Ride report by Rob

It was cold. I know this not because of the small droplets of snot forming on the end of my nose as we rode towards the start.  No, I know this because of the complete shellacking I copped from what seemed like EVERYONE when Tanya arrives with me for her very first SPR group ride in ‘summer’ kit. Yes, I had an underlayer shell on; yes I had my arm warmers on; NO she doesn’t HAVE ANY WINTER KIT YET!!!!! Ringing in my ears from the moment my foot unclipped from the pedal were words from Nico et. al. “You cannot be serious mate…letting her come out like that in this weather?!”; “What kind of bloke are you??”; “Surely you’d be giving her your warm stuff??!”….etc. etc. Paul wanders over with a chivalrous smirk and promptly removes his windbreaker to offer up to this poor damsel, prompting me then to do likewise with my arm warmers….what ever happend to womens lib anyway?? (perhaps I should have written this under my ‘not so well disguised’ pseudonym – sure to cop it now!).

Anywho, now it really IS cold, and I know this because I’m cold.

4 + 1 in our number for the novice ride this morning. Apparently Tracey had a prior engagement (Pete told me what it was, but I can’t remember…). The afore mentioned “warmer than me” one, Libby, Carol, Gwyn and Mr Bonner on his sub kg tubulars playing sweeper for me. After intro’s and a general briefing on the ‘new’ ride route, we headed off. Some general chit chat amongst the crew – apparently mainly focused on ‘nerves’ and ‘confidence’ when it comes to riding in a group. Seems a common theme amongst most new riders, so our endeavour to use this ride more as the ‘confidence developer’ certainly is aimed well.

Along the first section of the bike path we went to single file and I kept the pace at 27km/h. This seemed like it was about the right warm up pace and everyone coped really well. We headed over the Canning Bridge and made our way round the river to the first hill. Along the way I gave the instruction for everyone to move down to the front small ring to make sure we were ready – seems this wasn’t necessary as everyone was already ahead of me!  The first ‘little’ hill was fine and we scooped our way around to look for something a little more ‘challenging’. Reverse Majestic is steep but short – only there isn’t much run up, so you need to be ready to push. Anyway, Tanya and Libby took off and seemed to cope really well; Gwyn went ‘tempo’ and just chugged straight up it; Carol in her new cleats had the look of “Please God, just don’t let the bike stop or I’m a gonner!” in her eyes when I turned around to check – no dramas though and we all crested the top in fine form. I think Mike may have struggled a bit though…. ;-p

A nice roll down Kintail back to the Bridge and we made our way back onto the Esplanade (and at this point we bade farewell to Mike citing fear of being dropped and not being allowed to ride on Thursday mornings anymore…..). Riding 2 by 2 again, the chatter re-commenced. What the novice ride lacks in ‘pace and grunt’ it makes up for in ‘social and smiles’! We kept the pace at around 28km/h until we arrived at the top of Shelly where we commenced our first ‘roll through’. After a brief set of instructions on how this all works and the reasons for doing it, we started to work together as a well oiled team. Seems the last 2 weeks practice had paid off and we were moving along really well at 31/32 km/h.  It’s quite a long way around that part of the ride and we had a number of turns on the front. It was only towards the end that Gwyn, who I may have not mentioned was on her ‘flat bar’ hybrid, started ask the question of Libby “How much further?”. Full kudos to her though – she kept her legs spinning at a cadence of what my guess would be 145 and we all made it to the end in fine form. With a few more rides we’ll see the confidence grow in riding a bit closer to the wheel in front, but there was no ‘cutting in’ this time so a real improvement there.

Our return along Shelly saw an alternative strategy of pulling turns on the front in true TTT style. This seemed to suit a little better as each person could monitor their own capability to work on the front and jump off the front when they needed to. It only took a couple of turns and we had this working well too – albeit a little slower as fatigue started to set in. We only had one scare along here, with MR A-Hole driving a black Prado this morning – seemed he needed our entire lane to get past a group of bikes on the other side, and I think I saw Libby’s hands grip the bars a little tighter as the breeze of his bull-bar gently caressed her knees! Cheers mate.

 As we rounded the last corner of Shelly and the final climb loomed large, we made our way up at our own pace and then re-grouped before heading back around to Mt Pleasant. 2 by 2 along the Esplanade and the chatter had shifted on to the remaining distance we had until we had a coffee in our hands, having been first in the cue last week! Unfortunately this was not to be the case this week though. We tried our best, and pulled a solid 29 single file along the bike path back to town, only to be greeted by a massive table of green and black – only just having ordered their preferred beverage themselves! DOH! Seems we paid in more ways than one for those ‘extra’ hills.

So, a great ride on a truly stellar Perth morning – happy to say I eventually thawed out as the sun became a little more generous in the delivery of its primary service to us.