ride report by ben

Having had a couple of weeks off the bike due to a minor but annoying injury was looking forward to a Sunday ride. Wasn’t sure what the turnout would be with the long weekend and a few of the regulars hills riders flying the SPR colours at the “away” fixture in Pemberton, but about 15 riders rolled up at what is now sunrise at 7am. Pete had set us a slightly shorter ride with 4 points climbs scheduled with the usual finish in Kalamunda. Mike B who had requested a “moderate” course joined along mill point road so I knew that we would have to work hard on the climbs to stay in sight of his back wheel at his “moderate” climbing pace.

We headed out on great eastern highway into a bit of a breeze. The roads seemed nice and quiet today, and we managed to avoid any abuse, car attacks or punctures which makes for a much better day for all. I think everyone took turns at the front on the way out, with some smooth changes and the group moving up through the middle when the front riders peel off as dictated by group ride rules! (http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=6731&status=True&catname=Latest%20News). This feels a lot safer than having the inside rider try to get across to the right and let the group pass on the left.

The first climb was up coulston road along the southern edge of greenmount to get everyones legs warmed up. Some of the boys headed off for a shorter ride around this point I think. Hunter set the pace early up here and I managed to sit in for most of the windy bits thanks for that! We kept the pace up and towards the end and I was expecting mike or jerry to shoot past but we managed to hold them off to the T junction. Points as follows:

ben – 10, hunter – 7, mike – 5, jerry – 3, dr mark – 1

Next climb up toward glen forrest drive started pretty sharply, with pete advising that we would probably get split up from the start. Bill led out near the start but we were soon overtaken by mike b whose wheel I managed to hold for approx 5 seconds before being dropped off. He makes it look too easy! Peter seemed to have warmed up his holiday legs and put in a good chase toward the intersection with the points ending up being:

mike – 10, ben – 7, jerry – 5, peter – 3, bill – 1

The regroup time was pretty short with everyone seeming to get stronger every week. Mark led all the way through to the Mundaring roundabout in time trial position, and for the rest of the day it seemed like he had too much energy to spare. A short pause to check all were on and mark was off again. From here to mundaring weir is probably one of my favourite rides – plenty of speed with gentle rolling hills but overall downhill through some pretty nice scenery, a right at the roundabout and down to the weir. The call went out to keep together from here up the next climb out of the valley and from what I saw this seemed to work well with the bunch staying close. Somewhere near the top pete made the move to encourage us up the final stretch to asher road with bill setting the pace initially. I seemed to have missed where asher road was but thankfully peter was paying attention and it ended being:

ben – 10, jerry – 7, hunter – 5, bill – 3, mark – 1

we headed straight on without stopping toward Kalamunda with hunter and I sitting behind gerard into the climb. Gerard set a good pace from the start of the climb, and I was hoping we would be able to hold the others off to the top. For some reason this bit seems short on some days and to go on forever on others. Today it seemed long… (much like this report is getting!) As I expected mike b came past just before the half way point, having gained any ground that we had made on the downhill. He must have been taking it easy today as I managed to get past again. Gerard looked strong at the end to take final points:

jerry – 10, ben – 7, mike – 5, hunter – 3, mark – 1

I don’t know about everyone else but I had lost a fair bit of fluid by coffee – the humidity meant that there was not much evaporative cooling going on. 11 of us squeezed around a couple of tables perched on the stairs to take the bonus point. The service was pretty quick today, we saw how many surgeons it took to change a mountain bike tyre, and got the rest of the details on petes new baum. A nice run down welshpool, with pete stashing his breadstick in case required to beat off any bogans in 4x4s. Mark D now loaded up on stimulants from paris brest got down on the bars again and towed us back up to the shepperton road intersection at a good pace just in time to catch some boy band music at a disturbing volume from someone’s astra at the lights.

All in all a great ride with perfect weather really. Hope the pemberton crew were successful and hope to hear all about the weekend soon.