Day 4 - Tuesday, 2nd September 2003 - Esk to Woodford

Today was expected to be flat, especially after the last few days. Again I left with the early pack and again found myself leading the early riders out. It had been a cold morning so I had cracked out the winter riding gear and was glad of it. We were riding beside the lake today, on the approach to morning tea you could definitely feel it. I was passed by a small group of cyclists that I later learnt finished at about 9:30am, they deserved to be ahead of me.

I made morning tea at about 8am again, but there was no one there, so I kept going. It was great riding beside the lake. Despite the hills it was very fast riding and very enjoyable. With about 4-5kms before lunch we hit the biggest hill of the ride so far. I knew I was in trouble when I ran out of gears after about 100m of it. I managed to slog through it and made it up to the top without stopping or walking. I made lunch at about 8:30am. After a brief stop I was on the road again, the route was very undulating which was quite enjoyable. I had a brief stop at Kilcoy but not for afternoon tea (again it wasn't ready).

Soon out of Kilcoy, with about 20kms to go I was riding down a hill when a Magpie decided to have a go. I was going fast enough I could ignore him. With about 10-15kms to go I had a small pack ride past. I tagged on at the end and we really chewed up the k's. So again I finished at about 10:30am.

Distance	83.52 km
Average	27.92 km/hr
Time	2:59:27
Maximum	61.40 km/hr

Images

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