I had the pleasure of taking part on Sunday in the TelstraClearChallenge cycling event. The 15 km "bike across the bridge along the busway and end up at Smales farm" event was what I was up for. These pics show riders gathering at Shelley Beach Road for the start....
Here you can see they look a bit worried. The start was delayed by about an hour. A policeman explained that apparently the buses hadn't started building the road safety barrier until 3:00am, when the plan had been to start at 1:00am. So it meant the authorities weren't happy to let cyclists use the route until it was completely safe...
...then it was all go, and race officials divided cyclists off into big groups. Each group was started separately. We'd all been told, "no more than two abreast over the bridge...". If you did the math, assuming cyclists went up the bridge at about 10kph, and biked a metre apart, then it would only take a little over an hour for 4000 to go over....
It appeared that the 100 km riders were being sent off first. I knew the bridge had to be cleared by 9:00am. Wasn't sure what would happen to that arrangement if the start had been delayed by an hour....We angled for position. It looked like a few 15 km riders were getting mixed up with the 100km riders and the officicals weren't complaining...
...and then quite suddenly, we were part of the next group, and we were off. Exciting. Downhill...
...and then we were out of the trees and there was the bridge. Even though the wind speed was about 10 knots, gusting 18 knots, it somehow seemed to blow over us...
Here's Pieter Watson. Another Devonport cyclist. We did the event together. Great company...
And so began the climb up the bridge. I had expected it to be hard work - with head wind - combined with 5 degrees of incline. But it was surprisingly easy. And such fun... 
The buses made quite a difference to the wind effect I think. We seemed to be in the wind shade. Certainly the windows made great mirrors!
...then we were at the top. The views were great. The wind was still quite gentle. The Goldilocks effect: not too hot, and not too cold... 
...and the down the other side. Man - now that was a quick section...
Here's Pieter as we biked alongside Shoal Bay. Buses forming a safety barrier ahead. Couldn't help remember how hard I'd tried to get a cycleway built along this alignment when the busway was planned. At the time engineers kept saying: "What about the dotterels... they don't get scraed off by cars... but they do get scared off by bikes...". Man oh man.
...and through Akoranga Station. For some reason I thought we would turn off shortly thereafter. At Smales Farm....
Here's me. Smiling despite the realistion that we had a little more distance to go. All the way to the top of Constellation Drive Station in fact. And that's quite a climb....
I was smiling at the U-Turn at the top, and the downhill was fantastic. Particularly looking at all those riders behind us in low gear...
...and then we were done. Through the photo-finish. Be-decked with medals...
Other groups of cyclists gradually gathered at Smales Farm...
...and the queue at the coffee kiosk grew very long...
This was a fun event. I hope the donation to charity was a good one. The bike-party at Smales Farm was fun. Everyone was surprised the BBQ sausages were free, and so were the drinks and treats. The sponsors had as much fun as we did. Looking forward to next time.
