I know this is bit late, but thought I’d write my virgin SPR ride report on last Sunday’s long hills ride as it doesn’t look like anyone else is going to. Plus I have the all important hill points to report.
The day started as per usual with everyone assembled in the Coode Street carpark. The group was significantly smaller than normal, due to either the race being held that day or everyone having a brownie hangover from the breakfast the day before 🙂 We were all just chatting away, waiting for Pete to take charge and tell us where we’re going. One problem, no Pete! It wasn’t until we looked at our clocks/speedos/fancy GPS units that we realised it was 7:10am and we still straddling bikes in the carpark. I knew where the long group were headed but was unsure of the dogleg extension north of the Great Eastern but luckily a couple of guys either knew where we were going or had the ride plugged into their GPS. The short group were still discussing where they were going when we rode out of the carpark! We were (nearly) lost without you, Pete/normal galliant leaders.
Anyway, the ride out to Greenmount was nice and fast with no ghastly easterly to slow us down. The group managed to stay together well and we made it to the scarp in good time. Somewhere just outside of Midland I looked back to see the short group make a last minute decision to peel off and make their way to Kalamunda. Hope they made it ok! Looked like someone had grabbed the bull by the horns by that point and decided where they were going. Good job guys. This left a group of about 15 people in for the long hard slog, with me being the token female. The climb up the scarp started very sedately, with no one making an early sprint off and everyone happy for Mike B to do all the work. But soon enough Mark O sprinted off like a mountain goat. I arrogantly tried to follow him with the small (and ultimately unrealistic) hope of adding to the one, glorious hill classification point I earned a couple of months ago. But it wasn’t to be. At about the ¾ point of the climb a few of the others overtook me like I was standing still and I was on my own, mid-pack for the final few 100 metres. But I did come in 7th I think, which isn’t too bad, but a fair way off a hill point. Sato had a stonker and somehow beat Mike up, with Mark O holding on for third, Morrison getting fourth and Summer fifth. At this point Mike left us to find our own way/pull ourselves up the hills, to ride back through Darlington.
Next for the bone breaking, carbon cracking ride through John Forrest. But still, lovely scenery (if you dare to take your eyes off the road bumps for a few seconds). The short but VERY sharp second climb into Parkerville was won by Summer, with Mark O, Simon, Mark S and Morrison in that order close behind him. After a bit more undulation and a drink refill we were crossing the Great Eastern on our way to Mundaring Weir. Having never ridden that Parkerville extension, I have to admit that I really enjoyed it, despite the questionable road surface. The last fast bit was awesome!
So for the descent down to Mundaring Weir, my least favourite part of the hills as I always get dropped like a hot potato and hence have a lot of work to do catching everyone up on the climb the other side. The disadvantages to being small! However, it must have been my two full water bottles, as I managed to hold on for longer than normal and was only a few hundred metres behind the tail end of the pack at the start of the ‘never-ending’ climb. I love that climb (and I’m not being sarcastic)!! So much fun. Managed to catch the back of the group and ‘chick’ enough of the guys to regain some dignity after my descent dropping experience, but I think Sato, Mark O, Simon, Summer and Morrison (who finished in that order), were still waiting a while at the regroup point. But still, was very pleased with that climb and even more glad the boys didn’t have to wait for me.
Having really smashed the legs to catch up, I didn’t have much left for the final climb into Kalmunda, but thanks to a healthy competitive spirit and plenty of guys to chase/be over taken by, I managed to find my rhythm and make it just fine up. I think a couple of the others were feeling it at this point too. I heard the words ‘legs’ and ‘fire’ used in the same sentence more than once! Sato once again took line honours with Morrison breaking his trend for the day to valiantly take second, with Summer, Dan (?) and Simon behind them.
What made this ride super awesome was that as we were only a small group we all stopped for coffee/hot chocolate/copious amounts of sugar/way too healthy looking gluten free bars at the Tea Merchant and hence did the ride back into town as the same group that had started (minus Mike). The ride back was pretty uncomplicated as per usual, but we were unlucky with the lights a lot and hence got split several times, despite our small size. The wind also seemed to be against us, but everyone took their turn at the front with Simon doing a particularly stirling effort.
Overall I had an awesome morning. One of the best hills rides in a long time. Great route, we all managed to stay together pretty well with no really long regroup waits, no punctures and best of all, great company. Thanks guys!
Token Female (Leah)
