After leafleting practically every bike in UNSW, one has to hope that the weather not make all this effort redundant. As it happened, the weather did quite the opposite and we were spoiled with a beautiful Spring day in late Autumn. As usual, I had compulsively baked a cake early on the Saturday morning which had put me slightly behind schedule – but bearing food to make up for it. So as I approached the uni ten minutes late, I could clearly see someone riding their bike on the other side of the hedges. This is not normal or even possible with a normal bike, and it wasn’t until I got around the other side that I saw this crazy tall bike called “High Roller” that my friend Eytan had made. There were also about twenty small bikes behind the hedge that I hadn’t been able to see – there were also a bunch of enthusiastic people ready to ride. We all introduced ourselves, we discussed routes and weather there were any low clearance bridges that Eytan would have to be wary of, then away we went.
I was the leader and Chris was the “sweeper”. At this stage I was still not aware of how confident people were at cycling, but we were a big group and I was taking the safest ways. I was also realising that I wasn’t at the peak of my cyclilng fitness as I watched people overtake the leader as they got bored of my slow pace. I am ok with this as I like slow bike riding and am not ashamed. Onward and upward we picked up some extra crew at Bondi Junction, before heading down the bike route to the beach. This proved to be interesting, with narrow gaps and going the wrong way down one way streets all appearing to be part of the fun of cycling in Sydney. Everyone managed to squeeze through and the tall bike still kept staying upright and tall.
Once we hit Bondi, we met up with Sydney Uni bike society and had a bit of a break while we caught up in the way you would if one group of bikes meets another group of bikes. It was also hard to tear ourselves away from the beautiful surf on this nice sunny day to head for another hill. But we did. I gave up leadership to the many people who overtook me going up military road, but I didn’t mind. As I felt beads of sweat forming, I was really just having one objective – to reach the top whenever and however. We all did – and I realised that it was only the finest and toughest and fittest riders who had taken up the Watsons Bay challenge. The tall bike kept on going and we made lots of bad jokes about the better views and different weather conditions that were experiences atop a tall bike. We were also, all become very aware of the delicate operations required to get Eytan around corners without needing to come down from his height on his bike.
There really were splendid views as we finally started to cruise along the flat ridge and then down the other side. I think that we all struggled to keep our eyes on the road as we hit the beautiful downhill, looking over to north head and the sea all around. I have done this ride before and it was special for me, so for those who haven’t, especially for those visiting from overseas it must have been really something. I think there was some wear on some brake pads going down this hill. But we all made it down. It was lunch time -so we got ready for a picnic. Fun was had by all, with eating, frisbees, hacky sacks and paddle bats. The brave amongst us, then had a go at the tall bike, which by then was also a brakless tall bike, just to make it a bit crazier. Teh braver still, went and jumped of 10 m cliffs into the water. Other less brave people just went swimming – including me.
Well, we couldn’t of asked for better weather or a nicer bunch of people to ride along to one of the most beautiful spots in Sydney. Let’s hope we can have many more rides like this in the coming year!
