We've made it!

Congratulations are in order - every one of us eleven West End Wonder Women has now made the minimum fundraising requirement of $2500 each to qualify for the ride in August - YES!!!!

Who'da thought we'd be celebrating having to ride 240kms of hills in the middle of winter?

I can see you are looking at the train-wreck photoshop job I have just whipped up... wtf is that?

ahhhh yes.. it's US!!

And look here, this is me as of today:

NUMBER 5! ....SILVER!

Couldn't have done it without you lovely ladies >lump in throat, dab eyes with hanky<

Doug's tips

As we get to the pointy end of the training schedule, Doug, Wonder-husband, cycling guru and voted best "most muscular" pose in age group 45-55 has been giving us some good tips and ideas for where to train.

Such as: don't ride with flat tyres. Or tyres with any kind of give in them whatsoever. Rock hard tyres are easier to ride on.

Eat and drink regularly while you are riding. Make sure you have at least a couple of mouthfuls of food every half an hour.

Stop for breaks like it's the actual ride i.e. every 25-30kms for a few mins.

Train with varying terrain: hills and recovery sections that you can repeat until the recovery sections aren't quite recovery sections any more. Do interval training with speed too: fast then recover, repeat.

So looming in the next few weeks is this 3 Valleys ride that he has circulated. Check it out and see what you think.

Here's a overview. I'm not sure yet how we would approach it from West End:

Zoom in to the map on the original page

There looks like there might be a few hills in there!

Woody Point ride

It was our first big ride in a while. All that fundraising got in the way. So it was back to training and those 6am starts are a very different story at this time of year. I had the arm warmers, the leg warmers and the head warmer going on as well. Even then it took me a few kms to warm up. I think my toes were numb until about Shorncliffe (45km). At one point somewhere near Shaw Park I managed to fall awkardly onto my crossbar OUCH. Jax said there was a word they used in South Africa instead of ouch... "Ay-NAR". I said it to myself a few times after that.

Riding through the Wetlands was slow going and the boardwalks were slick with dew and moss. I managed a slow-motion skid and Michelle, behind me, managed a slow-motion tumble forward. I think I may have broken her fall with my shoulder. It's feeling a bit stiff. Ay-nar. Ah well another one to chalk up to experience!

We rode longingly past our intended coffee stop and on to Decker Park - our previous farthest point - and then it was up onto the Houghton Highway bridge also known as the Ted Smout memorial bridge...

The bridge itself is 3kms long! Here's an aerial shot of it...

Photo courtesy: Courier Mail

It's a beautiful, flat bridge to cross with the ocean glistening and the sun shining and the wind behind you. Once over the bridge it was about another 4kms to the jetty at Woody Point where we posed for a few snaps...

Then it was back to Shorncliffe for coffee and snacks at the posh cafe we had been meaning to try. Staff very friendly. Must order larger coffee next time. This one didn't touch the sides. Fruit and nut toast lovely! (and so it should be at $8.90).

The journey back was fragmented. Michelle was late and needed to speed up so she could pick her sister up from hospital, Jacqui's recent illness was catching up on her and slowing her down. We decided to split up to cater for everyone. Michelle and I rolled into West End at about 1.15pm whew!

It was a training session that gave us a sense of the length of time in the saddle required... and that's just day 1!

Flippin' Aynar!

Riders: Cara, Emma, Michelle, Jax, Katina, Ruth and Jacqui.
Total kms: 112

More photos from the Trivia Night

Thanks Katina for these!

The hair auction

Kate was the highest bidder - I think she got a couple of snips in before handing over the reins!

Whisk-key, Witch and West end Wonder Woman

Attention, attention... cheat on table 3

Elaine receives her pressie for being an amazing raffle ticket seller... and handing out all those free Avon samples!

Rarely have 10 women looked so gorgeous and fresh after such a big night... must be all that nervous energy!

Look at us!

We're looking quite prominent on the home page of the Ride to Conquer Cancer website.

May I refer you to the top ten fundraising teams and..ahem.. ambassadors >polish nails on shirt<

Let's just enjoy this moment :-)

Our Big Fat Trivia Fundraising Extravaganza....

Saturday during the day it was all hands on deck. Unlocking doors, moving chairs and tables, decorating tables and walls, wrapping prizes, cooking food, organising drinks and ice, stringing up lights and glitter balls, making and sticking up signs, setting up the stage and PA and the DJ booth, displaying the raffle prizes... whew!

Bar Boys

On the decks: Stevie Wonder

This may have been later in the night but I'm leaving it here anyway.

It was a starry starry night...

Kirsty and some lime pickle...mmmmm

Pete and Mouse discuss glitter ball logistics

Wrapping turkish delight

Tables covered

Katina excelling in her role as raffle pimp.

Getting the on-table snacks organised

snacks done!

Doors opened at 6 to the smooth and silky sounds of Sebastian's Habit. I haven't seen any photos yet so please send me them and I will post them here. Dorian was rocking the 'W' dress theme with some rather fetching WW2 head gear.

If I may segue here from Sebastian's Habit to Damien's Habit.... and Eoin's Habit! Just two of the great costumes people turned up with. We had a whole Warhol table, Witches and Wizards, William Wallace and Weird Al Yankovich to name but a few!...

The costume was 'Wasted' (not 'whore' as Darryl first thought!!)

Weird Al found some friends...

Then came the gorgeous Indian Buffet that Donna and Marilyn had put together with condiments and poppadoms from Kirsty and dal by Alvin...

Everyone got stuck in. The food all went very quickly.

 And then there was the head shave. I'm not sure how Eoin managed to get people to cough up $1700 for the privilege of cutting my hair but I'm not complaining!

Darryl looking slightly apprehensive

And then later on...

This is what I would like if I had a combover in a gust of wind

Me, Andy Warhol and Stevie Wonder 

What does that leave? Well...

Our Wonder Woman costumes that weren't quite as flattering as we had imagined but we ran with it anyway...

Ruth and Jacqui took care of all the scoring and projecting on the night - a big responsibility!

Did I mention we had 150+ participants?

Our amazing quiz masters who arrived at 6.30pm but managed to pull the night together in the face of a rowdy crowd and an echoey microphone. With costume/character changed too!

The paper plane comp...

Katina: rafflemeister

Cate: Bribemeister

OOOh look it's Bron! Skyping ALL NIGHT from Indonesia. Great effort, Bron!!!

Wonder on the decks

Satyajit and Kirsty relaxing... finally!

 Our thanks go out to Erica Bates, a friend of Nell's, who made this Wonder Woman doll for us to be auctioned off. She has wire in her legs so you can shape her position and she has "Get Up Off Yer Arse" embroidered in gold on her back and bum. Perhaps through the chaos of the night or perhaps because none of us could bring ourselves to part with her, she didn't get put up for auction. We all fell in love with her. We'd like to have her as a mascot for now if that's ok. Maybe she could come on the ride with us? She's FAB!

We've still to work out the final totals but since yesterday our team has officially raised over $23,000 and gone into 7th place in the top teams leaderboard!

Riders who have reached their fundraising goal so far are:

Kirsty, Jacque Boon, Bron, Jacqui Walters and Cate

With money still coming in we hope to see more cross the line very soon!

Thanks to everyone who sent me photos. Pete and Rae in particular. If there are some you'd like me to put up, please send me them in an email and I'll get them up here. x