ride report by peter.
0.1 deg. see that isn’t zero. not even close. well that is the official temp at 7:00am and that is on top of one of the building in the city. i drove over to the bell tower and while riding over to the start, i am sure it dropped a couple of degrees going from the city to south perth. numbers were a good reflection of this and usually follow the temperature down. as such we combined the two main groups and sent everyone on their way.
well, i started heading out on the fast group ride and looked back to see if anyone was going to follow me. at first i thought that i was going to be on my own. by the time i reached the lights at mill point rd, we had a massive group of six. probably not just the temperature, but also the course kept some people away from the fast group. we were going to tackle gooseberry hill.
joining me today were captain poseur, ben diesel, danny boy, daisy ainsworth and tim (with no real nickname yet). no pace on at all today and we could hardly be called the fast group. we basically took turns riding two abreast all the way out to gooseberry. it was cold and muscles were not really in the mood for any hard riding. plus everyone was saving themselves for the goose.
it was obvious that we were going to stick together today and agreed to regroup at the top of the climb. my legs were so stiff and hammy’s so tight that i really had trouble from the start. danny boy was off like a shot but got reeled in early and the four headed up the hill with tim and myself off the back. that is pretty much the way it stayed to the end as i made no ground on anyone.
just some facts for those of you that haven’t done the goose before. it has two main sections of climbing with a short flat section as it skirts around the hill. the first section is the “easiest” but still manages to hit 12% before it reaches the flat. once you round the corner, it starts heading up again. the first section hits that 12% pretty quickly and you roll back through the gears that you changed up to on the flat. pretty soon you run out and next thing you know you are just standing to keep some semblance of cadence. it takes a couple of bends as it wraps around the hill so you can’t even see the top as you continue on. each time it takes a bend it seems to get steeper. finally you can see the traffic sign for the roundabout at the top, but that is where it is the steepest. it peaks out at around 18% just before you crest the top.
tim hadn’t done that climb before and slowed a bit towards the end, but i was still a convincing last. we headed down the zig-zag and onto Helena valley rd. we continued to stay together and all started to do work at the front. it stayed this way from midland all the way to maylands. once the rolling hills started we lost tim for a while after he did a long turn on the front. as per our agreement, we slowed down and he finally managed to catch up once we turned onto east parade.
no real sprint to speak of, just a quickening of pace as we approached the end. so even with the cold weather and low numbers, it was still a good ride.