Market prep

Greetings from sunny London - and it is sunny and quite mild - at least when it's daylight. It's 7.30am here at the moment and still dark. 24 hours into my stay and I am succeeding on my mission to eat as much food that I have missed in as short a time as possible.

 Here are the shots I took from Friday night. Preparations were well underway when I arrived for the market stall on Saturday....

I know I'm a bit away from everything but I'm more than happy to keep posting (it will stop me from thinking about what I'm going to eat next). All accounts of rides, fundraising news, photos etc welcome - email me with it all. xxxcara

Grill'd join the party

This morning, Dave from Grill'd in Boundary Street agreed to pay us $1000 to ride with their logo on our backs. We're also going to have a special burger day in April where a percentage of every burger sold goes directly to our fund. He estimates we could make $1000 on this day.

We're also in the application stage of getting one of their community donation jars for the month of February. That will give us between $100 and $300.

Yahoo!

Sunday's ride. It could be the last big one for the year!

Bron has suggested what looks like a great ride tying in two of our routes - the Norman Creek route and the river loop: According to Map My Ride, it's 39.95km. ...

This is a detail of how you get from the SE Freeway Bike Path to the Tennyson bit of the river loop. You could cut out a couple of kms by riding across Park Road and into Killarney Street but the ride down Park Road is great as it's all downhill:

It's a bit of riding along Fairfield Road but if you go early enough it shouldn't be too hectic.
The all-important elevation map:

As you can see: only 2 main hills. Cracknell Road and Gladstone Road. Meet at the West End CityCat stop for a 6am departure. Have fun!!

Somewhere under the rainbow

You have to be quick with the rainbows. This one looked amazing approximately 30 seconds before this shot was taken. I think it's a good shot of  Bron, Katina, Michelle and Kirsty, though!
Snapped this morning at about 6am near UQ.

Hill Log: Ivory Lane

Sitting at about 20 degrees, this one is a corker. I would compare it to Colville Street in length and gradient. About halfway up I thought I was going to fall over but either the fear of doing that or maybe there is a slight let-up in the angle of the hill, not sure, but I managed to pull this one, rather vocally, out of the bag.

This is the handy lane which leads from the riverside bikepath to the Story Bridge or Bowen Terrace. Excellent on the way down, too!

Today's Ride

Riders: Michelle, Kirsty, Celia, Bronwyn, Emma, Cara

Michelle and Kirsty left us at Stones Corner and went back via the SE Freeway bikeway up to South Bank. Emma peeled off at Yeronga and headed back home from there.

Route: "the taxation hill loop"

The freeway route wasn't as straightforward as I was expecting. I should have looked a bit closer at the map but we worked it out. The bikeway sort of heads away from the freeway a bit and onto a couple of back streets. But it is signposted.

 As for the big hill...Well the monster we were expecting turned out to be a not very scary one at all. More of a kitten, really. The length of the hill was quite long - maybe 1500m? Not sure but the incline was pretty gentle. You could feel you were were going up hill but it wasn't in the same league as others we've been doing. The joy of doing that taxation hill is flying back down that was SO MUCH FUN! Toohey Forest Park looked very interesting. Might have to look into doing a jaunt round there.

There was quite a big hill on the way back on Cracknell Road in Tarragindi and of course the Goat Track still leaves me wobbly and breathing heavily.  My phone ran out of battery so I didn't end up recording my stats but having a peek at Bron's (don't you love Map my Ride?) I see that she came down the big hill at 29.25km/hr weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Our first market stall

Michelle and Emma set up the stall and arranged everything on a table. I brought along my bike and a bit of bling to snazz it up. Cate turned up to drop off some fabulous decorations she'd made. It was a great experience, chatting to people and getting the word out that we were doing the ride. We made about $300 which includes donations. Here's some photos...

Craft work

Friday night at Michelle's, we put the finishing touches to Emma and Michelle's fabulous cards, gift tags and garlands. There was Emma and Michelle, Bron, myself and Paula who has blurred the line even more now between the Ukemamas and the West End Wonders. Here's Bron modelling a garland...

Our christmas cards which were a block print designed by Cate of a christmas tree made from bikes! Genius! And a steal at $2 each.

There was a little vino in little glasses... (not for sale)

3 metre garlands with 20 different discs all wrapped up and ready to go: $5

A bit of chit chat....

As well as some moments of extreme productivity... look at us go!

And some funky gift tags.... mixed pack of 10 for $2.50.