by dr ronny

Another beautiful morning saw me get up a little earlier than usual. I’d arranged with Lynda for her to try Miss Emma’s wheels to see if she could discern any difference in performance to her usual set. Conveniently, I’d also had my wheel at Yas’s getting trued so I devised an ingenius (but as it turns out, not guaranteed) plan to make it all work. I would use Emma’s front wheel to go to Yas’s whilst I carried her rear wheel. I had tried it the night before and found my heart rate monitor strap to be a convenient device to put around a wheel and carry it turtle style, freeing both hands to steer the bike. I would then pick up my front wheel from Yas and carry both wheels to the start point where we would put the wheels on Lynda’s bike. I’d arranged with Lynda and Bernie to have them bring a lockring to put on her cassette so I wouldn’t have to carry tools, front tyre/tube/rim tape and Emma’s rear wheel all at once to the ride.
Suprisingly, this worked well. I could ride with both hands on the hoods holding my front wheel with a couple of fingers and had the rear wheel slung over my back out of the way.

I got to the starting point and thought the hard work had been done until Bernie informed me that his chain whip to remove Lynda’s cassette had broken. I thought it might work so we gave it another go whilst the big truck crashed into a wooden bollard only to see it totally snap. Crap – I hadn’t envisaged a broken chain whip in my planning. So, without being able to change the cassette, we put the front wheel on Lynda’s bike and set off.

There were 13 today which I thought would be ideal for the roll-through. Coming up from the Development Squad was Sandy for the first time. The trip down Canning was uneventful and we got onto Northlake Rd without a problem. Once we crossed Leach Hwy, the big hill before South St saw the group split a little. Lynda and Sandy made it over the top and had to chase along South St. Lynda dug deep and did a good job to finally get back on around the Freeway. Sandy and I were off the back and fortunately the group waited for a couple of minutes to let us catch up.

We weren’t back for long before a small rise split us again and this time Lynda and Sandy had more company with Andrew on his Focus joining too. We managed to get back to the group as they waited at the lights to turn onto Bannister. Now, the last time we came they were doing roadworks with a big hole in the middle of the only lane open. This week, they were doing more with traffic banked up for quite a while.
We sat there for a minute and I seem to remember telling Lynda, Sandy and Andrew to NOT go in the roll through and to sit at the back with me to recover for a while and see what the pace was like. If they felt like it, they could join in later on but I’d seen how they had suffered over the hills and along South St so I wanted them to make it through this section.

Someone smart at the front suggested we go through the carpark on the corner and much to our delight, once we came out onto Bannister, we found 30 cars waiting to turn right leaving Bannister all to ourselves. Lynda and Sandy managed to find themselves in the right lane in the middle of the group and when the roll through began, they joined in. I sat at the back with Andrew and watched as the group slowly creeped the pace up. There was a slight headwind and the first 3-4 minutes was a little disjointed probably due to the slow pace to begin with. Once a good pace was set, the roll through began to look very good. And I mean VERY good.

Andrew joined in and did 2 excellent turns just about the time when Sandy and then Lynda were dropped unceremoniously. I moved towards the back to see where they were and found myself next to a new rider (the blonde lady talking to Pete at the beginning of the ride) and she seemed spent so we sat up the back and observed the tiring group. I thought about dropping back to help the other two but I had less sympathy than usual at that point as they had did what I told them not to do and then blown up as a result.

By this time, more than a few riders where getting tired and no one was coming through on the right and it was left to Tracy and a few others to lead the single pace line for a few minutes into the slight headwind. After a little while, some of the guys up the back restarted the roll through with success before we turned onto Nicholson. I moved to the front to slow things down to wait for the dropped riders and before long Lynda was back on. Sandy was no where to be seen and I pulled over and waited for him to make sure he was ok. I found him after a few minutes and paced him along Nicholson, then onto Albany Hwy where we had a good run of green lights. We found the group sitting on the side of the road waiting for us and thanked them as we went past before we had to stop at our first red light. Unbeknowst to me, Sandy cramped up at the lights and fell off the back again. When we stopped at the next set of lights, I noticed he was gone and waited again as I told the others to get to coffee. I rode backwards and found him a few minutes later. He said his cramp was gone by then so I decided to try to get back to the group, leaving him to get to coffee. I’d already missed more than half of the ride so I tucked down and went into time trial mode. I saw the group up ahead and made slow but steady ground on them thinking they were going mighty fast today. When I got onto the back of them, I realised it was Main Group 2 (whoops! )so I joined them for the sprint home. It’s good to see Ivan whose form must be continuing to improve as he was sitting safely in that group – most of whom I think have come through the Saturday Transitional group including Nathan, Jamie and Nigel.

I got to coffee to find my group. I’m not sure if there was a sprint with all the road closures so someone will have to fill me in. Sandy made it safely in about 10 minutes later.

Overall, a good safe ride although I missed most of it. The roll through was solid considering we hadn’t done one in 3 weeks and we had a headwind and a few new riders, but overall, these people are definitely getting better.

The pace was slow today and I can only thank the group for stopping and easing up so many times. We will be going faster next week so beware.

PS – Yas has done an excellent job of truing my front wheel. It’s probably the hardest wheel in the world to true as it’s only got 14 spokes which are paired. I had a good look last night and I can’t even see a hint of a wobble.  If you have any bike related problems or maintenance to do, I would highly recommend using him. He’s also conveniently located about 20m from the other end of Coode St.