I met Brendan the other day in Redfern. He was riding a Greenspeed GTO. As we were heading approximately in the same direction we rode together for a while and then agreed to do some rides together. This was our first ride together and the first ride I have done in Sydney with another recumbent trike rider. Brendan rode to Parramatta, but I caught the train.
I rode down to Marrickville Station. Heading west the platform is at street level, so it is easy to get the trike onto the platform. Unfortunately I got one of the old silver trains. These are very difficult for the trike as there are poles for people to hold on to and they are too close together. Though I did eventually work out how to get the trike into the carriage and the end. My first go, here at Marrickville, this man helped me get the trike on board. In return I set his mobile phone off daylight savings time and enabled the auto time adjustment from the network update function.
At Lidcomb, I was concerned that I would have to change between platform islands. But luckily there were extra staff on duty and I was able to ask about the next train to Parramatta. It arrived on the other side of the island a few minutes later. I was also concerned about the show traffic, but the people for the show were all dutifully over on platform one and not on my trains. Here I got a Tangara and they are much better for travelling with the trike.
Getting off the train at Parramatta was easy, though slow. I had to use two lifts. I then headed over to Church Street and waited there. Some locals were talking to me. I contacted Brendan and he was a few minutes away. We met up and rode up to Windsor Road through Parramatta Park and Westmead. In my haste I had not filled up my 3 litre water bladder, so in Parramatta Park I was able to find a tap to fill up my water container.
Out on Windsor Road there was a nice new bike track that was built when the road was upgraded and the transit way built. It has a strange habit of crossing over from one side to the other with a few new and quite expensive looking bridges for this purpose. We road to a bus stop called the Joseph Banks Bus Stop and had a short break.
We continued along the bicycle path along Windsor Road. There were some kids along the way and a family riding on the path.
We turned off the Windsor road at Nelson Road.
At Nelson road we had to head through some tall grass.
This was the first time we road along the road with the traffic. Mostly the road had enough verge, but not always. But there were not many cars and even better not to much on coming traffic. In this section I road in front for a most of it. This was my first time in the lead, though this was more becuase I did not know the way.
We stopped at Pitt Town for lunch. There was a group of three older women riders who had been riding around from Windsor using a ride in a book. Though they said the instructions were not so good and they thought they had gone the wrong way and ridden further than they planned. I my standard country fair, a steak sandwich and milk drink, though the bakery did not do milk shakes.
The last section was from Pitt Town to Windsor. We were joined within the town by two local boys, though one managed to follow along for longer than the other. We headed out away from where we were going and then along some country lanes nearer the river. This was a place where they were growing turf.
We rode through the shopping district of Windsor. Though being a public holiday, most places were closed. My batter ran out less than 1 km short of the station. At the station we caught a train. We were going to go to Summer Hill, but becuase of the connections ended up going to Ashfield. I chose to do this as these stations have facilities for wheel chairs which means that they are friendly for the trike.
At Ashfield we split up. I was in need of food, so I stopped at a local Chinese place and had some of the best noodles I have had. I have discovered that there are several places which are really good a noodles here in Sydney.
56.85 km
15.23 kmh ave
3:44:12 hms
52 kmh max