Where did you ride, run or play OUTSIDE today?
Share your 2025 stories, photos and accomplishments in the great outdoors. 
Prior thread:
(I thought I’d kick this off since it’s 2025 in Australia. Intro text stolen from @mcneese.chad’s thread opener last year)
There’s a New Year’s Day tradition amongst randonneurs in Brisbane of riding all the cycling-permitted bridges over the Brisbane River in the metro area. Just two weeks ago a 12th bridge opened from Kangaroo Point to the CBD, so the route was changed to include it. 12 out of Elevenish it was called.
By late last week, today was forecast rain, so I wrote it off. Then when the forecast changed last minute I signed up. Glad I did. It was a cracker of a day! At 6am, about 15 of us rolled away from the park functioning as the control location, where the organiser had set up a smorgasbord of ride snacks & would eventually host a barbecue when we finished.
We traversed the new bridge twice: once in each direction, requiring a 14th crossing to get us back to base, doubling up on the Eleanor Schonnell bridge.
The route was just over the nominated 100km & comprised a mix of cycleways, mixed-use paths, back streets, minor roads, factory estates made quiet by the public holiday, & the very occasional footpath or main road where necessary. Zero gravel. A few climbs, some surprise pinches, but nothing too crazy & certainly no classifiable climbs.
I targeted about 170-200w which I intended to be pretty strict with, unless traffic or safety dictated otherwise or perhaps more realistically, if my attention wavered for some other reason. After about 2km I was solo, so didn’t have anyone to feel compelled to keep up with on climbs. I’d expected about 4 hours of riding, so packed 400g of carbs into a 600mL bottle (the one hanging from my aero bar in the 3rd pic), & had the usual 2× 800mL bottles for water, refilled each time at the controls, 40km & 80km in, respectively.
#1 Victoria Bridge:
(The next bridge downstream is a pedestrian-only bridge, which I contemplated pushing my bike over on the way home, so that I could say I used 13 bridges. But I ended up riding back with someone who lives nearby, so scratch that.)
#2 Kangaroo Pt Bridge:
And this, taken by a local photographer Keith Heinrich on the Kangaroo Pt Bridge:
No pic from crossing #3 Story Bridge because it’s an easy place to lose a phone.
Newstead foreshore:
#4 Sir Leo Hieschler (Gateway) Bridge:
Unfortunately no photo from #5 crossing Walter Taylor (Indooroopilly roadway) Bridge, because I forgot, & I was on the roadway with no shoulder anyway.
#6 Centenary (Jindalee) Bridge:
(I’ve heard it’s dredging that made the river brown, but who really knows?)
#7 Jack Pesch (Indooroopilly bikeway) Bridge, running alongside the rail bridge & Walter Taylor above:
#8 Eleanor Schonell Bridge:
AKA the “Green” bridge because it excludes cars, motorcycles, & trucks, & has no provision for motorised transport to access anywhere other than the bus station that services the university.
#9 Kangaroo Pt Bridge again, this time heading back towards the CBD & city gardens:
#10 Goodwill Bridge:
#11 William Jolly (Grey St) Bridge:
(WJ is one of the older & less bike-friendly bridges.)
#12 Kurilpa Bridge:
#13 Go Between Bridge:
#14 A second helping of the Eleanor Schonell Bridge, coming into the finish:
4h15’, so I wasn’t too far off.
Stats excluding socials at the end & of course commutes. Pretty happy with the distribution:
I’m very much about sustained power so I got some practice dealing with it. My modern olive green Orbea has a busted gear outer & it’s internally routed so I’m taking it to a shop to deal with. So I was on Trek today, with it’s seemingly absurd 3× setup, which helped. Approaching a lot of the crests I was on the granny ring. Instead of dumping half the cassette I just shifted up to the middle chainring (double-shuffle if needed), then one or two rear sprockets harder, then up to the big chainring, then if it’s necessary I could shift more sprockets down the back. Then in the first moments of the next rise after a dip, where speed is dropping but I still have time to do unloaded shifts, I did the reverse.
) when dealing with lumpy terrain, & managed to get some blocks of pedalling resembling a consistent output. So it feels like a success.
But this one was planned almost a week ago. And tomorrow is definitely rest.
and I got a bit longer but a brand new p’ture opened up. Came home used the track pump to over over-pressurised the tyre and it kept pressure for circa 30 mins until 8 min into another ride, same story, wouldn’t seal on the move but would seal stopped but would reopen on the move. I’ve come back and did the same (over pressurising with a track pump) and the tyre has stayed solid for hours. I’ll probably take the bike out tomorrow if its icy first thing and if it happens again I’ll be looking for a new brand of sealant. I’ve used Stans Race for 1000s of miles and never used a dynaplug (things have always sealed on the move and stayed sealed). Whereas Peaty’s with tyres which are less than 50 miles old (WTB Raddlers the same brand) I’ve had several p’tures that have refused to seal on the move or stay sealed. The only draw back to Stans Race is can clog things up 
& my body & turned back to home.
