Training ride write up by Jarrad

“If you’re going through hell, keep going”, – Winston Churchill…

The day began innocently enough, with a bit of a chill (definately not summer anymore) in the air, the recent order of arm warmers aplenty certainly put to good use. A group of thirty-odd rolled out from the car park and off onto our merry, or perhaps not so, way.

Riding down towards Canning, a nice social pace allowed for pkenty of indecent conversation, and along the way we ‘absorbed’, for lack of a better word another smallish group. Over the Leach Hwy and down towards Shelley, typically this is a little section of uninterrupted road which some people like to open it up a bit, and so, the usuals moved to the front to turn it up. I say usuals plural, but really, from what i could see (at about 2nd last wheel), it was Ryan, Neil from Plan B, and maybe one or two others trying to roll through now and then. I thought it best to give the poor guys a hand and came from the back of the group all the way up, thinking that a nice smooth roll-through shall follow my lead (I should say i’ll try and avoid writing this as self-centric as much as possible). I was wrong, and so the next few kilometers which followed were basically a strung out line, with (i counted) four of us doing (very) intermittent turns at the front, and certainly Neil probably consisting 50-odd% of the work.

A quick re-group, and everyone looked a little more ragged than ten minutes ago, we were off onto Leach Hwy, still with around 30-odd intact. This time we seemed to get the roll through working a little better, which did allow more ‘mingling’ amonst the group. It was during the roll through that one of the more shocking developments in the cycling world became apparent: Knicks with rear ‘ventilation’.

I’ll admit I don’t really understand alot of weird cycling traditions, and still cannot really satisfy myself as to why cyclists (including me) shave their legs (yes, i know, massage, road rash, i’ve heard them all), but coming from someone who dresses up in lycra, the majority of which is white even, i really cannot understand, why the h3ll anyone would ever devise a pair of knicks with a mesh ‘window’ about 3 inches below the crack propagation point.

Anyway, with that in my mind we kept a decent roll through going along Leach, at least for a while, until i noticed again the pace kind of increased, and fewer people were gettin’ involved.

“Not to worry, the rolling hills are here now, and the freeloaders won’t last.”

So the inclines begun, and both Neil and Ryan decided that gravity doesn’t matter to them and flew up the first few rollers, i didn’t seem to be capable of bending such principles of physics (to me they’re laws i obey), and it was about now that the hurt came on.

“Great. Now i’m a freeloader now too, well, i better hold that wheel so as not to annoy my fellow freeloaders.”

Gritting teeth and holding on, we ended up being caught at a set of lights. It was upon stopping i realised that ‘we’ had dropped everyone. ‘We’ being Ryan, Neil, freeloader/poseur 1 (me), and Poseur 2 (Jerard). All of that effort ‘we’ had just put in came to naught when a reduced rest-of-group came rolling up to the lights, and off on our painful, painful way we were again. A couple of small rollers more and we’re headed home along the Stirling Hwy, and after a few traffic lights, the group was back upto around 15 or 20-odd.

Left turn off the highway and time for more rollers through Mosman Park, woo-hoo. Another very limited roll through ensued (3 people), and time for the incline up to the water tower, which basically consisted of Ryan now, doing a rather good impression of a motorbike (again), and myself, and now even Neil, gritting teeth (or at least feigning grit-teeth) and hanging on behind up to the water tower, with Jerard and Jonny close back there too.

Back down the hill through Mosman Park and what started as thirty was now five, however it became clear to me that as we travelled the rise up towards Dalkeith, we were pushing along a fairly brisk pace (around 45kph-uphill), which wasn’t leaving the legs nice an limber for the rest of the short climb ahead. It was here that Ryan resumed his neglect for gravity and continued upwards, whist the rest of us did what we could with what was left. I was beginning to think about jumping off my bike, throwing it in the river and calling a cab at this point.

Stopping at the lights on Stirling Hwy again, the four of us (Neil, Jerard, Jonny and me) caught up with Ryan and picked up Peter, Daniel, and i think Jason and a couple more, who share a similar insouciance toward physics and warped space-time to be ahead of us. Now back to familiar territory, Neil seemed to have his action legs back and we motored along with a few sharing the work at the front.

After getting caught at the lights, the run home to the Old Brewery begun with a inverse roll through (which was actually the right way), which left Neil back on the front (as usual), from which he drove the pace up. With around 300-odd to go Ryan jumped from behind Neil, with the Poser jumping also, albeit a from couple of wheels back,  and the chase was on. Ryan took line honours from the Poser and Neil, although in Neil’s defence, he likely wasn’t aware of the finish point, didn’t particularly care too much, and did a h3ll of alot of work at the front.

To sum up, probably one of the hardest fast group rides in a while (although curiously, fairly slow on the old speedo), which i’m not even sure i enjoyed, but at least it was fairly safe.

Cpt Poser.