by dr ronny
First of all, apologies for not getting round to posting last week’s ride report. We had another good turnout with around 16-20 people this week, some new faces, some old. After getting to the carpark with a puncture and having to change the tire 3 times (the first 2 didn’t work), I finally got the group going – the only problem being that I took them in the wrong direction.
Once we got onto Canning Hwy we made our way onto Great Eastern Hwy and then took my patented scenic second turn onto Belgravia and past Ascot race course. We made our way to Benara Rd and began rolling through.
The roll through was a little uneven, probably no different from last week but with the tail wind, it should have been much smoother. A few people seemed to slow quite a bit when they got to the front and it’s best if they consider skipping a few turns to keep themselves fresh for the run home. Learning to survive is as important a skill as learning to roll through well, probably more so, and the two are mutually dependent.
We made our way through Morley and then onto Guildford where a few of the newer faces from the Development group began to struggle up each small rise. This required a lot of easing up and a short wait by the side of the road due to the lights splitting the group even more.
Everyone made it up Plain St and we were all together by the bottom of the hill to arrive at the Bell Tower a little late, mainly due to my puncture at the beginning of the ride.
Ronnie, you did a FAB job at keeping the group together! Esp with your tyre giving you grief. There was a wide base of fitness levels within the group so you needed to bring us together quickly. I’m glad you made the calls you did to keep us together. Where there were orange lights, we did need to have someone strong at the back encouraging the riders to roll through, so we didn’t break at every intersection. Early morning traffic will see us as a group and give us the leeway we needed. Fitness wise, I wanted to throw myself at the hills, but we needed to be a group.
Have you thought about how we can arrange ourselves next week? T1 and T2 need to be split obviously, so do we need the T1 people to join M3 or did this happen last week?
I’m about to head to India for a couple of weeks so don’t mind what you do in the short term. i gotta get fit in the medium term on curry and basmati rice in Goa!
(Purple) Sarah.
Hi Sarah, there’s only one T group now as most of what use to be T1 has become M3. I agree, the spread of speeds was a little greater than in the past few weeks but with a few more weeks, the slower guys will get faster 🙂
Thanks Ronny, I’ll see how fit I am after rice and curries every day for the next 2 weeks. It’s amazing how quickly the dev group will come up in the next few weeks, and good for them as they are so positive!
I was sooooo exhausted in my early SPR weeks, My w2 there was no Dev group so I had to go T2 and followed through W1-W4 . They so can do it – Vicky if you are reading this, let it happen!!!
I had a general op on Wednesday and the monitor reported my resting heart rate at 50bpm. I was surprised by this but guess it’s my health improvement! After the op my heart rate went below 40 and the beeper continually went off, only no-one said anything. I guess it was cool, just me being in relaxation mode?
Happy Easter to you and all T & D groups & leaders!!! And you M3 riders who have broken away. I hope to be joining you someday very soon!
Oh and the extra 10km, I guess we can all do it if we try!!!