RailTrail, and UP bowenvale (oldschool)

Last sunday, had a go on the Motukarara-Little River Rail Trail... Met my folks out at Motukarara, us with Otis, and were supposed to meet T's mum too. her jeep was there but no her, so we assumed we'd catch her up, and as there was no cellphone reception round there we couldnt get hold of her. cellphone reception was very intermittent all the way along there.
so, off we went, nice slow pace, as my olds arent overly bike fit. about 4kms in dad realised he'd left his bag behind, so off i spun, me on my singley, back to his car. calculated that if they're travelling half my speed onwards, they'd be 4kms on when i got back to where i left them, and another 2kms on when i got to the point they were then i got back to my starting point, and theoretically i should have caught them at the 8km mark, as for every km i made, they were travelling half a km. as it was, i probably made them at about the 7km mark, and we stopped at 8 km mark, Kaituna Quarry, for lunch. No sign of Joy, so they turned back and i went on to look for her. i spun and spun and spun, left Lake Ellesmere behind, rounded Birdlings Flat and headed towards Lake Forsyth. called Joy's cel and she's sitting in Little River having a feed. i said, i'll join you, and txt'd T telling her to leave without me i'd ride back to vehicle with Joy and get a ride. pedalled on for another couple kms towards Joy, and was almost at Catons Bay, which is the end of the trail and from where you have to ride the road up to Little R. Then suddenly it dawned on me, i had dad's car key in my pocket from when i went back for his bag... ugh. so, i txtd tracey, hoping she'd get the msg, and rang Joy to say i was turning back, sorry, and i turned back and hauled... now, i'm around 19kms from the cars, have already pedalled that 19, plus the 8 return earlier, on my singlespeed running a 2 to 1 ratio. mental thoughts, one was 'for every rotation i'm travelling approximately 2m, so, how many rotations in 10 seconds, how many in a minute, x60, how many kph, how long am i gonna be doing this for... and also, was wishing the wind was stronger and i had a sail... wind assist on railtrails is somethign that should be considered seriously... anyway, made it back to the others, about 15 or 20 minutes after them, is how slow they were going. we never did see joy either.

cruddy weather during week, so last night, thurs, drove across, parked at end of Bowenvale Ave, and headed up the Bowenvale track... boy, she's sure steep. with gears, granny, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, sunset was at 7.31 (daylight savings now! yay!!!) so i gave myself til 7.25 to get to summit trail, or i'd turn back downhill. made it, so i bombed round the summit into the southerly and then down through vic park, through the gums, down Dazza's, down through the valley track from there, out round the sidle, down and out to car. total round trip, 1 hour. nice. home in time to finish putting O to bed and for T to go to movie with Joy.