Only half an ‘N’ group report from me this week since we split up almost immediately with Carol leading the main ‘N’ group out at a good zip along the ‘traditional’ route, & I stayed back with new rider Wendy (on her 20 kilo hybrid with balloon tyres) and rode at her pace. Inventing a few new shortcuts we managed to time it well, meeting up with the main pack at the agreed points without holding them up. Our overall ride distance back to the Belltower was still close to 36 klms (with a very relaxed average speed) whilst the others would have clocked the usual 40 klms + and guessing at around 25-27 kph average.
Riding slower than normal was a real eye-opener for me and it quickly became obvious that a few bunch riders are not aware of the lack of clearance they give when overtaking a slow rider – especially when the ‘overtaken’ is not part of their group. I made sure that I was sitting on the front when the ‘packs’ were coming through; and there were a few times when a passing rider almost kissed handlebars as they overtook me with only inches to spare; or even worse, 3 or 4 riders cut straight across my front wheel. Unsettling and unpleasant enough for me – but imagine the intimidation and fright when experienced by a less confident or new rider. There’s every chance that such a lack of awareness (stupidity) by the overtaker, could cause a slow rider to wobble out into the pack – leading to bandages and many $ spent on fixing frames and wheels. Could be that’s what happened re: the very bent bike wheel and group of forlorn looking cyclists hanging around the ambulance just south of Mt Henry bridge on Sat. That’s the second (cycling) ambulance that we have seen on the Novice in ride in three or four weeks.
Back to our duo ride, no huff and puff today; and whilst Carol’s team at 8-10 klms faster and in tight formation overtook us a couple of times, we just sat on our own pace and discussed cadence, cleats, tyres, Ultegras vs.105’s as Wendy’s on the prowl for a ‘real’ bike. Expect to see it gleaming in the carpark and Wendy saddled up in lycra n’ cleats and raring to go next Sat am.
Cheers Mark _S
Part II….
Again a small number made up of a few “new to SPR” cyclists wanting to learn group riding techniques and the rest the steady core of experienced “novices”….we gotta find another name…. newbies, greenhorn, neophyte (I didn’t know that was an option!), trainer, new to SPR…or just plain novices.
With a small group of similar pace it was easy to keep together. We made our way through Applecross and everyone made it up Majestic without a problem…Jackie did the mountain goat sprint up and I brought up the rear… that is so you cannot see me heaving my lungs out of course….. yelling BIKES UP to those cyclist coming down on the wrong side of the road… again. Mark and Wendy reappeared exactly on queue at the Raffles before we continued to the next stop just off Leach.
The roll through worked well from the beginning with a pace of 28km on the inside… though we focused more on technique than speed. We continued to the end of Shelly before returning with some more rolling…. the timing was perfect as we caught up with Mark just before the sprint back to Leach Hwy… he manage to outfox the new starters Ewan and Leon to win the sprint…forgot to mention the bus stop is the end of the sprint guys…I can just imagine 100km into the old peoples home. We pushed the speed up going back to Canning Bridge and then back along the freeway was steady with a reasonable amount of traffic on the bike path keeping the pace down a little. Overall a really good ride. Carol