crazy week just passed. all set for the state time trial in dardanup. been doing lots more kms on the tt rig in preparation. one final spin on thursday morning to fire the legs up and then BAM. hit the deck on preston point road. few holes in my gloves, vest and knee and a bit stiff and sore but walked away relatively unscathed. ok, still right for the time trial and BAM. half the family down with gastro first thing saturday morning. ok, no time trial saturday, no hills ride sunday make preparations for the coming week and BAM. once gastro enters your house, you cannot avoid it. monday write off. tuesday tentatively back on the bike but feeling as weak as someone who had recently been drained of all bodily fluids. wednesday birthday, so had the day off work and rode my bike doing repeats of the zig-zag. hopefully i can get some structure to this week and less BAM.
preston point road – so i got an email today saying the the roadworks are pretty much finished. no bumps or potholes just smooth road waiting for lines to be marked. i would say for now, we will continue to keep off this section of road. the diversion along canning hwy isn’t too bad and it still has a climb albeit longer and shallower. the traffic is light first thing in the morning so we may just wait to see how things go. i have heard a few rumblings that the cycling communities protests about that road have been getting through, so fingers crossed they widen it back out again. this future development is the main reason we will avoid it for now. i am pretty sure after the first few bike car interactions, they will get the message. i just don’t want that to involve our group.
tour de kalamunda – this is a test event for a potential tour to be held in the future. this year there is only a prologue and it travels up the zig-zag all the way to kalamunda. only 7.2 km in distance, but it is climbing the whole way. not that bad so i am going to take the time trial bike. start list shows that i am starting 2 min behind neil manning (ex state road champ) and 2 min in front of bradley linfield (south west wunderkind). please let me get past the zig-zag section before bradley catches me…
ride routes – on sunday both the long and short groups will need to look out for a couple of other races that are going on. at kalamunda, the time trial up the zig-zag will mean that the zig-zag will be closed to traffic. till about 10:30am. also there is a club race on at pickering brook, so we need to avoid the observatory hill. go forth and ride.
saturday 28th may
ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am
early lap – spr earlybird ride
all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am
development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)
transitional 1 – spr saturday 40.72km (mosman park)
fast, main 1, 2 & 3 – spr saturday 50.72km (rebold hill & cott)
sunday 29th may
ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am
early lap – spr earlybird ride
all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am
short – spr sunday 82.79km (brookton & weir rd)
long – spr sunday 92.56km (carradine & peet)
Brookton highway? Fab, might give sunday a go then. Yeeey, reobald and cott; noice.
Thks chaps for this morning’s ride. I didn’t have to do one iota of work – apart from having to time trial most of shelleys when someone let a gap go.
Note there have been reports of cyclists getting “bullied” even more than usual by cars trying to force their way through the preston point road stretch since the traffic calmers have been put in – so i think the canning hwy option is much better for the time being at least. Please continue to take extra care if you do ride preston point rd.
does anybody know what was the best time (approx.) for last year Tour de Kalamunda time trial?
hey george,
this wasn’t run last year, but the best time on strava is about 17 min.
i would say that the top elite guys will be quite a few minute faster than that.
even at 30km/hr it is a 14:30min time. i expect that it will be even faster looking at the names on the start list.
No probs this morning Lennie; was a little quick to start so I thunk Shelly hurt a few of the slower ones in the group; dropped on Friday is waayyy uncool so it was time for a more ‘sensible’ pace after that. Still fun and great for the first ride of the ‘weekend’!!
I know how you feel Pete, gastro sucks! I came down with it on Sunday arvo after the hills ride. I spent Monday morning in hospital and didn’t get back on the bike until today. Add that to 7 weeks off the bike and I feel very weak. Betty White on a penny-farthing would kick my arse up the zig-zag.
Thanks Pete, I did a trial run today on Zig-Zag, almost got wiped out by the car on one way stretch. My time was approx. 20 min, but I wasn’t pushing very hard. I hope to do better on the day. Good luck on Sunday in Mens-Elite group
When you say “Reabold Hill”, do you mean ride up (the shared pathway) to the car park at the top of the hill within Bold Park? It doesn’t suggest that on the map, but Map My Ride may not have wanted to leave the road.
Here’s hoping.
mike, you can deviate and do the shared path climb if you want (or lead the fast group up there), but the route stays on the road for us tomorrow.
kinda like going to the pub and not having a beer..
Mike, the ride goes along Oceanic Drive after going through Bold Park – it does not go up the Scenic Drive to the carpark (thankfully)