the Kwinana Freeway PSP north again. Riding along the PSP I had a little scare, with a dugite sun baking on the path. I managed a quick yell as I swerved to miss it, Chad yelled and missed it and Greg watched it slide off into the bush. Not something I am keen on running over!
Once we left the Kwinana Freeway PSP on Russell Road, the sun was going down taking the sting out of the day and we picked up the pace a little, heading towards the Fremantle Prison. We took a quick break at the Shell on Hampton Road where Roland joined us to refill bottles etc before visiting Fremantle Prison and then heading off via Melville Waters back to Deep Water Point.
Besides the snake I had a little “scare” with my heart rate monitor (Sigma ROX 9) maxing at 224 BPM which at the time I thought was due to the heat. Experiencing the same on my ride a couple of days later, I realised that my pacemaker had been kicking in, causing the monitor to record an abnormal BPM. On the downside for me is that when the pacemaker kicks in, it can have a negative effect on me in terms of energy levels and if it kicks in a bit this can make me quite tired. The pacemaker did have a spell before the Thomas Road control for sure, which didn’t help in the heat. Something for me to be alert to in the future.
The heat and pacemaker issues not withstanding, I was happy with the ride and in particular enjoyed the evening aspect. All up a good start to my Audax year.
All the statistics can be found at BikeJournal.com but in summary I rode 129.12 km (Fremantle to the start and return included) at an average of 22.72 km/h.
Popularity: 3% [?]
As a bit of a fan, well a big fan of Brownes Ice Coffee product, Chill Light, this article published in the Canadian journal, Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism caught my eye. The abstract of the article follows:
