A nice flat, fast 28k from Gordonvale to Cairns Esplanade this morning. It was an earlier start for me as I was a little worried about getting my bike dismantled and boxed and luggage collection and showered and to the airport - you get the idea!
Gordonvale has a sugar mill that seems to operate 24/7, so the air has this beautiful sweet smell to it while they are processing the cane. Even cooler, as I was packing up I noticed a light about 2/3 of the way up the pyramid - and discovered it was a hiker making their way up to the top to watch the sunrise.
So rolled out at 7am, along some lovely smooth roads and meandered along backroads, the Bruce Highway and the main drag into the finish chute. Cycle Qld was over again for another year.
To my delight, the bike boxes were delivered early so while I waited for the luggage truck (so I could shower and change before my flight) 8 pulled my bike down, packed it in its box and delivered it to the luggage area ready for transporting home. Then jumped up in the luggage truck and helped unload a crap-tonne of bags ready for rider collection, collected my own luggage and enjoyed the first real shower in a week!
Looking back on the week there were some interesting differences to our normal ride. The catering was great - I know a lot of people started the week complaining, because these poor buggers just could not fathom how much cyclists eat - the normal person diet is about a third of a touring cyclists diet, and the portion sizes increased over the course of the week. I never had an issue with the quality of the food though - it was delicious and I’d love to have another serve of the seafood paella.
The next thing may be a little trivial, but keep in mind we have been sitting on a bike seat everyday for 8 days. The old toilet trucks used that single sheet papery toilet paper, and it got very hard on soft, sore bits by the end of the week. The new toilet trucks had the most luxurious, soft toilet paper. Winning!
Disappointing was being in my tent on the rest day and over-hearing a couple of older blokes discussing the “tits”of one of the girls on the ride, and how she wore a bikini knowing that she had fabulous tits and was showing them off for the world to see. I know I could have said something, but knowing I was camping next to them for two nights, I bit my tongue but lost a bit of respect for them.
Made another new friend in Pup, who had been told about my blogs by Phoebe. Always fabulous to have someone else to call out to on the long ride days, and he makes for a pretty credible bad cap too!
The next was tinged both good and bad - no route announced for next year as BQ have realised that they have to do a bit of reformulaing of the event for it to continue. There was a lot of discussion, and a lot of speculation about the future of the event and what it may look like. A survey will go out in the next little while asking for feedback and ideas to gather thoughts from current riders, but it was clear that there would be a CQ19, just in a different form than the usual. This lead some people to make false statements about it being the end, comments blaming the management of BQ and speculating about CQ’s demise.
Me, I look forward to what may come. If the event isn’t cost-effective, if it’s not generating new interest, if it is stagnating and dying a slow death, I welcome a change. In fact, I want to be part of that change. I have two more CQs to go until I’m declared a legend, so I’ve got a vested interest in it going ahead.
So watch this space - there’s more to come for sure. Next week I’m officiating at the ITU World Championship Grand Finals - and I may just have to blog a couple of those days!
No comments:
Post a Comment