The Freeway Bike Hike

You can’t take the athlete out of the athlete, and so with my sights set on getting a personal best, I set off to the Perth Freeway Bike Hike yesterday with my slick green tandem. I’d told my front rider, Beau, that with all the training we’d been doing, we were sure to go faster this year - we’ve done two freeway bike hikes to date.

But he reminded me that we were older, and so bound to start slowing down. Not a nice thought, and I wasn’t about to give in to age. So right from the start, I put in everything I had to beat the stopwatch.

Well, we did beat it! Our time this year was 41 minutes and 48 seconds, compared to last year when we did 42 minutes and 2 seconds. We chopped off a whopping 14 seconds! Now that’s good in my books, especially considering we had a head wind, and that we are both ageing. Our average speed was 41.9 km/hr. Not bad!

For those of you who don’t live in Perth, the Freeway Bike Hike is a fund-raising event for asthma held every year. This year, nearly 8,000 bikes participated. It’s not meant to be a race, but for those of us who are serious recreational cyclists, it’s just that. The freeway north is closed to all traffic for a 30 km stretch, and we get to ride through the tunnel that is normally closed to bikes. This alone is great fun, not to mention flying up the freeway which is smooth and a pleasure to ride on.

So next year, my goal is to shave off another few seconds. I haven’t told Beau yet. I’ll have to break it to him gently.

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