Lubed up, rode hard, got fucked

I don't know how to spell lubed, as in a past tense of lube, as in lubrication.
Anyway, on Saturday I completed my intensive training program in preparation for Melbourne's infamous 'Bay in the Day' event.
It was also the commencement of my preparation, my only preparation and it involved lubing my bike chain, I also checked my tire pressure.

Then the next morning I got up and dad and I rode off (in a car) towards the bay.

Now I bookended a week with a half marathon on one side and 150km bike ride. I have to say mentally the footrace is worse, but physically the bike was much harder in semi-unexpected places.

I have never been in an event that was quite literally pure endurance, well not for a long long time. There were a bunch of cyclists that cruised past doing about 40km/hour that must be trying to make a good time, but for me it quickly became simply going to Sorrento and back on a bicycle.

And man, my back seized up, my knees swelled my cardio felt fine but my arse my fucking arse was killing me.

I had been dreaming since Europe of getting out my bike explodinator for some explosive cycling action. No 14kg bags on my pack. No 20kg bike to pedal. I just had a flat bar road bike.

And yes it was way way faster than it had been trekking through Europe, I was unfettered to the point I felt constantly I had forgotten to bring something.

But you know, what's always baffled me about travel and the attraction to fast cars is that 60km per hour feels much the same as 120km per hour. I thought once you got out the cabin of a car you could appreciate it better thanks to your own torso and head creating drag.

But I couldn't, riding 26km per hour felt exactly like riding 16km per hour. The only difference is I had to constantly pedal in my big gears to maintain 26km per hour.

People rode the thing on all kinds of stupid bikes, except the bike that declares publicly you are an idiot - the fixed gear. Fixed gears were a total no-show in the 6 hours I was riding yesterday. But people were on old clapped out mountain bikes doing it and I have to give them respect.

I saw a few other flat bars - and I had a clear advantage climbing hills, staying in top gear of course, maybe due to the leverage in the longer handle bars or maybe that's all I've ever really been confident at as I tend to ride brakes on down hill.

Anyway, fuck is all I can say, 150km is a long, long way. But I still think 100% cycling society is viable. Just maybe its more viable in the Netherlands.