I posted this on my posterous earlier today, because it has some nice media options and I was going to embed video. I didn’t end up doing that, but it’s there anyway. So, the repost.
I thought it would be fun to ride up Mt Coot-tha on a CityCycle bike, so today I finally got around to it. Since the north west hasn’t been connected yet, I started and finished at the Go Betweens Bridge. I had intended to video the thing, but as you can see, the vibrations from mounting my phone on the basket made it pretty hard to watch. I’ve uploaded them in the spirit of a Lucas Arts adventure game cutscene (I’m thinking The Dig) here and here.
The ride took me fifty-seven minutes, end-to-end. Forty-eight of those were spent riding, most of the balance was waiting at the Hale St West construction site and refilling my water bottle at the top. What’s sort of cool is that when a did a similar ride a few months ago, it took me forty-four minutes. That was slightly more circuitous, going around the graveyard but skipping the initial Planetarium climb, but the point remains that despite a CityCycle bike’s weight and positioning, it doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Nevertheless, the uphill segment of my ride did take the record for the slowest front-side Mt Coot-tha ascent.
Just in case they see this, I must say hello to rider in the leopard kit and his friend with some quickstep gear. They beat me to the top, but their pace encouraged me to get all the way up.