hot.  hot and windy.  hot, windy and hills.  the three things that make cycling so much fun.  i was lying in bed last night listening to the wind thinking that it was going to be a hard ride today.  a few others may have thought the same and bloused it as there were only seven starters this morning.  actually i think there was 10, but a couple left to do a river ride instead when they saw that there was no peloton to hide in today.

so we set out towards orong road and into the blustery easterly.  it wasn’t the constant wind that you can deal with, but a very gusty, turbulent wind that meant it was hard to keep a straight wheel.  once we hit orong road and welshpool, it got worse.  as the building started to thin out a bit, the wind picked up.  not only that, it turned many of the areas into a free sandblasting service.  i wasn’t worried about the paint stripping of my bike, but more worried about the flesh being stripped from my bones. 

even breathing was a problem.  you keep your mouth shut to stop the dirt, bugs, small marsupials from being blown into your mouth, but it is coming past your head so fast, it is hard to breath through your nose.  the compromise is to rinse your mouth out every now and then before a sandpit builds up in there.

the closer we got to the hill, the worse it got.  at one stage i looked at the bike computer and we were doing 20km/hr and i was pushing 400 watts to be able to maintain that. 

the hill started and mike, stu, jamie and john took off.  jason and nick were somewhere off the back of them and nathan and i were bringing up the rear.  not my normal position for a sunday morning, but realistically, my normal position has been not on the bike.  i can’t actually remember the last hills ride i was on.  this was going to hurt.

there were no surges and no attacks from me today, as i was just trying to get to the end.  nathan and i caught jason and nick and formed a little quartet to tackle the rest of the climb up lesmurdie road.  the other 4 had clearly gone ahead and were out of sight before we turned.  however, a couple of twists later, i saw mike just up ahead.  i thought that they may have waited for us to make sure we went the right way, but actually they stopped to extract a stick that had become embedded in john’s shin.  there was lots of debris on the road this morning and the edges were pretty much full of all kinds of tree products, from little twigs to branches.  there also seemed to be lots of different roadkill, rats, possums, foxes and blue tongues.

we kept on riding and had the top 4 in sight until the end.  not sure on the finishing order as no-one was really keeping track today.  jason decided to leave us there and the rest of us took the descent down lawnbrook.  along the way greg jumped on board to join us for the remainder of the ride.  again there was lots of debris on the road and mike said he almost had a “snuggles” moment when he hit a gumnut.

up the other side and you quickly go from 60km/hr to 10km/hr as the hill pitches up at 15%.  tempos were set and everyone fell into the same routine as the last climb.  nathan and i bringing up the rear until about halfway up the climb when we caught nick and greg.  the same top four as last time were well and truly up the road and out of sight.  well actually, by the time we could see the finishline up ahead, stu and mike had turned around to ride back up again with us.  i remember when i used to be able to do that.  sniff, sigh.

a decision was made and nick, nathan and i would forgo the camelberg and just go straight to coffee.  when we hit mundaring weir road, those that wanted and extra climb went right, while the rest headed left.  with a tailwind for a change, it could have been the opportunity for a pb on this climb, but that generally assumes that you have some form leading into it.  not in my camp.  it was just another climb for me today, but like the others, i was trying to stick to a set power output and adjust my riding to suit.  this generally meant that you are on the gears a lot more as you need to make sure you don’t go too hard or too easy.  the easiest place to “lose” it was when the road flattened a bit and you suddenly found it too easy.  you really need to get the bike moving in order to keep the power up.

so i made it to the top and found that all the coffee shops were closed.  nathan headed to his parents place in the hills and nick and i grabbed a drink at the servo and then waited for the others to arrive.  with the wind the way it was, it was decided that welshpool may be a bit hairy for a descent today and we opted for the zig-zag instead.  from there, greg and jamie headed back towards welshpool via hale rd while the rest of us used the tailwind to get home fast via guilford road.

twas a good ride, though quite painful for me after such a long time away from the hills.  public holiday ride tomorrow (i won’t be there so organise yourself) but i am trying to do the 2 laps on tuesday morning.  see you there.