short report of the additional climb …
As the main part of the group took off to the coffee shop Julian already showed some signs of dehydration as he couldn’t really determine which side the cars were coming from. 😉
The five of us headed down Gooseberry Hill (after we found it because all the intersections somehow look the same). The decent was really quick with my speedo hitting about 82 km/h, but over all too soon. Unfortunately that bend half way down the hill forces you to slow down to approximately half that speed. We turned right at the roundabout and had to tackle Ridgehill Road before we could go up the ZigZag. Lisa said she had forgotten that there was a bonus climb up to the Zig Zag…
Dean kept on going straight once we were at the top and turned off back up the Zig Zag. That left us with 4 people. I didn’t know how the other guys were feeling but Ridgehill Road always takes so much out of me that i very often like to just get off the bike on top of that really not too hard “hill”… it’s really weird.
We kinda regrouped at the turn off and started as a group of four. I started to increase the pace a little bit just to see what would happen and if one of the John or Dale would attack. As we reached the first switch back I had a small gap to those two and Lisa was maybe hundred meters further back. All three of us kept encouraging her to minimize that gap (I don’t know if that was helpful…)
Up to the top we really didn’t really smash it too hard, but kept a nice pace and i think John (please correct me if it was Dale, i still mix you guys up, and i am not good with names) was at my tail up the whole way. Just as the road got a little bit steeper towards the end i managed to gap him a little bit.
points on top: Heiko, John, Dale, Lisa
After a chat up the top and a few minutes of rest we decided to go down Gooseberry again and jump onto Great Eastern Highway back to town. We rolled through once we were on Kalamunda Road. Apart from Lisa’s flat before Great Eastern we had a pretty good run home. Thanks for the extra loop, I really enjoyed it, we should do that again next week!
Oh, before I forget: Julian, here is the version for the points: All four of us came in pretty much all together and i think it was a photo finish on top, so we should all get 5 points. 😉
Heiko
Heiko, as much as I’d love to take the points for second (they’ll probably be only points I get all year), it was Dale who was on your wheel at the top.
I do have to say that I did feel like I had been misled somewhat when I agreed to do “one more hill”. Having only ever ridden down Zig-Zag in the past, I did not realise that you have to do a big climb just to get to the bottom and that there is still some way to go when you get to the “top”. This does seem to be a regular trait of the SPR rides and I guess I’ll get used to the lack of warning of these little climbs, but they almost finished me off in that heat on Sunday.
By the way, Dale is the older, ugly one, I’m the one who talks too much – except when climbing.
Thanks again for the ride guys and hope to be out with you again in a few weeks.
John
Heiko, thanks for the points update. Note that it doesn’t take dehydration for me to confuse left and right – I’m absolutely hopelss at it if I don’t have the time to think beforehand!!
Heiko, thanks for the points update. Note that it doesn’t take dehydration for me to confuse left and right – I’m absolutely hopelss at it if I don’t have the time to think beforehand!!