cold, damn cold. i had to go back in the house and get my jacket this morning, much to the disgust of my sleeping wife. i always prepare everything the night before (including pumping my tyres) so that i minimize the noise when i get up. if i creep around quietly, i can usually be out the door before anyone wakes. this morning was not my stealthiest. if i was smart enough to thoroughly check the weather report the night before (it is all about preparation) i would have noticed that it was forecast to be freaking cold overnight and i would have got the jacket out just in case. so no, not a good start.

the course today was added not long after christmas as we kind of went this way for our christmas ride. a few extra hills, some fast paced sections and a few more km’s turned it into a standard saturday ride course. today it would take us around the bottom of kings park, onto hay street through subi and over rebold hill. a quick lap around cottesloe and we would then head back the normal route through dalkeith.

despite the cold we had a decent turn up as we would have had close to 40 riders roll out. a nice and gentle trip along riverside drive and onto mounts bay road allowed the group to ease into the ride. even the climb up thomas rd was not too stressful as the group remained under control. as we rolled down hay st which becomes underwood ave, i was surprised when we hit the few rolling hills that there were no real attacks as everyone found a nice climbing pace to the top.

once we came around rebold hill, i was going to allow the group it’s head of steam up the climb and along west coast highway till we hit swanbourne. as we turned onto oceanic and started the two small climbs around rebold hill, dr nic came charging up the road from almost the back of the pack. she hit the front and kept going with nev not far behind. i was waiting to see who would react but the group looked content to let them go. i switched it up a gear or two and started setting a faster pace which the guys could get a tow behind. we picked up nev and then dr nic before the top of the hill and by the time we crested, had a group of around 7 or 8 riders. with the chase and hill over, the momentum left group and the rest of the pack caught up by the time we hit west coast highway.

the group really seemed to not want to go hard at all today, and it took a few prompts to get it to start chasing. michael and nick finally broke clear along this stretch of road before the group reacted. however, it didn’t even manage to get strung completely out as no-one seemed eager to flat out chase them down. we regrouped around the lights at swanbourne and made our way down to the southern end of cottelsoe to come back up marine parade. a few of the boys wanted to stretch their legs a bit and i was content to let myself slip to the back of the pack and take up position as last wheel. with the race set for tomorrow and my flu like symptoms forcing me to have tuesday off this last week, i was a bit dubious of my form. i had already struggled a bit on some of the climbs for today, and worried that it my be a bad sign for tomorrow.

so, the group stayed together through a relatively fast tour of cottesloe and we meandered our way past the swanbourne shops. a nice big 4wd decided that we were too slow and tried to get past only to find that he was running out of road before the intersection. he had to slow down and push back in, splitting the group in half. smart man. if he had waited ten more seconds he still would have made it to where he wanted to go.

the route took us back home through dalkeith and the group will always go hard along here. always??? not today. with team p0rn0 making other plans to see how we can control the sprint, none of us were planning to do any work on the front. this left nick and a couple of others to force the pace, and they were not keen to hurt themselves either. chris stamped off the front to try to get something going but no-one would chase and he soon grew tired of playing and was absorbed back into the pack. finally as the group approached the last few undulations on birdwood pde, the pace picked up thanks to nick, christophe and nev. the group strung out a bit but not to the extent that we have seen it smash everyone apart.

team tactics were still in play and we were trying to keep mid pack to keep us out of the work load and in position to attack. a car interrupted us on the turn onto hackett dve and the front guys got a bit of a break. i mentioned to chris that is they got a good set of lights onto mounts bay, we were done for. it would have been an unusual set of events to get that to happen, and we caught them as they sat waiting for the green.

now, the team tactics for the day was to sit in till about two km’s out and then we all go hard down the right hand lane to get a break. we would all line out and try to deliver ryan to the line in one piece. now it didn’t quite go to plan. just before we were due to go, stu got a puncture and was off the back for a quick change. when i finally did decide to go there was too much traffic and i couldn’t get into the right hand lane, so i knew that there would be some hangers on.

brendan had made a break earlier and had a bit of a gap on the field. nick was on the front chasing him down with the rest of the train strung out behind him. as i led off the front, with (hopefully) the rest of the team in tow, i knew that we were not going fast enough, or over far enough to stop anyone jumping on board. too late for second chances as we had committed to the move already. i did a turn and manged to pick up brendan from his breakaway. i flicked the arm for michael to come through and looked back to see what the move had created. half the field were attached to us and the rest were still being pulled along by nick. i hadn’t totally smashed myself as i was hoping that i could jump on board as the tail came past. as i waited for the many riders to pass by, i started to doubt that the move would pay off at all. i ended up letting them go up the road and paced myself to the coffee shop. it turned out that chris had done an extra big turn to deliver ryan to the line but with steve firmly attached to his wheel. steve wasn’t too happy with some of our tactics and was unhappy with a blocking move by chris at the end when he released ryan. oh well, not a complete failure, but we will try something different next week.

coffee stop was good, but with a notable exception. big john who works with me at rio, didn’t make it back to the shop. his wife was waiting for him (as is the tradition) but he phoned up saying the he had four flats on the way back from cottesloe. with stu hitting a pothole to puncture and dr melvyn’s brake levers coming loose (after some dyi maintenance) we were lucky that there wasn’t a stack.

i have also started to take orders for the new group jersey, as had been posted on here earlier. if you want anything (jersey, knicks, vest, armwrmers) then see me after the ride or send me an e-mail through the blog. i will finalise the order over the next couple of weeks.

race day tomorrow at wandi, so hopefully we can get a ride report from the hills ride a well.