Mt Nebo Road

It was 3:30 PM when the alarm went off for the second time today. It did the same thing 12 hours ago, exactly, when I reluctantly got up to get ready for work. This time, I was going to ride my bike on Mt Nebo Road.

I should be rested after the one hour nap and keen to get on the bike for the three hour session. But no, I felt unmotivated and a bit down... or just tired. I looked through the kitchen window and noticed that the wind had picked up, a SE which surely would make the ride down from Jollys Lookout too cold.

The smell of fresh coffee woke me up again and helped me move away from that view. In the spare room, I put on some some warm riding clothes. Undershirt, warm socks, an old bib with holes from a crash, full length Skins on top, jersey and the thought of taking a gilet for the way back.

Back to the kitchen and to the coffee, to do the dishes seemed the right thing to do, I still had 5 min before the planned start of the ride. Plenty of time to eat something, I needed energy for the three hour ride. A banana with Nutela gave me what I needed, and quick. But the coffee made me hot and I decided to get changed, I was going to be doing some intensity work after all.

It was 4:31 when I left the driveway, not cold yet but cool. I had to rush if I was going to do even 2.5 hours today. That warmed me up and I arrived at the meeting point at 4:54, not that I was meeting anyone but I had luck with a few lights... and reached 66.7 km/h somewhere on Waterworks Road.

Another three minutes and I was pushing the red button to time the first 6.5 km of the climb. That was the part I wanted to do my training on, the rest of the 17 km (by my computer) was just a spin up the beautiful climb to Jollys.

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Time is 00'00" and the climb starts

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Mt Nebo Rd


A friendly reminder


One of the downhill runs


All out from here... 165 bpm.
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Mc Afees: 6.5 km, 318 m rise
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A good run today at 16'18", perhaps my best time to date. My average HR was 156 bpm, low because of the descents. More importantly, it was a good workout followed by another 300 m of climbing in this beautiful part of the world.

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View of Sanford Valley from half way up


Rises like this make for great
descents on the way home


Incline past the winery


Perfect spot for a sprint


Beautiful 1 km stretch before Jollys

Turn left and ride up for amazing views


Jollys: 17 km, 615 m rise

From there, it was a slow ride down in the dark, which I enjoyed very much. The temperature was 15 degrees and dropping fast but I was concentrating too much on the road to even feel the cold. I raced home from the bottom to finish the 60 km ride in 2h 15min. And feeling great!

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Note: Photos were taken on 13/8/09, earlier in the afternoon.