ride report by peter.

cold.  yes it was cold.  damn cold.  officially it was -0.3 deg at 7:00 dropping even further to -0.6 deg at 7:30.  numbers were down accordingly and combined with the cyclo-sportif on the next day, the fast group only had 9 starters.  as we rolled out, ryan turned up in his car so i yelled at him that we were doing scarborough beach rd and let him work it out from there.  we headed off along riverside drive content to just have a chat and ease our way into it.  somewhere along mounts bay rd, ryan came flying past and sat out in front for a while.  he was all warmed up now after chasing for a few kms so was hoping for a quicker pace.  we dragged him back in and took the turn around the back of kings park.

we set a decent pace up the hill and got everyone warmed up by the time we hit the top.  steve and matty were with us after returning from a couple of bike races in indonesia (see previous posts).  however, neither of them were too worried about smashing it up today.  we made it up to scarborough beach rd before the pace began to pickup a bit.  we had a bit of trouble through mt hawthorn and a few (including myself) fell off the back slightly.  nothing too bad, but enough to get us caught at the lights…and the next set…and the next set.  by the time we got going, i expected that we would never be able to catch back up, but the group had graciously pulled over and was waiting on the side of the road.

as we reached them, we kept riding, meaning that suddenly julian and i were now at the front leading into the rolling hills.  not a good sign for me as the group was not big enough to be able to hide in.  i rolled out before the pace went on so that i could try to find a nice wheel to hide behind.  julian stayed at the front but before long, ryan and vaughan stepped up the pace.  half the bunch reacted, but the other half were content to tap away.  since i was not riding on sunday, i though i better put in some type of effort and i tried to bridge across.  i picked up a couple of riders that had popped off, but was always just a little bit out of reach of the front two.  just after they crested the last hill i managed to make contact, only to be pulled up by the traffic lights.

the rest of the group bunched up behind us so we were ready for the final couple of hills.  unfortunately one of the reasons the traffic was all backed up was the fact that there was a very large piece of equipment being transported along the road at a very slow pace.  we all justslow timed it and rode the rest of scarborough beach rd with the traffic.

west coast hwy was pretty sedate and most were happy to just tap away.  that was until vaughan and ryan decided to have a crack and the pace went up substantially.  i didn’t feel like chasing so went and sat at the back of the class.  i wasn’t the only one as soon we were spread all down the road.  we made the turn onto the boulevard and up the first climb.  i was right at the back by now and not making any ground so started looking through my garmin for shortcut options.  danny boy was just in front of me with julian a bit further along.  i called out to jules, but he was out of ear-shot when we turned up kalinda drive.  it was a shortcut but it wasn’t actually that easy as it followed a hill up to the watertower.  once we came down the other side it was just a easy roll back down to west coast hwy.

we set a nice tempo along the hwy and fully expected the group to swamp us at any moment.  i was always looking back in anticipation but still nothing by the time we hit the swanbourne shops.  dannyboy wondered whether they had stopped to wait for us and i had hoped that it wasn’t the case.  as we hit stirling hwy a small group of three or four caught up to us.  ryan, vaughan, steve were there, but not sure who else.  with no mass sprint expected, we set a nice pace through dalkeith and on to mounts bay road.  the problem with writing something up so late is now i can’t actually remember what happened next.  did the rest of the group catch up???  what happened in the sprint???  call it early –alzheimers,  but after the rest of the weekends activities, this part of the ride seems to have been purged from my memory.  feel free to fill in the blanks.