ride report by peter.

 

the weather has turned nasty again with lots of rain and lots of wind during the week.  it was forecast to be similar this morning and there was lots of rain overnight.  fortunately it eased off to give us a relatively dry start to the morning.  the wind, however, didn’t seem to ease off and looked to be a factor today.

it was going to be a new look at an old route as we headed to scarborough beach road.  we headed through the centre of town for a change, as it took off about 6kms from the original route that went around kings park.  we managed to get a number of traffic lights, but as we were only on cruise mode, it was just a minor irritation.  the lights and the small climb up to kings park spread the field a significant amount but we managed to be all back together to turn onto thomas. 

a pretty uneventful trip up loftus and onto scarborough beach road with james and ben setting the pace.  the westerly winds were gusting between 30 and 40 km/hr and we were heading straight into them. at least we would get a good push home.

just before the rolling hills started, we split the pack with the fast group turning onto ewen st while the main group continued along.  i discovered the ewen st hill when i had to go to lisa’s house for a committee meeting.  even though it was a while ago, i have been trying to get it onto the saturday ride and today would be the chance. 

we started the hill and their were no attacks as a don’t think anyone knew what to expect.  i came around and hit the front but didn’t last very long before i was at my max.  the hill pitches up a final time towards the end and everyone started coming around me once we hit that.  people were starting to stretch their legs, but there was a full on race to the top between davina and jarrad where neither looked like they would yield.  i was just on damage control mode and limped over the top.

we came down the other side and onto west coast hwy.  we didn’t stay that long on it before we turned up the boulevard.  the hill was made significantly easier with the strong wind on our backs and soon we had turned back onto oceanic.  this little detour was to add kms to the fast route as well as add a couple more climbs.  it would also give the main group a chance to get ahead of us.

back onto west coast hwy and the pace really started to pick up.  we were soon running single file as a combination of the pace, the traffic and the wind made things more difficult.

we picked off a couple of main group riders that had been dropped earlier and soon we were heading through swanborne.  we had lost a few from our group and they were chasing to get back on.  as we approached the lights at stirling, we found the main group waiting for a lights change.  when they did, they hardly stayed green and their group became split with us further behind a bit of traffic.  this allowed quite a number of our group a chance to catch up while the main group waited over the road for the rest of their riders at the lights. 

at the change, we came past the main group and suddenly the hammer was down.  i had to work hard to bridge across as i was held up coming around the main group, but finally made it before the group got too far away.  i was content to sit in now as the group sped through dalkeith and over the rolling hills. 

the pace didn’t seem to diminish and i found myself  slightly off the back again with paul o.  we finally made it back just as the lights changed to get onto mounts bay road.  no rest for the weary and we quickly jumped on the back of the group.  from then it was just a matter of hanging on to the end and i was too far back to see who picked up the sprint.

coffee was quite quick this morning and i actually got the chance to have one after a number of saturday morning appointments.  jerry was at the coffee shop after skipping the ride to keep his legs fresh for tomorrows atta time trial.  his first attempt and a chance to air the new bike.  however, he is starting just 1min in front of the guy that usually wins the events.  calculations have it that he will be caught by the first lap.  good luck jerry.

the spring breakfast is next saturday and the state team time trial championships are on the sunday.  looks like we will have a good turn out for both.  don’t forget to rsvp to lisa so we know how many to cater for the breakfast.