brief ride report.

about 30 or so people headed out this morning, with the majority taking the short option.  about 4 or so also used the ride to get down to the atta tt at champion lakes.  the handful that opted for the long ride had 4 climbs to tackle with some pretty steep gradients involved. 

canning mills road – when will it end.

for those that hadn’t ridden up this hill before, it was a matter of what is around the next corner.  the road winds up around the hillside so you cannot always see how far people are ahead and when the climb actually finishes.  it does flatten significantly towards the end, but by then the damage to your legs has been done.  the main part of the climb probably averages about 10% for a couple of kms.  bonner set the pace early and we all just fell into line.

bonner, aurecon nick, pete, schneiderman, mathew_s

urch/peet – no sprint.

a quick descent down urch and we are soon climbing up the other side.  geoffrey was first to set the pace using his speed from the descent but that was soon washed off.  i took the pace setting as we turned onto peet and had nick in tow.  we were setting (what i thought was) a good pace until bonner sidles up past us halfway up the climb.  it was then a matter of getting on his wheel and hang on till the top.  we stayed on down the short descent and then on the uphill drag to the school.  in the last 100 metres i kicked off a sprint and neither of them reacted.

pete, aurecon nick, bonner, paul_o, schneiderman

observatory – gifts.

across to pickering brook and onto our second last climb up the observatory.  the pace wasn’t too high and a group of five formed early.  i was going for different tactics this time and rode next to bonner with the others all in tow.  a couple of times i threw in an acceleration to try to shake some of the other loose, but each time they just held the bonner wheel and it all came back together.  one last kick on the final pitch got me to the line first and bonner gifted the remain points to the others.

pete, aurecon nick, schniederman, paul_o, bonner

lawnbrook – no gifts.

always fun to go fast, we bombed down from the observatory and straight into the final climb up lawnbrook.  this climb pretty much starts at about 15% and eases slightly the further up the hill you get.  i started the pace setting with nick and were a little way up the first pitch when bonner comes past.  not sprinting, not attacking, but nice controlled seated climbing.  i immeadiately jumped on his wheel and held on fast.  i lasted about 15 sec before i just couldn’t hold it any longer.  i was doing close to 500 watts just trying to match his pace and was soon in the red.  i eased up and nick, mat and paul all came past.  i recovered enough to stick with paul for a while and soon got into a rythmn.  increasing the pace, i managed to pick up mat, but i had given too much ground to nick and bonner wasn’t even in sight any more.  the road eventually flattens out and by then nick had picked up another random rider and mat was on my wheel.  a big tt effort on this stretch found us back to a group of 4 (well 3 and a random) heading into the final stretch.  i kicked coming out of the roundabout as the road heads upwards ever so slightly and got a break over nick.  mat was on my wheel though and came past me when i eventually ran out of juice.  nick also got past before the line but we were so far behind bonner that he probably already finished his coffee by now.

back in 2004 when armstrong chased down kloden for the stage win on a mountain top bernard hinault shook his hand on the stage and said “perfect, no gifts”.  bonner didn’t wait till the sprint finish.  he gave his gifts early and there was no way we were getting another climb.

bonner, mathew_s, aurecon nick, pete, paul_o

coffee or something.