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hnpccSo given that Dean's latest enthusiasm is the bike, we went riding again on the weekend. Both days, actually, which would explain why my legs and knees are sore.
Saturday we rode south along the Merri Creek path to Rushall Station, where the Merri Path intersects with the Capital City trail. Being sorely in need of breakfast by then we followed the CCT west until Rathdowne St, then south until the Paragon Cafe. Mmm. Brekky. We were not the only cyclists sitting out the front (to no one's surprise). After the second cup of coffee was finally finished we creaked upright again and rode back up Rathdowne to the CCT, then continued west until we hit the Upfield line trail. (Well actually we passed it, got to Royal Park Station/tram stop, then headed north to Park St and then hit the Upfield trail. Bloody bad signage!) The Upfield line trail is pretty good actually, and we were pacing a train for a bit which meant we could go straight over intersections where the traffic had stopped. Cool.
Sunday we got up and the weather was still gorgeous, so we headed south again on the Merri, this time continuing all the way down to Dights Falls. I had forgotten about the Hill From Hell at Heidelberg Rd until we hit it: given my lack of fitness/gearage I had to hop off and push the bike up. So did pretty much everyone else. I was overtaken by a runner in blue shorts who sprinted up the HFH: I am in awe of her fitness! We overtook her again shortly afterwards, but saw her heading determinedly down the Yarra Main Trail shortly after we'd stopped at Dights Falls. Dights Falls are pretty average, less of a waterfall than a small weir these days. Since the last time I'd been that far down the Merri path there's been a lot of development, particularly in the Collingwood area. I remember it being all industrial and kind of wasteland, but now there's apartment blocks everywhere and they've made some of the wasteland into a footy field and all sorts of improvements. And there's water fountains that work! Bonus.
We decided not to head into the city via the Yarra Main trail, so headed towards Fairfield instead, getting stuck behind a family who were all biking and all over the path. The kids I give a bit of a pass to (7 year olds are fairly all over the road on bikes) but the adults... hm, I suppose they were trying to watch the kids and the path simultaneously. Either way, that bit of the YMT is quite busy and it was a while before they stopped so we could get pass them without forcing joggers and other cyclists off the path. We came off the YMT in Fairfield, mostly because I lost it. One gripe I have about a lot of these trails is if you don't know where you're going then they can quite often just vanish and you're supposed to ride along looking hopefully around for signs for a while. I used to use the Merri trail quite a lot, so I have a fair idea of where that vanishes to, but I was completely confused by where the YMT went. I mean you'd think it would be hard to lose a trail, particularly one that's next to a river and all.
It turned out that we were on Heidelberg Rd near where the Burnet used to be, so we headed through the back streets to Victoria St and north along that. I like Victoria St, it's flat and has a nice bike lane. Unfortunately it also had a head wind going strong, so we were both quite tired by the time we hit the street we were looking for and turned west again. We eventually found the bridge we were looking for over the Merri and made it home.. then Dean (who'd been in front for most of the headwind) crashed on the couch. :-)
It surprised me just how busy all the paths were though: the Merri south of Blyth St was quite crowded both days, which made parts of it (notably the bit where the path is about 70cm wide and has a marking line down the centre! The whole path should be at least 1.5m wide IMHO, there's definitely enough traffic to warrant it) quite tricky to navigate. Generally people do move to the left when you're approaching, but given the wide levels of left/right blindness in the community there were some tricky moments. And dogs have their own ideas and rarely respond to dinging bike bells. :-) Even the Upfield path, which has always been reasonably quiet when I've been along it, is now being more highly used as a thoroughfare (at least on Saturday mornings). The Yarra trail was as busy as always - I think if we're going to do the entire Capital trail we'll have to get up early to avoid some of the rush. (And I'm not even going to think about anything near the bay in fine weather...)
Sunday night I played soccer, which was less tiring than I was fearing it would be after all the biking. Not least because we had 10 people (i.e. two full teams) We won 4-0 which was nice and probably nothing at all to do with being able to change our entire team at will. ;-) Next week being the long weekend will be interesting though, I think we'll be lucky to have 6.
Saturday we rode south along the Merri Creek path to Rushall Station, where the Merri Path intersects with the Capital City trail. Being sorely in need of breakfast by then we followed the CCT west until Rathdowne St, then south until the Paragon Cafe. Mmm. Brekky. We were not the only cyclists sitting out the front (to no one's surprise). After the second cup of coffee was finally finished we creaked upright again and rode back up Rathdowne to the CCT, then continued west until we hit the Upfield line trail. (Well actually we passed it, got to Royal Park Station/tram stop, then headed north to Park St and then hit the Upfield trail. Bloody bad signage!) The Upfield line trail is pretty good actually, and we were pacing a train for a bit which meant we could go straight over intersections where the traffic had stopped. Cool.
Sunday we got up and the weather was still gorgeous, so we headed south again on the Merri, this time continuing all the way down to Dights Falls. I had forgotten about the Hill From Hell at Heidelberg Rd until we hit it: given my lack of fitness/gearage I had to hop off and push the bike up. So did pretty much everyone else. I was overtaken by a runner in blue shorts who sprinted up the HFH: I am in awe of her fitness! We overtook her again shortly afterwards, but saw her heading determinedly down the Yarra Main Trail shortly after we'd stopped at Dights Falls. Dights Falls are pretty average, less of a waterfall than a small weir these days. Since the last time I'd been that far down the Merri path there's been a lot of development, particularly in the Collingwood area. I remember it being all industrial and kind of wasteland, but now there's apartment blocks everywhere and they've made some of the wasteland into a footy field and all sorts of improvements. And there's water fountains that work! Bonus.
We decided not to head into the city via the Yarra Main trail, so headed towards Fairfield instead, getting stuck behind a family who were all biking and all over the path. The kids I give a bit of a pass to (7 year olds are fairly all over the road on bikes) but the adults... hm, I suppose they were trying to watch the kids and the path simultaneously. Either way, that bit of the YMT is quite busy and it was a while before they stopped so we could get pass them without forcing joggers and other cyclists off the path. We came off the YMT in Fairfield, mostly because I lost it. One gripe I have about a lot of these trails is if you don't know where you're going then they can quite often just vanish and you're supposed to ride along looking hopefully around for signs for a while. I used to use the Merri trail quite a lot, so I have a fair idea of where that vanishes to, but I was completely confused by where the YMT went. I mean you'd think it would be hard to lose a trail, particularly one that's next to a river and all.
It turned out that we were on Heidelberg Rd near where the Burnet used to be, so we headed through the back streets to Victoria St and north along that. I like Victoria St, it's flat and has a nice bike lane. Unfortunately it also had a head wind going strong, so we were both quite tired by the time we hit the street we were looking for and turned west again. We eventually found the bridge we were looking for over the Merri and made it home.. then Dean (who'd been in front for most of the headwind) crashed on the couch. :-)
It surprised me just how busy all the paths were though: the Merri south of Blyth St was quite crowded both days, which made parts of it (notably the bit where the path is about 70cm wide and has a marking line down the centre! The whole path should be at least 1.5m wide IMHO, there's definitely enough traffic to warrant it) quite tricky to navigate. Generally people do move to the left when you're approaching, but given the wide levels of left/right blindness in the community there were some tricky moments. And dogs have their own ideas and rarely respond to dinging bike bells. :-) Even the Upfield path, which has always been reasonably quiet when I've been along it, is now being more highly used as a thoroughfare (at least on Saturday mornings). The Yarra trail was as busy as always - I think if we're going to do the entire Capital trail we'll have to get up early to avoid some of the rush. (And I'm not even going to think about anything near the bay in fine weather...)
Sunday night I played soccer, which was less tiring than I was fearing it would be after all the biking. Not least because we had 10 people (i.e. two full teams) We won 4-0 which was nice and probably nothing at all to do with being able to change our entire team at will. ;-) Next week being the long weekend will be interesting though, I think we'll be lucky to have 6.
