Gong Complete
The Sydney to the Gong 2011 ride is complete! It was an awesome day with warm weather and clear skies.
THOUSANDS of cyclists battled 30C heat and 90km of twisting tarmac to raise money for charity yesterday.
On the warmest day since last summer, more than 10,000 cyclists rode from Sydney Park in St Peters to Stuart Park in Wollongong as part of this year's Sydney to the Gong fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis.
The ride itself was pretty easy, I rode with a mate nearly the whole way so we kept a good consistant pace. The hills, which I was afraid of, were much tamer than I thought, infact I didn't even realise I was on the largest until towards the very end. All the other hills were short and sharp. Pretty good considering I was expecting 2 big giants to climb.
The scenery was stunning, riding down The Grand Parade through Brighton-Le-Sands across from the water, watching the planes fly low into Sydney airport. Through the Royal National Park was probably the biggest highlight, a lot of it was downhill and fast, under the shade it was extremely cool in temperature.
When you reach the end of the main climb, you come out of the park greeted with a stunning view out towards the ocean and far into the distance you can see Woollongong (photo right).
From there there are a few more hills as you ride the decent down to the coast and reach sea level.
Riding across Sea Cliff Bridge was pretty cool, i've always wanted to see it, it's such a strange sight to see such a bridge in that location, it's like it has popped out of nowhere.
Then it was towards Stuart Park, the finish line in Wollongong, it's all a bit of a blur in spots.
I finished the ride in 3 hours 34 minutes and 49 seconds, i'm pretty pleased with that, it was about 83km or so total distance, stopping only for 5 minutes or so. You can view the RunKeeper ride and all the data here, it's not 100% accurate besides the duration.
I'm thrilled I did it, thinking about the event a day later I definitely want to do the ride again, not in a year, more like in a month, it's a great route. I want to explore Wollongong a bit more, especially this place which i've heard a few things about.
Thanks again to all those who donated money to the cause.
Here is a time lapse video that a friend recorded on the ride, it's only for the first half though as the clip holding the camera snapped off mid-ride, gives you a brief idea of what it was like though. Following that is the official video that recaps a number of things about the ride.