Amy's Ride (Brisbane-Gold Coast) 9 Dec 2006

[light_sabe_r]

http://www.usmevents.com.au/series/SBtoSP/home.cfm

http://www.amygillett.org.au/index.p...ide_queensland

I'm soooo excited! I'll be entering my first Charity ride in almost a month!

It's so huge, TDF's Green Jersey winner Robbie McEwan is riding in it as well!! Now that's big!!!

But better yet it's in my home city! BRIS-VEGAS!

After viewing the requirements for the 100km ride (a 25km/h average) I know I can't do it as my averages are usually aroung the high teens early twenties... BUT the 50km ride sounds more like my thing at this point, It means I can also pick BF up when he finishes the 100km ride. :P (because I'll have to drive my bike down the coast to compete)

45km should take me a little over two hours to complete. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

For those of you unfamiliar with "the Amy Gillet Foundation" It's a charity based around the memory of the up and coming Australian road cycling starlet killed when a car driven by a Probationary driver ploughed into the AIS (australian Institue of Sport) road cycling team in july 2005. It promotes safety between road riders and car drivers as well as funding the rehabilitation of the 5 other women who were injured (including the Australian Champion of the time) to get back on their bikes and hopefully compete at the international level. The girls were all regular contributers to their journal at CYCLINGNEWS.COM



The main thing I'm worried about on this ride is the heat. It tends to get well into the high thirties (C not F) with excruciating humidity by early december so it's going to be a very hot race!!

[Thistle]

oh man, light, that's gunna be great. We're going in sydney to the gong.. just doing the 56k this year, but aiming for 90k next year. Is the brisbane gold coast a yearly thing? maybe we could aim for that next year!

I'm jealous.. it sounds awesome. And being in Amy Gillette's memory.. that's fantastic !

[light_sabe_r]

No I think this is a first. There's another Brisbane to the goldcoast ride which was on two weeks ago (I missed it because BF was competing in AROUND the bay in a day 216km Melbourne-Geelong-QUeenscliff-Protphillip bay-Melbourne) which is also 100km

Yeah. I'm working up to 100km! I know I'd be able to do the distance... the speed is the limiting factor this time. >_< Maybe next year I'll be on 25kph then I can do the big rides. :P

[Thistle]

No I think this is a first. There's another Brisbane to the goldcoast ride which was on two weeks ago (I missed it because BF was competing in AROUND the bay in a day 216km Melbourne-Geelong-QUeenscliff-Protphillip bay-Melbourne) which is also 100km

Yeah. I'm working up to 100km! I know I'd be able to do the distance... the speed is the limiting factor this time. >_< Maybe next year I'll be on 25kph then I can do the big rides. :P

on your beautiful pink sarah ulmer bike... you'll do 25 easy

[light_sabe_r]

Well, here's my ride report

The Amy gillet Foundation promotes safety on the road, and harmony between cyclists and drivers. So the first thing I dad After checking in I pulled out my sharpie and write "KATHY" on my wrist band. In honour of another fantastic woman also a victim of "not sharing the road. Thanks Trek, Duck, UK and Maury.

We were led out by Sarah Carrigan, (Aussie road cycling Super woman!) and Henk Vogels (Davitamon Lotto) and a whole host of other stars.

I was drafting off them. ^_^ It was great! We were doing 33km per hour! for the first 15km! It was great. ^_^

For the 45km distance there were 105 of us.

The thing that sucked though was the traffic lights... It really seperated us out into groups.

Before long two little kids on FANTASTIC looking road bikes overtook me and I lost the peleton. I was kinda cool

Amy Gillet's Parents. Her mum looked Awesome in her bright pink Jersey with the foundations logo. Her parents had OCRs and passed me after halfway.

Speaking of halfway... About half the peleton went the wrong way... I followed them by accident.

When we all hooked up with them again... the detour had only cost us 1km.

The gold coast ride was great. We were in bike lanes all the way... the traffic wasn't too bad and we had the VOLVO catch up to us a certain points for photo oppurtunities... That was nice. The coolest part was at the beginning when we had police escort and could take up the lanes... Although it disgruntled one driver who didn't want to wait behind us. The cops got onto him pretty quickly.

Anyway... The head wind coming back into surfers paradise was NIGHTMAREISH. the road was perfectly flat, and the group of four BF and I had tagged onto all suddenly dropped 5kph of speed... as did we. It was NUTS...

Only with the shelter of the trees in the last 400m did BF and I manage to sprint it home. ^_^


So after that we sculled water, Endura (was reallly yummy) and went and had breakfast.

After that we ran back to the finish line to watch Amy's Husband Simon leading the peleton of the 100km riders in...

Among the group

AIS sportsmen and women
QAS sportswomen
Les Mills, (the NEW ZEALAND guy who invented Body pump for all you Aussie Gym Junkies)
Robbie McEwen and other Davitamon lotto riders
Rabobank
Matt Wright from the Discovery Channel team

all in all 1200 riders did the 100km version of the ride.

2mins after the lead group came in, Lorian Graham came in. Solo. Wearing an Amy Gillet jersey.

Lorian was also severly injured in the crash that killed Amy. She only competed for the first time last weekend and it was a privledge to see her cross the line.

All in all a great morning. I'll post photos when they come online.

Average speed. 23kph
Max: 38.5kph
Distance 45km
Riders (total) 105

Oh yeah... and did I mention I got home and slept for 4 hours???

here's cycling News version of events
http://www.cyclingnews.com.au/news.p...2006/amys_ride

[susanm8048]

Thanks l_s_r for a great ride report. It sounded like a wonderful day.

It has inspired me to aim for it next year.

Thanks.