some of you may have wondered what has happened to south african mark lately. he used to be a regular on our rides and he used to be the one that everyone had to chase up the hills on sunday. well it seems that recently he has taken to fishing as the sport of choice. not only that, but a handline from an oil rig off the vietnam coast seems the perfect place to catch lunch. work being that thing that gets in the way of cycling recently, he hopes to be back out with us soon. minus the fish but hopefully the orange jumpsuit remains.
you may have noticed that i have added a multimedia page to the blog. this contains all the photo’s that i took the other day when i was chasing the group around. i had to reduce them down a bit to make it more manageable, so if you need supersized pics, let me know.
there has been some discussion with cycling wa recently about the possibility of our group becoming a proper cycling club. what this would mean for us i am not 100% sure right now and i need to have a further talk to wacf. it could, however, mean that our rides would be classed a club training rides and may be covered by licence insurance in case of an accident. there are other benefits as well, but it would also mean a club fee, licence fee and a proper organisational structure (pres, sec, treas, etc). i am not sure which way we will go with this yet but i would appreciate your comments and opinions, as after all it is your group too.
When I volunteered for the second (translation: slower) “A-team”, childhood memories of dodgy TV shows from the 80s came immediately to mind. Rob, our team captain, did a great job. Emails were exchanged the week leading up to the event and a ride strategy was formed. Judd got early team kudos for reconning the circuit and then sending us his polar computer readings complete with altitude, speed (interestingly displayed as minutes per kilometre), heart rate and hand written annotations.
The remaining members were: Schneiderman, Paul O, John B, Ben S and myself.
all smiles for a lovely day on the bike
Arriving last, I was greeted by the team and an injured but brownie wielding Lorraine (who tried to use them to lure some of the Plan B Wealth Management boys into her car).
Our strategy was simple, stay together, ride safely and have fun. We were towards the back of the A distance group, drawing Jj as our team letters (Pete and the others drew W).
The start was uneventful, we negotiated the windiest part of the course well and worked through the first lap. We were a little confused at the turnaround (that was my fault) and it wasn’t until the third lap when we finally got the hang of it (the trick is to enter it single file) but kept the paced steady heading back for the second lap.It was great to have John and Judd’s family cheering us on each lap whilst Lorraine took pictures of us (amongst the ones she took of the Plan B boys).
On the second lap, Rob began helping John up the steeper hills which prompted a discussion on what constituted a “push” versus a “touch”. After a short debate, we all decided that the difference begins when one starts to close the hand – so, an open palm was deemed a push whilst finger action constituted touching a man’s bum. The debate then moved on to whether John might ride faster if Rob began to “touch” him. Although team captain, Rob felt underqualified for this job and we made plans to try to recruit someone more qualified like a urologist to our team solely for this purpose next time.
We made good ground on the other teams on the downhills and caught about half of the teams that had already passed us heading out. After another turnaround, Judd got a puncture. At first he didn’t want to stop but we decided to pull over and fix it. Paul, John and I rode ahead slowly while we waited for the others to catch up.
All together again, we managed to finish as a team, proud we weren’t lapped by Pete and boys and with smiles on our faces. We found Lorraine handing out cans of Coke (another fanciful plan to lure the Plan B boys to her car) and then had lunch.
the leader of the pack
Rob deservedly won the “Le Petit General” award for keeping us together, making sure we had fun and most of all, for clarifying the intricacies of how to acceptably touch a man in lycra during a ride.
In all, we all had a lot of fun and we’re hoping for at least two “A” and two “B” teams for each event next year, so keep an eye out for the Cyclosportif calender and get your yearly licences for ‘09 so you don’t have to get a day licence each time.
Addendum by Rob (from here on to be known as the “pusher”; NOT the “toucher”)
Two points (thanks Ronny for a great report):
Judd’s flat – not sure how this happened but by the time it came to pump the changed wheel, Judd had managed to hand off to both Ben and me who then took turns pumping it up! Nice work if you can get it, Judd!
Fun – this was a great event, well organised and a great turn out. While I think we’ve all known that we have a great bunch of guys and girls in the SPR crew, it’s at these events and riding in a ‘team’ style, you really get to appreciate how lucky you are to be part of something like the Rouleurs. Thanks from the SPR2 crew to Pete for providing the platform for what everyone has come to really bond to. See you out there!
all I can say is that I am glad I wasnt doing a team time-trial into that wind.
5 lucky punters turned up by 7ish, so I was guaranteed to get some k.o.m points.
young alistair led us down great eastern toward ridge hill and goosberry. stan, bronywn, and a new guy called gregor, complete with thick scottish accent despite living the last 5 years in texas, who found out about spr’s sunday rides through mutual mountain bike friends, completed the mini-peleton.
A thick headwind became the flavour of the day as we swapped turns, battling single file towards ridge hill. rolling onto ridge hill we already felt as if we had earnt our coffees. Alistair and his new crisp shoes headed off for the zig-zag regroup with stan in tow. Gregor came around me and quickly caught the young lads up front. Bronwyn was saving her energy for goosberry hill and came in just behind me. Pete can overule, but young Al gets 1 point for being first to the top of the bonus climb followed by gregor, stan, myself and bronwyn.
At the top we were greeted with some of the smoothest, freshest and blackest hot mix I have ever seen, seems the local council had totally re-surfaced the ridge-hill descent to the roundabout – NICE.
onto gooseberry, and at this point I would like to thank pete for arranging a course which not only takes us away from the coffee shop, twice, but today would see us take on goosberry hill with (what felt like) a 30 knot gusty headwind. young alistair and gregor too off, and half way up (on the nasty bit) my saddle decided to come loose, at which point I stepped of to adjust and re-tighten. KOM points Alistair (10), Gregor(7), Stan(5), Darren(10),… just joking (3) and Bronwyn (1).
uneventful desecent down zig zag, and soon we found ourselves back on the new hotmix for a fast (wind assisted) descent down ridge-hill toward kalamunda.
onto kalamunda, Alistair and Gragor took off on the initial steep section and Stan, Brownyn and I held a pact to keep it together as the headwind had taken its toll and we were riding into it… again.
on the way up, I found out that stan was back on the bike after 3 or so months off after the birth of his 3rd (a little girl called phoebe) in july, congratulations stan, and despite a blood nose and lack of hills training, still beat me to the top. Seems SPR is having a mini babyboom. at the top I also learnt from bronwyn, that dr nik had a nasty tumble during the week – hope you have a speedy recovery. alistair was severely tested by gregor to take the k.o.m points (again). Alistair (10), Gregor(7), Stan(5), Darren(3), Bronwyn(1).
At the regoup in kalamunda we decided that a loop of bickley would be too much so we headed down mundaring weir road (after repairing a puncture on alistairs rear) and across to lawnbrook. Alistair and Gregor took off again but turned around at the “false” top of the hill. We all regrouped on the final part of the climb and had a slow motion sprint for the final KOM points, Alistair (10), Stan(7), Darren(5), Bronwyn(3) and Gregor(1).
uncharasterictically, we declined to make-good on the coffees that we had earnt and decided to head for home early. welshpool rd was very fast, with the larger (stan and myself) riders using our girth to good effect on the descent, despite some tricky cross winds. Alistair decided to turn off and do crystal brook road just for fun. the rest of us decided to “recover” on the ride home with a nice tailwind to boot.
thanks for the ride and I can deffinitely recommend the new hot mix on ridgehill to all.
over 500 riders entered for the last event of the season.this is an increase of 100 over last years event.it is a surprise really since this one is so close to home, i thought that a lot more would be coming out to play.there were more riders at the swan valley event, so i am guessing that this one suffers because the course is described as hilly.
the wind… what happened to the hot day, it was pretty cool when we started but didn’t take long to warm up.it wasn’t like we needed armwarmers and vest.and really i am just complaining because i didn’t take a jumper with me to the start.
three laps of a 25km circuit on roads that we often use for the sunday hills ride.especially the stretch between karagullen servo and pickering brook.any ride we do down towards armadale or the kahuna, will always follow that road to get to the coffee shop.i would not be able to count the number of times we have ridden along it.the little circuit around repatriation road had been added to our rides a couple of times recently mainly because we had this event coming up.
first corner, not tired just yet.
team of 8 – ryan, brendan, mike, michael, stu, jerry, bruce, peter.there is a maximum team size of 9 and a minimum of 5.it is rare for us to field a full team and even harder to get a good set of evenly matched riders.
teams off at 30 sec intervals meant that there would always be groups in front of us to chase down.it also meant that there would always be groups that we would have to pass which can be tricky.
michael gets a flat before we leave the car-park (for a change).he has a habit of flatting during these events, so hopefully this meant that we got that out of the way early.
lorraine also turned up to support the spr boys with evil brownies.i had one and it was probably the reason why i didn’t run out of energy during the race.
we started before the spr2 team (so we had no-one important to chase).the start order of the teams is usually reverse ability with the faster teams starting later.as we had not really raced these events before, the organisers did not know where to start us and put the second team starting 6 minutes behind us.
from about the halfway mark of the first lap, bruce was really struggling.he was finding it hard to keep the pace and couldn’t catch his breath.there was a burnt out area on the course and we suspect that he developed a bout of asthma from breathing in the smoke and other crap in the area.we changed tact and had six of us rolling through in two lines while bruce sat a the back with ryan pushing him to keep the pace up.at the end of the first lap, he peeled off and went to the medical tent with lorraine.
we kept the pace up for lap two and made good time passing other teams.it was getting more congested now as the 2 lap and 1 lap teams were on the course.this meant that some of the groups we were passing were alos getting passed by other groups.made things tight with riders coming the other way and general traffic on the road as well.on a couple of occasions we had to pass some cars that were unable to get around a group of slow riders.
start of lap 3, brendan realises his rear tyre is going soft.we are passing by the pickering brook school and he starts bouncing it to check the pressure.from behind, it is clear that it is going soft… fast.we go as far as we can, but he pulls over and i was expecting that he would change it.instead, ryan pulls out a gas bottle and they just pump it to get it hard again.we are off with minimum delay.
get to the turn around at karagullen and head back up the hill with brendan’s tyre slowly going down.we pull over again and ryan adds more gas.i was unsure whether they had enough so i grab my saddle bag, but the whole mount and everything comes off the bike. i then had to shove it all back in my pocket, wasting time as the rest of the group heads off.ryan waits for me and drafts me back to the pack.
end of first lap, getting tired now.
we head up the last climb before the finish and onto the nice smooth hotmix.brendan says that he can feel the valve every time the wheel rotates so it is pretty flat.ryan and he stop to gas again, while the rest of us just slow time it up the hill.some of the groups we have past are now passing us.once ryan and brendan catch back up, we all go hard to get to the finish.team u and i get caught up amongst us and we all finish in one big group.
finish in around 1:57 according to brendan’s speedo but we will wait for the official confirmation.each team captain was wearing a transponder which they will work the times out with.
as we regroup after at my car, lorraine pulls out the esky and provides everyone with a nice cold coke and brownies.we will be working on getting a spr sun shade to congregate around for next years races.
rob wins the leadership jersey for his work in keeping the spr2 team together and setting ground rules as to what constitutes a push and what is just touching another man’s bum.
all up a good hit out especially for spr2 as they had not raced this format before.
don’t actually know if this is an easier way to write the blog.seems to take just as long.
i have expanded a few points, but am sticking to the bullet system until i free up a bit of spare time.
about 30 riders.the nice weather seemed to have scared the rest away.
ryan did not turn up because he had to look after his puppy.he has been giving the rest of us crap about not turning up to training during the week due to family commitments, i guess we didn’t think about using the puppy excuse.sounds like he is puppy whipped.
idiot on motorbike near the casino tries to kill all of us. i love how motorbike riders complain about not getting any respect on the road and people should look out for them. then they come between us and the traffic at speed which had so much potential for disaster. as people are clipping in they tend to wobble around a bit and could have quite easily closed the gap between the rest of the pack and the cars in the other lane. see video here. no sound but you get the idea.
turned up the pace along hale rd until we ran into a road block.had to wait while a very, very large piece of equipment was towed by two semi’s and they had to clear the road… and wouldn’t let us on the footpath.see video here.
no-one wanted to make the first move on welshpool until a rider from another group came past us.then everyone chased him down.the poor guy said that he was just after a nice run home but we were going too slow, so he past us.huge chain reaction with james first taking off in pursuit then lots of individual riders chasing him.i was at the front plodding away.
i made a move on shep rd at the lights leading up to the last hill, but started from too far back.i got a gap, but was too buggered to continue the move.thought i had the group when the lights changed at the top of the hill, but a whole bunch got through with me.
holly made a gutsy move as we crossed the causeway.long way from home and a bunch of hungry sprinters ready to chase her down menat that she only lasted onto riverside drive.
we realised when we turned back onto riverside drive that the wind had now picked up and was in our face.
many a failed early move including one of mine which brendan used as a springboard to launch his attack.
sprint won by brendan with jerry taking second… again.
coffee shop was full out back so we sat out the front in the sun for a change.
cyclo-sportif tomorrow at pickering brook and we have 2 spr teams competing.
a 5:30am flight up to the pilbara on thursday morning meant that i didn’t get a chance to post the ride routes till tonight (friday). a long hot day looking at mining equipment also meant that i missed my normal thursday morning training ride. i thought about posting a really hard saturday route to make up for it, but then i would be screwed for the cyclo-sportif race on sunday.
so, we have a fairly subdued saturday morning ride which will have only one main sprint section all the way home along welshpool rd and shep rd.
as we have two groups attending the cyclo-sportif, sunday’s ride will be a challenge for anyone willing (or left) to chase mountain points. the challenge will be to keep going as this route will past by the coffee-shop twice before finally stopping in. don’t give in and let me know who took the first five places on each climb.
also, i have changed the format of the saturday rides page. instead of it loading a mapmyride map for each one, it now loads a jpeg of each ride and you click on each one to access another page that has the proper map embedded. this second map allows you to zoom in and pan around. i will get to the sunday rides page when i can.
if you watched the news on friday night, you may have seen the court case for the guy who backed his car over some cyclists at an intersection at the beginning of the year. apparently he felt threatened, so decided that the best thing to do was assault them with his car. he is potentially looking at 5yrs jail in which i hope he shares a cell with a big guy named “bubba”.
handicap races. i haven’t had a good trot with them this year as it is a totally different style of racing. the first was menzies to kalgoorlie where i hit the cramp wall at about 85kms and had to pull out. the group i was in was smashing along at 45km/hr from the gun and i just couldn’t hold that pace for 132kms. the next was the collie-donnybrook race where i had no legs left once the group hit the final climb. one of the guys in our group wanted to go hard from the gun to try to stay away from scratch. we didn’t have enough of a handicap for that to happen over 100kms. at least i finished that one.
this race at northam had the potential to be a hell of a lot worse as it was five laps of a circuit that contained the main climb out of town. it wasn’t a particularly hard climb, but over the 125kms it was going to wear the legs away each lap. so it was all going to come down to who was in our group and what handicap we would get. we being mike who was the only other spr rider to front up for this event. brendan and steve were racing as was davina who was going with the plan-b team. the rest of the spr crew were chasing mountain points around perth.
the day was pleasant enough with only a sprinkle of rain as i approached northam. the predicted top of 20ish was easily achievable and with a start time of 11:00 we would be racing in the “heat of the day”. not that it would be too much of a problem today.
i pulled into the start finish area as they were setting up tents and tables for the race and went looking for the sign-in point. hmmm. not here. apparently it was up the road at the visitors centre where they start the avon descent. back in the car as it was too far to walk. well too far if i was to do a 125km race as well. handed over my licence, collected my number and found out the handicaps. the plan b girls were off at 11:00 with another group 4min later. mike and i were off the 8min mark with hamish and dean from squadra barista off 12min. brendan was off 17min and steve somehow managed to be thrown in with the 21min group. after that there were the usual “a” grade boys in two groups back to 27min. on a 125km course with 5 hill climbs, i was sure that we would not be staying away from scratch to the end.
as we rolled up to the start line one of the guys in our group tried to set the ground rules. he didn’t want us to go too hard and smash the group apart early, but try to stay together for as long as we could. mike and i said that we were just trying to get to the end so weren’t looking at attacking and going on a 125km solo effort. as we set off, we had aussie crates guy who set the ground rules, lpr dude, knightfrank, melville fremantle guy along with mike and myself. a pretty small group and it would be interesting to see how well we did together.
the first couple of laps were pretty uneventful. the climb we tackled at an even tempo although on the second time up there were calls to take it easy. this was usually when mike went to the front to set the tempo which was generally higher than the other guys. i sprinted around to get on his wheel, but he wasn’t attacking, just going faster. these laps were really just getting an idea of the course and the wind direction. we did work well together and everyone did turns on the front without really missing a beat. the only problem was that they had started the juniors and they were now on the road in front of us, making it hard to know if you were gaining on our 4min men or not. at the top of the climb one of the young guys must have put a wheel in the dirt as he was sitting on the road edge with the bike on top of him. didn’t look too bad and there were some support people not far behind us, so we weren’t stopping.
at the start of the third lap we saw the group ahead of us on the climb. we had already pick up one of their number earlier on and i heard him say to one of our group that they had smashed it to try to catch the girls and he fell off the back on the hill. there were three or four riders in that group and when they saw us they kind of sat up and waited. we continued the climb together and i think we lost melville freo guy on this ascent.
we kept up the same tempo riding down the side of the hill and along the flats. pretty soon we saw the girls up ahead and the tint-a-car lead car just ahead. we swallowed up their group and our numbers hit that point where we could actually start rolling through instead of just doing turns. unfortunately this didn’t really work too well as some of the guys would smash off the front for their turn then stop pedalling causing a kind of sprint situation to close the gaps. this made the pace irregular and we eventually fell back into single turns at the front. unfortunately the pace change had caused us to drop a few more riders and when i looked around mel and josie were not there. we still had davina and claire with us along with half of the two other groups.
at the start of the fourth lap, we lost claire as the climb started but the rest of the group hung in there. after the small plateau halfway up the first section of road, an old guy from the 4min group in a ag2r kit took off. no-one was really keen to chase him as we were forcing a tempo up the hill and still had one more lap to go. mike and i did some turns at pace setting on the hill but i coped a mouthful from the crates guy who for some reason was accusing me of going slow to let the other guy get away. i have no idea what he was talking about as i was still just setting the same tempo.
as we crested the hill and headed back down, the group set up an informal roll through to chase the ag2r guys down. informal cause it is hard to get a proper roll through happening when you are all going at speed and also the pace was continuously surging. as the road flattened into a series of rolling bumps the group still tried to chase down, but it was really all over the place. a guy in front of me would literally sprint when he hit the front and then i would be left with a huge gap. i wasn’t sprinting and tried to close the gap without forcing another one to open behind me. after this happened a couple of times, the crates guy started yelling at me calling me a poofter and claiming that i was deliberately riding slow to let the other guy go. i’m pretty sure i told him what i thought and blamed him for not consistently rolling through and braking the group apart every time he hit the front. i was tempted to just sit in now as he had really pissed me off.
we kept going though and hit the flatter part of the course where we could get the roll through happening a lot smoother. about halfway back into town there was a yell from behind as the scratch group had caught us. there was a sprint to jump on board the train then i we were all content to sit in and let them dictate the pace. we came back through town and headed for the hill again. davina dropped off after the feed zone as the group rolled through the lower slopes. the pace was not extreme as we started the hill, but picked up with a couple of attacks which dislodged me, crates guy and mat from melville-freo who we picked up from the 4min group. just prior to that the crates guy had apologised for earlier on, but that’s just racing in the heat of the moment.
the main group slowed a bit on the plateau and i managed to claw my way back on. mike was still in that group as were a few others that we were originally riding with. the scratchmen kicked again and it was all over for me. i set a tempo to the top and worked with mat and crates guy (who never did a turn on the hill) to get over the climb. once at the top we started to the descent and started my cramps. the higher pace started cramping my calves and i had to ease off and let the other guys go. i made my way down the hill and actually stopped for a call of nature that i had been wanting to make since the 2nd lap. as i got underway again, davina along with three other guys picked me up and i joined in the roll through. i only lasted about three or four turns before my hamstrings began to cramp and i fell off the pace. the 45km/hr was too much for me that late in the race. i fell into damage control mode and made my way home.
it’s times like this i think i need some oakley thump sunnies that have the built in mp3 player. i get a bit bored riding the rest of the way by myself. there were two things that kept me interested. a huge lizard ran across the road in front of me. i hadn’t seen one that big since i lived in the plibara. and within 300m of the finishline, as i past a yellow car on the side of the road and three kids jumped out to frighten me and scared the utter crap out of me. lucky i didn’t fall off. i was glad to be finished.
no idea where i came except the crates guy and mat came in 8th and 9th so i think i came in 14th, but not sure until the results come out. post race i chatted with mike, to find out that he got dropped on the last pinch when the scratchmen attacked again. but he kept going and should have got a top ten finish. brendan pulled out with a coughing fit and has since been told by the doctor that he might have a sinus infection. steve avoided a massive crash at 60km/hr by locking his brakes up so much that he wore a hole right through his tyre. me, i got changed and headed home, tired but satisfied that i held on to the last lap and finished the whole thing.
Well, after Petes photo of his new hubs at an impressively light weight (262 grams) I thought I should weigh my new hubs and post the results. They are the Tune Mig / Mag hubs (also from Germany, but via Baum in Geelong who import them). They aren’t the lightest Tune make but it costs an additional $330 to lose the next 24 grams and get their top of the line hubs. Thats $13.75 per gram! I have heard you can get cheaper deals per gram in Fremantle nightclubs. Anyway it will be a big improvement on my current hubs – DT Swiss 340. Now I have to put them with some Niobium rims and choose some spokes. New wheels is the cheapest way for me to lose some weight from my bike but being steel and a 63 cm frame it will never get below the minimum race weight. Maybe we need a weight weenie board for wheels? Russell
After waiting for the latest news on the blog, I came to the conclusion that it would probably be too much to expect Peter to write it up as he did not actually do the ride (but his presence was not far).
We milled around the car park, numbers swelling but a little directionless. Many had just turned up “to do the ride” and not checked the route. Some had checked the route, but not looked at the map. I was in the position where I had checked where we were meant to be going, and somewhat remembered the way from previous excursions. My last attempt at leading the group on the ride was one Sunday after the meeting point had just changed. We had a few detours in suburban Como, which resulted in one of the riders leaving in disgust.
Anyway, being the “leader” by default, we progressed up the climbs of Coode Street. We hadn’t got far, when I was encouraged to see that Pete had taken on the role of Tour photographer Graeme Watson, and had positioned himself on one of the slopes. I got out of the saddle, to try to make myself look more powerful in the shots, as it’s all about the look you know. I digress, but I can’t help but think that young Ben’s childhood memories will unfortunately be filled with sweaty men in green tights.
spr tours murdoch drive
I was beginning to get the hang of leading, with Dr Markus (not a urologist) in front of our procession. I was musing to myself what a responsible task it was, pointing out the road hazards, not getting lost, and most importantly setting the tempo so that our social group did not get strung out, gasping for air, and unable to indulge in the Saturday chit chat. There’s little danger of us going too fast with me leading the way (it’s bloody hard work – especially after going for a ride before the ride with Ryan and Jerry).
We had a bit of a warming up spin, picking Dougy up on Canning Highway before crossing the freeway. I had in fact made it to the hills of Risely Street before having to let others have a go setting pace. A traffic light split the group, but we were soon united by some soft pedalling. The boys (it’s always the boys) must have woken up eager as the pace picked up on Murdoch Drive to the stop lights on South Street after another photo opportunity.
When we stopped to turn right at the lights, we groaned as we saw a huge truck slowly headed for Fremantle with what must have been a part of an oil rig (or for Jerry’s new outdoor barbecue in his new palace). It was useless for drafting as it was mainly comprised of air between what must have been 10,000 tonnes of steel bars. There was a long procession of already irate drivers, and 50 bikes taking up the inside lane may have caused an ugly scene. Miraculously, the lights changed, letting us follow behind the convoy and a suspiciously nervous looking learner driver. Much unlike other sprint stages, the group did not just swarm en-masse all over the road. I was surprised to see a relatively orderly pace line. People must have been intimidated by the traffic and truck (you may beat it on the way up a hill, but it may catch you coming down). As the truck pulled away however, people were starting to go for it. The undulating hills do me no favours as I dropped back due to my nemesis – gravity.
Pete, you need to get one of these so we can recognise you
We regrouped at the Stock road lights where a small traffic jam had formed due to the large load attempting to make a left turn. The cyclists threaded trough the stationary cars and fortuitously, we were all together again after turning right. We saw Ryan talking to someone in a car, and thought that he was giving a motorist a serve, but were relieved when we saw it was Pete (he sure does get around). We mostly kept it together up the hill, over the top, and down again to regroup at the lights. Through the lights, we made a left turn up the steady climb on Marmion Street. Although it was not a designated “sprint point”, the wolves were ready for blood, and again everyone was off. I also made note that Davina was NOT having a rest day today. The climbs and descents made for fast and spectacular riding, more so for one young lad whose rear dérailleur had exploded.
The pace naturally came down as we made the turn left onto Stirling Highway. It accelerated however thanks to the efforts of Nick on the front. I could see the signs that some people were less comfortable with the pace, so I self-righteously went to the front to bring it down a bit. It worked to some extent as we headed north along Fremantle’s beaches, being buffeted by the wind. Words of warning to keep the pace down through Cottesloe were going through my mind, when the pace again went up. You can’t hold back all that testosterone and it was all hell for leather again (if you DO want to hold back the testosterone for some reason, come and see me at work and I’ll “fix” you up). From memory, it was a lovely day with plenty of sunshine and beautiful waves and other scenery, but I can’t picture it clearly, as it was a blur of speed.
spr taking it easy through cott
The pace eventually settled, as we went through the busy part of Cottesloe, courtesy of a lady walking in front of the bunch with a pram, underestimating the power of bike brakes. It’s hard to stop confidently when your brakes are just some pencil erasers rubbing onto a skinny aluminium rim. Spent, the group (likely less a few members) made for the hills toward Swanbourne and Dalkeith. The hills and traffic fragmented the Rouleurs who managed again to regroup at the Dalkeith lights. Here I resumed my customary place stalking the back of the group. Pace is really not going to be too quick down the double bends. It did pick up past Waratah Avenue and on the slight descent past the Bowls club. The subsequent rise in the road always sorts riders by their level of commitment, and we were soon rewarded by the fall and sweeping bend of one of my favourite pieces of road. The hill seems perfect for powering up, as you are always carrying a bit of speed. It depends on unfortunately your level and duration of power in what style you make it to the top. Wheezing breathlessly, I managed to stay in touch with those I had overtaken earlier to make it down the hill, past UWA. My least favourite road is the roundabout that has been under construction for three months. I suspect that in China the same bit of tarmac would be built overnight on a public holiday.
Anyway as we turned down Mounts Bay Road, you could feel the tension of the sprint. The pace wound up and the group stretched out in single file. I couldn’t see over the horizon to the lead, but I think it was Nick doing the CSC thing to punish everyone again. No guts, no glory, so I made a move to reach the front. By the time I had reached about ¾ up, I knew it was futile and time to seek refuge in the gap Schneiderman had considerately opened. From there, it was hang on and grit your teeth, waiting for the sawing sound of rubber on the road for the green flash to ride past. I looked up to see that Ryan had miraculously come from behind to win the sprint closely followed by Jerry. (Those who write further Saturday blogs are free to cut and paste the preceding sentence. As you may conclude, here is not much you can do to maintain any tension whatsoever, as the end result is as predictable here as any cheap porno – but less messy).
the leader enjoys his well deserved pink milkshake
Efforts over, we weaved (courteously crossed the lanes) all over the road to get to the coffee shop. This is probably where some coordination really is needed as we must avoid becoming road-kill. Instinctively, I know that everyone moves to the left, but unless you are leaving the group and headed for South Perth on the path, you should really be on the rightmost lane to cross the road. Also, it helps to indicate to the cars who surely must be confused by riders in all three lanes. Calling out cars also helps those riders in front without mirrors. No point ending a good ride (and it was very good) on a bad note – kudos to Pete who seems bordering on insanity with his dedication to keeping the rides worth attending (as reflected by the swelling numbers).
