Mallee Routes 400 - Part 1

I've been remiss in not writing about my ride sooner.  It's always easier with the pain fresh in your mind.  As it turned out the worst scenario cam to pass.  I had rip-roaring head winds on the flat, open, unprotected road and I made it.  The wind was really bad and I just plugged into it.  To make matters worse, I hardly had any tailwind at all.  Still, I made it.

In the end, my time was a respectable 18:30 for 410km.  That said, I'm pretty sure I could have done under 16hrs without the wind.  I just pedalled softly, tried to keep my cadence in the mid 80's and my heart-rate in the mid 130's and let everything else fall where it may.  I do remeber one stretch where I was really struggling to do 16kph into the wind and my heart rate kept climbing into the 160's.  Ooouch.  

My friend Steve spoke the truth when talking to me about this ride afterwards.  I was riding my bike, a thing I love and no wind could mess that up.  I really did just smile all the more, every time it hurt.  I'll write a lot more about this ride as soon as I can make time to do it some justice.

...