Heathcote River Bike Ride

We had an excellent ride yesterday – around 25 people (including 7 or 8 children) enjoyed the warm sunshine and light winds and pedalled our way down the pathways and quiet streets alongside the Heathcote. The ride took a shade over 2 hours. Nearly all of the riders were new faces – most had not even heard of Spokes before. Most had heard about the ride through the CCC brochure, and notices in the Press and community newspapers. The route is an absolute gem – a good part of the riding is off-road, and the streets involved are very quiet, some with elaborate traffic-calming. There are awesome native plantings in places, and we saw a few people whitebaiting, and amazing kites in Hansens Park! The difficult bits were crossing the main roads– Barrington, Colombo and Tennyson because of traffic volume and Waltham and Ensors because of extremely bad visibility / blind bends (what could be done to improve those intersections I wonder?). We had to take care in getting everyone across – 2 or 3 drivers were considerate enough to give way! Most of those present gave me their email address and asked to be added to the Spokes list. The ride was a wonderful success and it was a pleasure to lead it. Thanks to Pete Rivers who was the ‘caboose’. I'll post a couple of photos later. –Paul.