Normal Watts. Real Progress. Jake's Ride Through Sydney.

::profile[Jake Bolton|Cyclist|Sydney, Australia|Founding Zagger](https://lqixkhzyvnycvwwbmhiu.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/blog-images/jake-profile.jpg)

There is a particular kind of quiet that settles over Northern Sydney before the city wakes up. The roads that wind through Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park are empty, the bush is still, and the only sound is tyres on tarmac and the slow rhythm of someone doing the work. Jake is usually already out there.

He did not set out to become a cyclist. He set out to get fitter and lose some weight. Nothing too serious. The kind of goal most people make and quietly abandon. Jake did not abandon it. And somewhere between the first uncertain pedal strokes and what came next, cycling stopped being something he did and became something he is.

"It didn't take long before it turned into something a lot bigger."

How Did Jake's Cycling Journey Start?

Jake tracks his progress with the precision of someone who has learned to trust the data. FTP, Functional Threshold Power, the benchmark of a cyclist's sustained effort, from 178 watts to 231 watts. Body weight from 85 kilograms to 74.5. The numbers are honest. They do not overstate what has been achieved, and they do not understate the work it took to get there.

The journey was not clean. There were bad fuelling days, there were bonks, the cyclist's term for running out of energy mid-ride, when the legs stop responding and the road suddenly feels very long, and there were the inevitable lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Jake does not hide this. For him, the imperfect journey is the point.

"Plenty of bad fuelling, bonks, and learning the hard way, but that's kind of the point."

What keeps him going is not the memory of where he started. It is the accumulation of evidence that progress is possible. That consistency, applied by a completely normal person juggling work, kids and life, produces results that compound over time and eventually become undeniable.

Where Are the Best Cycling Routes in Northern Sydney?

Jake's home terrain is some of the best road cycling available anywhere in Australia, thirty minutes from the Sydney CBD. The routes around Galston Gorge, Bobbin Head and Akuna Bay form what locals call the Three Gorges, a circuit that has become Sydney's gold standard for road cyclists seeking a serious day in the saddle.

Galston Gorge is the one that tests you first. The eastern side drops through six dramatic hairpin corners into the gorge below, the closest thing Sydney has to the mountain switchbacks of European cycling. The descent demands full attention. The road zigzags through dense bushland, the turns tightening before opening into the valley. Then comes the climb back out, and the legs find out what they are made of.

Bobbin Head sits within Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, where the road winds down through eucalyptus forest toward a tidal inlet of the Hawkesbury River. The final climb back up Bobbin Head Road is deceptive. Every time a rider thinks the top is near, the road curves to reveal more vertical metres ahead. It is the kind of climb that rewards stubbornness.

Akuna Bay is the technical one. A loop off McCarrs Creek Road that descends steeply to the water's edge at Coal and Candle Creek, passes the marina, and then climbs back out on what cyclists know simply as the Akuna Wall, a punchy ascent that exposes any weakness left in the legs after what came before. The views across the national park from the heights above the bay are the reward.

"What makes it special is the mix, proper climbs, fast rolling sections, and some of the best scenery you can get this close to a city."

What Is Cycling Like in Outback Dubbo?

Northern Sydney gives Jake the climbs. Dubbo, in central New South Wales, gives him something entirely different.

Dubbo sits on the Macquarie River, roughly 400 kilometres northwest of Sydney, at the edge of the vast inland plains that define the Australian interior. The cycling here is the opposite of the gorges, long, straight dirt roads that stretch toward a horizon so flat and far away it feels theoretical. There are no hairpins, no technical descents, no cafes at the top of the climb. There is the road, the sky, the sound of the wind, and occasionally nothing else for as far as the eye can see.



This is what cyclists mean when they talk about outback Australia. Not a dramatic landscape but an immense one. The kind of place that reminds you how small you are and how far you could go if you just kept pedalling.

"Long, empty dirt roads where you can go ages without seeing another person, it's that real 'middle of nowhere' feel."

Jake rides both worlds and finds value in each. The Sydney gorges sharpen him. The Dubbo roads reset him. Together they form a picture of Australian cycling that most international riders have never seen, a country that contains both the technical switchback and the infinite straight, often within the same week.


Why Does Cycling Matter Beyond the Numbers?

Ask Jake what cycling means to him and he answers the way someone answers when they have thought about it honestly rather than reaching for the obvious reply.


"Beyond the numbers, it's honestly just a reset. It's one of the only times where everything slows down, no work, no noise, just riding."

This is the thing that does not show up in the FTP numbers or the weight charts. The ride is the one place where the accumulation of demands that constitute a normal life, work, family, obligations, temporarily releases its hold. Not because the ride is easy. Often because it is hard. The effort required to keep turning the pedals on a steep climb is, it turns out, incompatible with worrying about anything else.

And then there is the other thing: the progress. The way the same climb that left you gasping three months ago now feels manageable. The way the number on the power meter keeps moving, slowly, in the right direction. The quiet accumulation of evidence that you are not the same person who started.

Normal watts. Honest progress. Sydney on the map.

::social[Jake Bolton|@realworldwatts|Normal watts. Real progress.|https://instagram.com/realworldwatts]