Anyone tried the Westlink M7 ride?

piero

just wondering is there anyone try the M7 Ride here? if we wanna rate this route for it's difficulty when compare to the Gong Ride, how difficult would you rate the M7 out of 10?

I just went there today and got sun burnt .... should have putting on some sun screen for the spring sun ...

nerdag

Depends on your frame of reference. If doing the whole M7 bike path (return trip) is a 5, then I would rate the Gong ride as probably a 7 or 7.5. M7 shoulder is probably a 4-4.5 relative to the path, although I don't ride that often enough to give a fair comparison.

The 'hills' on the M7 aren't as steep as the ones on the gong ride, particularly the climbs out of the Royal National Park.

I would imagine that neither ride is particularly demanding for most regular cyclists, although that does depend on your level of fitness to start with. In any case, most people who finish the whole Gong ride do so within 5-6 hours.

If you're really fit/keen/fast, you could do it in as little as 2h30 - 3h. I'm sure there are some who are even faster (although that's most definitely not me).

Last year was a 4h10 effort for me - not my best time, but not my worst either.

HTH,

n

mikesbytes

Heres another post on M7

http://bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=268

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piero

Thanks mate

just gone through the link.

Say if I really wanna know the difficulty for the M7 cycle path when comparing to the Gong Ride route, how hard or how much easier is it?

Coz I never join the Gong Ride before but I am planning to do it this year and I am now practicing on the M7, just wanna make sure I have enough practice for the climbing.

So is the M7 a good practice for Gong Ride, or do I need more climbing training?

mikesbytes

The route has a small number of smaller hills followed by a very big down hill, then more smaller hills, until you drop down again past stanwell park for another series for small hills. None of the hills could be described as killers, but they could wear you down.

Where do you live Piero? On a Sunday morning you could follow the route to Stanwell Tops, loop back out of the park kinda past Hellinsberg and then back along the princess home

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piero

I am living in Kingsford, so basically I am starting from Preston and then riding up to the top of M7.

Where are you living? btw, gotta practice hard for Gong Ride ... challenge for me as a newbie

mikesbytes

I live in Ashfield.

Been in Kingsford you could ride part of the actual Gong ride as practice. On Sundays there are lots of riders going up General Homes driver heading towards Waterfall.

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robalert

The Gong is not that tuff... but you'd need to ride regularly to complete it comfortably

There is alot of shade down there and views are great.

I have yet to do the M7 still... one day... hopefully

The tuffest ride I've done to date would have to be the 3 Gorges ride... Hornsby-GalstonGorge-Arcadia-WisemanFerry-PieinSky-BobbinHead-return... I would rate that a 10... then Gong ride would be a 7-8

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mikesbytes

You have got all day to complete the gong. Someone from my work did it in 7 and a half hours.

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piero

hahaha, you mean it??!?!?!! 7 1/2 hours!?!?!?

I hope I won't make a new record for that

mikesbytes

Some of us were a little quicker than that

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piero

so you must be joining the 90km ride, right?

I register for the 56km this year, coz I am still new and wanna try it out first

nerdag

90km really isn't that tough - if you start to feel like you're wearing out, just slow down. It ain't a race, and there will be plenty of riders who take their time to go the distance. Back yourself and have a good ride =)

The first year I did it (a few years back now), I'd only cycled regularly for 8 months, and still managed to finish it with a resolving viral upper respiratory tract infection. Really started feeling it at about 60km, and even had to walk some of the hills becuase my lungs couldn't keep up (there is NO shame in walking some of the hills if you need to). Took about 6h of riding all up with plenty of stops. Riding with the resolving URTI really hit my immune system hard, and r00ted me over the next four weeks, but alas, it was worth it.

Maybe you could try the Sydney Spring Cycle the fortnight before it to see how you handle the 50km distance? The Spring cycle route is a little easier, but it will give you an idea of how hard can/want to go. You might find yourself pleasantly surprised:

http://sydneyspringcycle.com.au/index.html



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n

mikesbytes

I'm riding to the event, the ride itself and then riding home. Should be something like 190 - 200k.

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