Ride report by Jonny

Well firstly apologies to all those for the lateness of the blog. Not many volunteers this week and with many of the usual bloggers not on the ride I was the best they could come up with. ! Also apologies for not knowing everyone’s names but after a year and a half out with injury there has been a number of new faces to appear in the bunch.
Looking round the car park at 6.55 their was only four of us gathered around Lorraine’s car wondering if anybody else was going to turn up; but by 7am like lambs to the slaughter the herd had gathered.
After a gentle role round to Riverside drive the bunch seemed to have grown again back to the usual numbers we have come to expect. A tail wind meant no shortage of willing workers and a pleasant role down towards Nedlands. After the first drag up it was interesting to see that a small group of six had a little gap at the top and four of those were from our strong female division. The tail wind and a good effort from Anna and the Fleet mechanic guy (sorry names) had us continue at 40km/h and a break at the Stirling hwy lights was welcomed to get the heart rate down.
I thought it would be a good idea to stick pretty close to the front for the run down the dog leg and then not be too far back at the start of Mossman park hill. All those who have done the Great bike ride would know this hill but for quite a few this was their first time up and a bit of a shock to the system. Dan and his Milram twin decided being off the front is even better than being near the front and attacked before the dog leg to get a nice gap before the start of the climb. I’m not sure if they were still at the top by the water tower as the pace definitely picked up on the hill once certain riders were unleashed. John commented later that it would take him a while to get over the image of me going past him up the hill in my Nike trainers.
After a re-group at the water tower the bunch continued towards Fremantle. Now this wouldn’t be a ride write up without the incident with a car. This time it looked like while we were heading down Stirling Hwy a car moved into the lane in front of us then didn’t seem to pull away. I was at the back at the time so didn’t see exactly what happened but what I did see was some quick reactions by everybody in the bunch to avoid any crashing.
Heading up Preston point road we picked up Team Bic – Dr’s Paul and Wally in there matching kits; quite how these guys got ahead of us to this point without a boat I am not sure but I suspect they might well have avoided Mossman park hill. After a little work with Ryan on the front he suggested a role-through into the wind and I was very happy with this. By Burke Drive the pace was on and the bunch seemed to have created a new form of riding into the wind with an inside and outside lane moving forward and a middle lane coming backwards. We might see this being adopted in the Tour’s team time trials but I somehow doubt it. A few riders tried to get off the front here but with the winds it was never really going to happen in the strong wind.
After another re-group the bunch followed Canning Hwy back to Perth. I think the combination of a headwind and traffic lights meant the bunch fragmented quite a bit and a few times I looked back to see a bunch catching us up only to be caught at traffic lights or else someone in our group would drive the pace and they didn’t get on. The same thing was happening in our group with people riding off the front only to get caught at lights and us catching them up again. The only incident on the Canning Hwy was a motorbike that seemed to accelerate from the lights very slowly and then at the last minute put on his left indicator and slow right down. Seems it’s trendy now to hit a motorbike as Andre Griepel and Lance Armstrong have shown, but luckily none of the Rouleurs decided to follow this trend.
At the traffic lights coming onto the causeway a group of 12ish was together and as we re-started Ryan went off up the road. Myself, Bec, Anna and another gave chase with the wind behind us and although each time I checked my computer we were doing 50km/h we could not get across. Looks like lots fun was had at lights and in the wind as groups seemed to be coming in for a while afterwards.