My (not so) Good Friday ride to Hindmarsh Island

Notes to self:

1. Avoid riding a pushbike on the open road in 50km/h + crosswinds
2. Avoid riding a pushbike on the open road when that road is the major route heading to Adelaide’s most popular tourist destinations, and its Good Friday morning.
3. Loosen up a little bit with goal setting. If you have to put something off for another day because you’d be putting your life at risk by doing it, it’s not the end of the world.
4. Accept the fact that sometimes your wife is right and you’re wrong.

The morning started off okay – I woke up, looked out the window to find a warmish cloudy morning with a gentle breeze feathering the leaves of our gum tree. I broke my fast with some bacon sarnies, guzzled some sports drink, got my gear on and stepped outside to find the gentle breeze was turning into a gentle gale. It was one of those ‘should I stay or should I go’ moments. My thinking was that the forecast was for strong winds from the west to south west and, given that I was heading south then south east, surely the worst I would experience would be some cross winds. Now, somewhere in my brain there was an obvious disconnect. Cross winds are clearly the enemy of a cyclist on single lane open road with Good Friday traffic, but in my stubborn desire to do the ride and do it now, it became ‘just a bit of cross wind’ and clearly nothing to be concerned about. I told Karolle that I’ll see her at Hindmarsh with the kids at around 1.30ish and headed onwards and upwards.

Heading up the Veloway, it certainly felt like the wind was more from the south than the west. Climbing the first bit of the Veloway to Majors Road, I contemplated how relatively easy I was now finding this climb, even with a head wind. When I first tried it a couple of years ago, I think I stopped for breath about ten times. Back then, my goal was to get up there without stopping. I used to regularly push myself really hard up this hill (to the gasping for breath stage) to reinforce to myself why I needed to give up smoking. Eventually, of course, it worked. Anyway, I noticed the head wind more on the downhill bits where I actually had to do some pedalling to maintain speed. You always feel a bit cheated when you have to pedal going downhill. And the clouds were looking grey and ominous. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea…

I persisted and eventually found myself at Seaford, turning onto South Road then heading up to the Victor Harbour turn off. Whilst it’s the most direct choice, it’s not the best route for a cyclist. The road up the hill to McLaren Vale is not bike friendly (which is fine because there’s a perfectly good bike path to MV, skirting the hill). There’s bugger all space on the edge of the road to ride safely in. I spent most of the ascent riding in the concrete drain on the side of the road, dodging the bits that fall off cars, bottles, cans etc. – not an ideal situation. Then of course the drain finishes two-thirds the way up. I nearly had a little woopsy  traversing  from the drain back onto the bitumen, spontaneously deciding to attempt a little bunny-hop manoeuvre (one more note to self – practice bunny hopping in a safe environment and don’t attempt it for the first time with five seconds notice when climbing a busy hill on Good Friday). Anyway, I’m sure it looked quite amusing but thankfully there were no cars passing at the time and I just managed to stay upright.

Heading down that hill and onto the long straight road towards Willunga I felt the brunt of the cross winds and the buffeting of passing trucks was a little hairy. Looking ahead, the only way is up baby (in the words of Yazz and the Plastic Population), and it’s an awful long way up. Thankfully however, veering to the left up Willunga Hill put the wind over my right shoulder so it wasn’t as bad as might have been. The hill was still relentless and I was in a serious world of pain towards the end but I managed to get up there without my feet touching the ground. This was route selection error number two - I should have taken the Old Willunga Hill Road – the Victor Harbour Road climb was a fairly unpleasant experience. For safety’s sake you need to stick well to the left of the white line on the road edge which was pretty rough and covered with stones and lots of debris. It felt like I was riding the cobblestone roads of the Paris-Robaix there for a while (which was on Easter Sunday).

I stopped at the top of the hill to look down upon what I had done and remarked to myself that it was, indeed, good. I also needed to get my arse out of the saddle for a while because my goolies had gone numb. From there it was mostly downhill to Mount Compass and it was the downhill bits that were the hairiest with the wind. Being blown around when you are doing 10km/h uphill is one thing, but dealing with cross winds at 50km/h downhill whilst trying to maintain your position in narrow strip on the edge of the road was too risky for me and I ended up slowing right down on a number of the descents which was a little frustrating. The other hazard was the amount of branches and foliage on the edge of the road because of the high winds. I ran over so many branches at speed – I avoided what I could, but it was often too dangerous to veer around the branches and other hazards. Anyway, I’m amazed that I didn’t get a puncture. 

After all that, I deserved a stop at the legendary Mount Compass bakery for a sausage roll and a chat to a fellow cyclist (sensibly, driving his car) who was clearly very impressed that I was out amongst it on such a crappy day.  For some reason that didn’t make me feel a whole lot better, nor did the fact that it started pissing down with rain as I rode out of Mt Compass. Thankfully it didn’t last long and by the time I reached the Goolwa turn off, the sun was starting to break through. It was a relief to finally be on the Goolwa Road and leaving all that horrible Victor Harbour/Port Elliot traffic behind.

The road through to Goolwa is quite good – I’d like to try it again on a nicer day. There’s a bit of climbing especially around Mosquito Hill, but it’s certainly more downhill than up. Once again, with the wind and the debris, maintaining my position on the road required a lot of concentration and bit more upper body input than usual. Eventually joining the Strathalbyn-Goolwa Road there was suddenly cars everywhere again, which was okay because the road was good and there’s a reasonable verge to ride in. Up and over the bridge at Goolwa and heading due east on to Hindmarsh Island was a great run with the now brisk westerly at my back. 

It was a bit of a relief to arrive safely at Troy and Allison’s place. The 78km trip took me 4 hours including stops, with around 1000m of climbing. I felt okay but buggered at the end and my shoulders were a little sore from all that wrestling with the bike in the winds. Movement was proving to be a little tricky at this stage so it just kicked my shoes off, sat on my annus horribilis (in the words of the Queen) put my feet up on a chair and hung out with my beautiful niece, Charlotte, while Alison and Troy buzzed around doing things.

The ride was quite stressful and was certainly a challenge given the weather conditions and the traffic. In hindsight, doing it on that day was probably a little foolish. I’d love to try it again with a few route changes, in better conditions. Anyway, the weekend beckons - 27° with light winds on both days - and the hills are calling....