I could already hear it when I was still in bed. The probably most horrible weather for cycling, well apart from -5 °C and snow outside, but that is unlikely to happen here in Perth.
So rain and gusty wind it was. I was already drenched when passing the Narrow’s Bridge. I was already out here in the horizontal rain so I thought there might be still two or more brave ones who decided themselves against crawling back under the blanket.
Arriving at the car park around seven I saw that I was the only one out here. It stopped raining as well now, but still no one else was here. Would I be able to find the way out to the hills? Are there still some people to come and I should wait? Am I too late? All these questions could be answered with a no, unfortunately.
So I jumped on the cycle path down the river and did a short round between the bridges. The sprint at the bell tower against myself wasn’t as fun as usual and also not as competitive. As I rolled back home the next clouds came crawling in…
I guess it wasn’t that much of a cycling morning! Should I bother getting up early the next rainy Sunday?
when you think of a team time trial you think of the old team postal boys in the tour de france. all power and grace and all working together like a well oiled machine. and then… there is the wa state champs. i’m not saying that there were no well oiled machines out there today. the plan b men’s team smashed the course and looked to be doing it well as they flew along the other side of the road from us. however, there were a lot of teams that didn’t look too oiled and i am guessing that ours was one of them.
the conditions today were nothing short of atrocious. the only thing that would make it unbearable would be a lot more rain. basically the wind was so strong, it tried to blow you off the road at every opportunity. the closest weather station that i could find on the net was mandurah which reported 61km/h average winds with gust up to 87km/h. as you expect the coast to be a bit windier, drop about 10km/h of those numbers and you still get crap riding conditions. what made it worse was the course was three sides of a square, so you didn’t just get a headwind/tailwind combination, but rather a very bad crosswind/headwind/tailwind/crosswind combination. i know i put crosswind in there twice, but it played such a big part to the day.
so, in the lead up to the event we had a choice to make. which division would we race under. as ryan is the only one in our team that does not qualify for masters, it would depend entirely on whether he wanted to race. in the end it was stu, mark, jerry and i that formed the team and we signed up under the masters 35-49 division.
the course, as previously mentioned, was loosely the three sides of a square. see attached. the first part started straight south before heading in a se direction. back south again before turning directly west to the turn around and back the way we came. the course was pretty much flat so was ideal for a team time trial and ideal to get those well oiled machines all working together. as i said, the wind through all of that out the window.
we were scheduled to start at 09:51 and would be the fourth masters team off. the open women’s riders would already be on the road before us and the open men would be following behind. there were only seven masters teams so we only had to beat four teams to get a medal. the aim was to at least get a medal of any colour.
as we prepared our gear, the rain began to fall. hard. everyone just left the bike against the cars and jumped inside to wait it out. the rain wasn’t too bad and i could live with it. after the rain stopped, however, the wind really started to blow. we kitted up and headed out for a warm-up ride. in the process of borrowing chris’ ridely road bike, i managed to also get his cosmic carbone deep dish wheels. being a time trial i decided to give them whirl to try to grab whatever advantage i could. as mark and i headed out for a warm-up, i decided that i had made the wrong wheel choice. we got as far down as where the road swings to the south-east and the crosswinds really came into effect. i found that i was having trouble keeping the bike straight and really had to fight it. we turned around and made the tailwind assisted run back to the car. i had bought my real design wheels with me which had a lower profile so swapped out the front wheel to try to gain some control. during the warm-up we could see lots of guys running full disks on the back and deep dish rims on the front. i hoped they had better control than me.
our start time approached and we discussed team tactics. basically we would straight line it doing 30 sec turns on the front. we would all stay together till the turn around but then could drop a rider on the return as we only needed three to get a finish time. if anyone got a flat they would be left behind, except if they were the third rider remaining. all good we thought. just a matter of staying in formation.
our time came and we got our count down to go. i was on the front and had trouble clipping it and had to give it a second go before it clicked. not a good start. then as we wound up the pace i went to put it in the big ring and it didn’t want to shift up. not good at all. it was working fine before, and now i was worrying about a broken cable and whether i could do the whole thing in the small ring. i eased the pressure off the pedals and tried again. this time is shifted smoothly, but i really didn’t need the extra stress.
the first couple of k’s down to where the road swung around were ok. we had a head wind, but you could get a good draft on the wheel in front and we were swapping out turns often enough for everyone to get a rest. as the road turned, we came up over a railway crossing. this is where i got my first real fright. as the bike lifted over the crest of the crossing, a gust came in from the right and gave my bike a thumping. i now was wishing i had even lower profile wheels on.
this stretch down to the right hand turn was pretty bad. we managed to organise ourselves so that we echeloned across the road with the lead rider as close to the centreline as they could be. however, we were still being hit by gusts that would move your bike to the left and everyone had to be extra careful as we were now overlapping about half a bike in order to get a draft. i found that most of the time i could not actually get down on the tri-bars as it was too unstable in the gusts. i just grabbed the bullhorns and hung on for grim death. the wind had also spread lots of dead branches on to the course and we also had to avoid them to save us from getting a puncture.
we hit the right hand turn at the 10 km mark and i was glad that we now had a headwind. before we reached the turn we could see two teams in front of us and we knew that we could make up some more ground now. one was the masters team that started 2 min ahead of us, while the other was one of the women’s teams from about 10 mins earlier. i looked back and could not see anyone after us so i guessed that we were doing alright.
i was now pulling longer turns at the front as i didn’t have to fight the crosswinds and could get into a better rhythm. unfortunately this section only lasted for 5 kms and we turned right again to cop the full brunt of the crosswinds.
the 6 kms along this stretch to the turn around was the worst conditions that i have every ridden in. i hardly got down on the tri-bars as i found the bike uncontrollable. and even when i did, i was watching up the road to see where the bushes acting as a wind break finished, so i could get ready for the gusts to hit us again. most of the time we were riding so close to side by side that we hardly formed a line at all.
about halfway down this stretch, i noticed my polar speed mount had come loose and was now precariously hanging at the end of my forks against the quick-release lever. if it swung around it would go straight into my spokes and would probably make quite a mess of either me or the bike. i kept a watchful eye on it and tried to work out how and when i could rectify the problem. as we approached the turn around i told mark and he said to sprint ahead so i could fix it without losing the team too much time. i ended up just stretching it around the skewers as well so the it could move anywhere. unfortunately it meant that the end of the cable ties was now playing a delightful tune on my spokes as they turned past. it didn’t matter. you could hardly hear anything over the wind.
we now had the same problem with the wind but now from the other side for the return trip. big gusts and hard to hide from it. being an out and back we also got a view of some of the teams that were in front and behind us. some were all over the road and others were just powering along. i was hoping the powerful ones were all in the open men’s division.
about halfway along this stretch, we lost jerry. he didn’t lose too much ground and he said that he almost made it back on, but the wind was too much and resigned himself to riding home on his own. he was not he only one to do that today. up ahead i saw an aussie crates rider who turned out to be steve, who often come out on the sunday ride. he had been dropped by his team and was now finding his own way home by turning around early.
we took the left hand turn and now had the wind on our backs. again the turns got longer as without fighting the crosswind, you could spend more energy going forward. i was very disappointed to come to the end of this stretch. we turned left again and started to negotiate the last crosswind section.
i was starting to struggle now and was having trouble holding position in the line. i couldn’t get on the bars and power along, so didn’t feel like my riding was very fliud. we echeloned to the right and as you were overtaken you had to swing down and all the way around the others to get back onto the right hand side out of the wind. we now also had steve and another lost rider hanging onto our draft to help get themselves home.
we battled along, but both those lost riders eventually passed us to act as a carrot for us to chase. unfortunately, we weren’t that hungry and i think it was actually harder to ride in formation that it was to rode solo. on your own, if a wind gust hits you, then you can easily just drift across the road and back on track. in a team time trial, you really needed to control the bike at all times as there was someone relying on your position.
finally the road swung north and we hit the final tailwind stretch for home. stu and i were stil powering along, but mark was starting to struggle a bit. i guess this is where the triathlon background of the two of us comes to the fore as mark recognises that it is an area in which he has not done much training. we powered up to the finish and mark was calling for us to ease off as he was losing the wheel. we were yelling at him to go harder as it was only the last km and he needed to give it everything. stu and i rode side by side to try to give him a bigger draft area and we managed to cross the line in 1:08 for the 42 kms. i was so glad that it was over. the wind and the openness of the course made it one hell of a tough day.
we waited for jerry to finish before we headed off to the cars. a team from bikeforce southern river was behind us and a couple of those guys were the ones doing all the work at last weeks cyclo-sporitf race. they said that they got 1:10 or so, so we knew that we had at least one team down. three more to get a medal. we got changed but left the spr gear on just in case we actually reached the podium. unfortunately the presentations didn’t start till about one o’clock after there was some delays in getting the timing for the juniors organised. this gave us an opportunity to wander down into pinjarra and grab some food etc before hand.
after a two hour wait we still didn’t know if we got a place or not. i was already over my expected home time and had to ring and explain that there was a good chance that we got a medal. i was hoping that we didn’t all just sit around and wait for a fourth place.
state team time trial silver medal
in the end our time was good enough for second place and my second state masters silver medal for the year. we were pretty happy about it but would have a lot of work to do to make up the 6 min the first place guys managed to get. the first open men’s team managed to clock it in under 1 hr and blitzed the next team by six minutes as well.
steve’s team came in third to get him a bronze medal in the open division, while mel, josie and sarah managed to narrowly hang onto first place by about 10 or 15 sec. bec’s team took out third in the open women and took home a bronze.
so, a good result for an absolutely awful day on the bike. we were all pretty happy to get a medal and it made getting out of bed this morning worthwhile. i doubt we would have made the effort for just a sunday hills ride.
after a week of typical spring weather (rain, then sun, then rain, then sun), it was good to see some nice conditions as we rolled up to the startline this morning. i was hoping that they would hold for the length of the ride but we would have to see. about 40 riders this morning which included a few of the “squadra bastardos”. i thought since they refer to our group as the “south perth rooters” i would change theirs from “squadra baristas”. all good though, and always a pleasure to have them along.
saturday morning at south perth
the route today would head up past the tv stations, home of such well known wa personalities like jeff newman, a bunch of ex-footy players and the oldest news woman on tv. for us though, it included a slight uphill stretch that when done at pace would test the legs. we would head out great eastern and up grand prome before passing the tv stations and return via wanneroo rd and kings park. a slight detour to add extra kms before heading home via dalkeith and mounts bay rd.
the trip out was fairly uneventful and allowed everyone to have a chat and catch up. by the time we had reached the base of the hill on dianella drive, we were all warmed up ready to go. the traffic lights meant that we were all together at the start, and the ones at the top of the hill can potentially help those catch up after the hill.
the pace started well and it was not an all out sprint from the start. mike and young alistar (who had forgone the sandshoes and had nice new white sidi cycle shoes) set the pace well from the start. we had began to string out but most were content to hold the wheel in front. i decided to try to egg mark on to make a move. he has borrowed my spare set of tri-bars in readiness for the team time trial tomorrow and he thinks that they are great. i said that he should see how well he could set the pace on the hill with the bars on, so he moved to the front. the speed increased a bit but the main boys were still hanging tough as there was still a way to go. mike came around again to finish off the hill, but then we hit the traffic lights.
the group bunched up a bit, but not everyone made it back on. the road rose up slightly for another block or so before finding a nice gradient down in which everyone could put on some speed. i can’t remember who actually initiated it, but soon everyone was coming around to try to get the pace high. it wasn’t till ryan flew past with jerry close behind that a gap managed to form. we kept pushing on to try to bridge it, but as normal it was a bunch of individual efforts rather than a even roll though. pretty soon we were negotiating the double round-abouts that marked the end of our fast section.
a regroup on wanneroo rd and we pretty much had everyone back together. it was cruisy, cruisy down to leederville before we headed up around kings park. things started to get a bit messy here as some of the boys decided to use the slight rises then descents to push hard. the group started to break up a bit but luckily, a set of lights at rokeby rd helped put it all back together.
we turned past the hospital to extend the ride a bit as it was only just hitting 8 o’clock and less than 40 kms. as we got to the end of aberdare rd and was attempting to turn onto railway road, we encountered mr dickhead. this time she was wearing a dress and was driving a volvo station wagon. talk about stereo types. well as we were all together in a long line and taking up the majority of the single turning lane, this “lady” decides to come around the group then cut into the line so she can turn. honestly, if we were a line of cars waiting to turn, wouldn’t you just wait??? but no, cyclist are just a pest and probably wouldn’t dent my rock solid volvo, so i will just try to push in.
as she came towards the front of the group where i was sitting, i gave her some choice words of encouragement to let her know what i thought of the manoeuvre. she had this look of disbelief on her face, like she couldn’t understand why we would think we had any rights on the road. anyway, to make matters worse, when we did get moving, she then gets “intimidated” and doesn’t move so the rest of the group has to get around her car. as she past by us a bit later, she still gave me a dirty look.
we skipped through claremont and onto the final run to home. the majority of the group was still together but this would be the opportunity to thin the ranks a bit before the sprint. one of the barista boys and a couple of other guys swapped off turns to se the higher pace. we dropped a few on the first hill, but i was sure it would change after the tight left hander onto jutland parade. ryan moved to the front which was quite early for him. he set a good consistent pace up to the rolling hills where he usually attacked. as he was already on the front, it was up to others like jerry to try to upset the pace with a hill sprint.
as we approached the lights at mounts bay rd, they were quickly turning red. ryan, jerry and jens managed to slip through while the rest of us took a break and allowed some of the dropped riders to catch up. as we were now sprinting for fourth, i decided to get the group to roll through and wait till the end before smashing it. as we got around the corner, jens had waited for our train rather than go with ryan and jerry. he was rolling quite slow along the road and caused a bit of confusion as he reintegrated with the group. pretty soon we had the roll through ticking along fine.
melvyn with his pink milkshake
i was waiting for an attack to go, and as i was stuck on the inside of the roll through, there was nothing i was going to be able to do. i popped out the back just as we approached the swan brewery and started to wind up for the sprint. i didn’t hit it hard and just came by the group in the next lane. a few guys like phil and jens were looking back waiting for the jump so they started to move as well. i wound it up as jens started his sprint and had to throw on the line (we really need to paint one). it would have been a photo finish, but i will give it to the german for having swish new shoes.
so i was not stopping for coffee today as i had a early appointment to attend, but i left an order form with jerry for the new spr drink bottles. they are made by boa and hold 650ml. we will be subsidising them for the group and will cost $6. either sign up after the saturday ride or send me an e-mail. southperthrouleurs@hotmail.com
grafton to inverall profile
in other news, a couple of our regular riders, brendan and davina are over in nsw competing in the grafton inverall race. this is a national road series (nrs) event and brendan came in with his group after 7hs and 228kms. the women’s course was slightly different and was over 95km from the top of the climbs down to inverall. being the final nrs race there was a lot of competition but davina managed to take out first place by barely a tyre width. so well done to both of them and i hope our spr team can do a good time in the state team time trial tomorrow.
we haven’t had a play up by the tv stations for a while so i thought we would scoot past them this saturday and visit fatcat. we should again get a good run home with the breeze on our backs, but you know that means that it will be in our face first.
on sunday, mark, jerry, stu and i will be competing in the state team time trial (masters division) down at pinjarra. as stu was the only brave soul to venture out last week (and since he will be racing) i have mapped the same route as last week.
as far as racing in perth goes, nothing can come close to the popularity of the cyclo-sportif events. however, as the organisors will tell you, it is not racing but a participation event. as such, the different format today gave others an opportunity to see how a real road race is run. instead of the normal team time trial format, this event would be a grand fondo mass start event. well mass enough to head off in groups of around 40 – 50 riders with 2 min between each group. as such the “no drafting between groups” rule was not in effect likewise the “stick together as a team rule”. this meant that we could form big groups and work together as well as drop team mates and not have to slow the whole group down to allow them back on. not that we were going to do it deliberately, but there would be other groups that would dictate the pace.
so, getting ahead of myself a bit again.
the event was to be held at york which, from previous experience, meant open roads with lots of crosswinds. it was not forecast to disappoint. the course would take us north to spencers brook before turning west towards toodyay, but not quite hitting the toodyay shire border. there is a bit of a dispute with the toodyay shire after they stuffed around the cyclo organisation earlier on in the year. it seems that 600 cyclists with supporters is an inconvenience to a town. the toodyay event this year was moved to lancelin. because of this, the advertised 108km event would be shortened to just under 100km.
so, as this event was not being run like a team time trial, we opened it up to anyone that we normally ride with as opposed to the normal race team. we were also keen to get a few riders into the 70km event so that they get a taste of racing rather than just coffee rides. at the end of the day we had a team of nine in the 100km event and a team of six in the 70km event. lorraine’s version of events for the 70km race have already been posted below, but well done to those guys and girls as for all of them it was the first event of this type they had been in.
in the 100km event along with myself, were, mark , mike, dr jerry, michael, dr mark, doug, ben and carlo. it was the latter four’s first time at a cyclo event and it would be interesting to see how they held up.
as we were a new team and had previously been riding under the rio tinto jersey, the organisors did not know our form and as such put us in the last group to go. i did a bit of negotiating and managed to get us into the third group alongside the current rio tinto riders. it would be interesting to see how this event would play out with such a wide range of skills present in each group.
we headed to the line and i noticed how tight my quads were. i had spent the entire previous day building a play-bench for ben and was now paying for the constant squatting and drilling and cutting wood. it was not a good sign for the start of a race but i was hoping that they would get better as the day wore on. pretty soon we were off.
our group was quite big and probably contained about 50 riders. with no real organisation the group was all over the place from the gun. mike suggested that we do single turns at the front and peel off, but i was keen to see how the rest of the group would actually work before i committed our team to dragging everyone around.
so, what happened instead was riders would go hard at the front and start to smash the group apart. we were guilty of that also and slowly but surely we dropped riders from our group and picked up others that started two minute in front of us. after about 10 kms i decided that i we needed a bit of control. we had already lost doug, dr mark and ben to an earlier surge up a undulation and they got caught in the back of the group. we had lost all the rio team except jens who had stuck with us on the surges. the majority of the group was made up of our spr team and a team from southern river bikeforce.
as i said i eventually got sick and tired of the chaos and rolled to the front and started yelling at people. we got a roll through happening. mike was concerned that we were chasing down carlo and jens who were currently up the road. i said that it was way too early and they would not stay away from here, so we will pull them back and just maintain control for now. some of the other teams were concerned that we would roll through too hard, but i reassured them that we would just do this to keep out of the wind.
it was all going fine, although some people needed a reminder every so often when they would not hold a wheel properly and let gaps appear. also, whenever something out of the ordinary (i.e. railway crossing or corner) appeared, the group would lose it impetus and have to be reminded to roll through again.
after the left hander at spencers brook, we came across a railway crossing that was at an angle. the rider next to me swerved to avoid the guy in front who had turned to get his wheel perpendicular to the tracks. the guy next to me had his front wheel slip out as the track was damp from the light mist that had been present all morning. he came down with a thump and jens narrowly avoided riding straight into him. we looked back briefly, but kept going.
we were now riding almost straight into a headwind and along the way we dropped a whole bunch more riders. pretty soon it was the southern river guys and us along with maybe a handful of different individuals that had lost their teams.
about halfway along this stretch, mike took off. not a deliberate attack, but i think he broke away on a small hill and just kept going. carlo soon bridged across to him and the two stayed out front for a while. now whenever a southern river (or ss riders as that was their race number) tried to move off the front, mark would just swing off with them causing the group to snake along the road. when asked why he wasn’t doing a turn, mark replied that he had teammates up the road so he wasn’t going to chase them down.
this continued for a while and i thought that it was a good opportunity to exploit it and try to bridge across to mike and carlo. i was on the back so sprinted to get around the group and managed to gap them as they were still stuffing around. i got about halfway across the gap and looked back to see jerry on the front of the pack, chasing me down. i sat up as i didn’t want mike and carlo to be caught. i asked jerry what he was doing and he asked me why i was chasing down my teammates. i said that i wasn’t as i had a gap and was trying to bridge across but he was the one that was dragging the rest of the pack along. we drifted to the back and had a talk about tactics. it was decided to just leave mike and carlo out there and see how they did.
from then on it was up to the ss boys to do the work, so we left well alone. they did an admirable job and mark commented how they didn’t once complain that we had stopped working. as we approached the turn around, the other two groups in front of us came blas
ting back along the road. that tailwind looked good and i couldn’t wait to taste it.
just before the turn we got to see how far ahead mike and carlo were, and the gap did not seem too great. at a right hand corner, one of the ss boys went left for some unknown reason, so the rest sat up to wait for him. i tried to take advantage by attacking to see if i could get across to mike. mark also made an effort, but when i looked back, they had started to get organised and where chasing. i sat up again and found my place at the back of the pack.
the tailwind turned out to be not quite a tailwind. as the road turned the wind came from every direction but mostly was blowing across the road. our group was strung out trying to get a draft and the ss boys were doing a good job of forcing us into the wind or risk riding on the other side of the road. i think we lost a couple more riders along this stretch and it was not surprising. if you didn’t get in the prime draft position, it was a hard ride.
after the turn at spencers brook, michael dropped to the back and was bouncing his back wheel in the tried and true method of checking whether it was flat. i had a look and it was pretty soft from what i could see. i bid him farewell and he stopped to change it… three times.
the remainder of the race was pretty much the same. the wind was now coming across from the right and was quite strong. the group echeloned across the road, but that really only gave protection to the first 4 or 5 riders before the rest of us had to line out behind. this meant that we were exposed to the wind for the rest of the ride.
mark had got around that problem by joining the ss boys in doing some turns at the front. he wasn’t chasing but gave a hand to set the pace and i allowed him to stay out of the wind.
i had no computer as i was still on chris’ bike so i didn’t know how far to go. it was probably the last 15 min or so that my legs began to cramp up on a small rise and i fell off the back. i was in damage control mode for the rest of the ride and just did what i could to get to the end. luckily i was picked up by a couple of total triathlon guys for the run into town and they gave me a nice draft home.
so, as is the format of cyclo-sportif, we all headed to the town hall for lunch. with over 600 riders, the logistics of getting everyone fed is quite a job, but they manage to pull it off at each event and I have never known anyone to go hungry. a few awards jerseys are given out for the bravest, strongest and stupidest riders as well as a bunch of raffle prizes.
so at the end of the day, the results were based on the combined time for the first four riders. I had missed the briefing as I was chasing down carlo to give him his race number and didn’t hear that bit of info. luckily for us mark and jerry stayed with the group and with mike and carlo up the road, my time didn’t matter. however, as we were actually competing against all the teams, not just the ones in our group, we probably should have just all worked together and may have got a better overall time. we will know for next time.
7:00 – leave front door – looks like rain. Go back inside to get rain jacket. 7:02 – leave front door again. 7:04 – arrive Coode St. Nobody there. Think. Am I so late that they have all left? Or, are the conditions so bad and am I so mad that nobody else is coming? Maybe. 7:06 – decide that I’m riding anyway, so cease pondering madness and weather, and follow the designated course in case other nutters abound.
Nice tailwind, so contemplate changing course to get a nice time up Welshpool Rd hill, then decide I don’t relish such a big pain shot. Lots of lonely fun riding around the hills, so much so that eventual arrival at Kalamunda cafe prompts another loop down the zigzag and back up Gooseberry Hill. Further contemplation of forever riding in loops around the hills to avoid the strong headwind home, when reality strikes – no magic carpet is going to take me home. Damn. Go home. The End.
Well, for the first time team SPR would have a second team competing in a Cyclosportif event… A number of brave/foolhardy/adventuresome souls from the group had volunteered, succumbed to peer pressure or been shanghaied to join our merry
Despite a nervous sleep on Sat night I was up early on Sunday raring to go. With Lisa navigating (with numerous maps) Declan managed to find his way to Darlington, pick me up and make great time up to York. Once we got within 30k of York it was obvious from the convoy of cars carrying road bikes that it was going to be a BIG event! With registration, day licenses and team briefing complete all that was left was to eat chocolate brownies, make yet one more trip the toilet, saunter up the start line and wait nervously for our 9.13am start.
Our team were the last in a of a group of 4 or more that headed off and we easily passed a slower team without much effort. The pace out for the first 5k or so was pretty easy but it was obvious that the head wind for those up the front would be the biggest hurdle of the day. At this point our inexperience and miscommunication became our downfall and we ended up passing the CRT team in front of us and heading out on our own at a pace well in excess of our comfort zone. The next fatal blow was the sight of Declan’s computer hitting
the ground and him swinging around to retrieve it. The horrible wind and mix of abilities meant that we didn’t last long with our foolhardy manoeuvre and less than 10k out our little team (no longer merry!) had scattered to the four winds!
%$#@!!! Think I… I know we didn’t have to stick together for the Fondo but had not anticipated us breaking up this quickly. With Ronny and Melvyn somewhere out in front and everyone else behind me somewhere I was out in no-man’s land on my own trying to cope with the wind. By the sounds of it most of us found small groups to tag onto and fend for ourselves as best we could. A couple of accidents (one with a group Melvyn had joined onto) on the way out were reminder to ride safely, especially with riders you don’t know.
I can’t describe the relief of turning round the cone at the 35k mark and finally feeling a tailwind…magic. So nice to finally be able to crank up the gears and have a fairly effortless 40k/hr+ ride for a while. At this stage I realised I must have passed Melvyn (at the the accident) as I saw him coming up on the other side of the road. I was enjoying the relative ease of riding when I saw the SPR “A” team cruise past me… “jump on” yells Pete. Damn right I thought, especially as I saw Melvyn had grabbed a lift too. Yee hah… Now this was more like it and I sped along for a good 5 min with the “big boys”… until the first little hill. Adios “A” team… it was nice while it lasted! On my own again… naturally! As I contemplated how tired my legs were starting to feel, out of nowhere appears Neil… Great! A familiar face to work with. Further ahead we saw that Melvyn had dropped off the “A” team. His legs were cramping up and he urged us to keep going. We got about halfway back before Neil also told me to keep going and I took off on my own… Again!
The rest of the ride was uneventful except for the return of a nasty crosswind and a spattering of rain. I crossed the line a little over 2hrs15 which, considering the wind and that I was was on my own for much of the time, I was pretty happy with. Ronny had been the first of our group to finish. He had found some good groups on the way and this, combined with some strong riding, had brought him home in just over 2 hours. We were closely followed by Neil, Melvyn, Declan and Lisa. Lisa had put in an amazing effort considering that she was suffering from considerable back pain on the day.
6 people out and 6 people back…. all still managing a smile on their face. A good measure of success I’d say.
Once we had collected our raffle and meal tickets we headed off to the town hall and met up with the rest of the Rouleurs for a very well deserved meal and rest. With over 660 riders plus all the support peolpe the place was packed. Well fed, prizes awarded and announcements made we meandered back to the cars, said goodbye to friends and team mates and headed home.
As my first Cyclosportif event, I must say I thought it was a great experience. Thanks to Peter for encouraging and organising us and thanks to everyone in the B team for getting involved and representing the Rouleurs.
UPDATE – apparently chris has an oblique fracture of his collar-bone from the fall.
only the hardcore were out this morning. the wind and storms overnight had scared the rest of the riders off and we were well down from the 60 starters from last week. a core group of around 20 made up of mostly old-timers were the only ones to brave the spring storms. however, once the clock struck seven, there were blue skies on three sides with the hint of a rain shower saved up for later.
our route today would take us to cresswell hill next to the yokine golf course, an old favourite from back when simon used to run the show. we would then make our way to a lap of herdsman “lake” before heading across to claremont for the run home through dalkeith and mounts bay road.
the run out was pretty uneventful. chris made the smart decision to get on the front early as we were heading out with a tailwind. we knew this would change as soon as our route turned further north, so he took advantage of it. ryan was still unpacking his car as we left, so we made him play catch-up.
as we turned off the woodrow ave and onto cresswell, the hill looms in front of you as the road is dead straight and you can see to the top. some of the guys had not done this road before as it has been quite a while since we have tackled it. with a race on tomorrow, i was not going to stress my legs out too much and let some of the other guys smash themselves to get tot eh top first.
with such a small group, the regroup point was a bus-stop where we could wait off the side of the road. a little jaunt along royal and main st brought us out onto powis and under the freeway so we could start our next sprint section around the so called lake.
the pace was not initially high and no-one was really keen to step on it, especially with the wind coming across the open expanse of the marsh lands. once someone finally did hit out, the group started to split and i had to bridge across with stu to join back up with the front runners. to his credit (and i will take a repayment later in this blog) ryan seemed to be on the front for most of the time as we took our three quarter lap of the lake.
towards the end, ryan and judd made a move and no-one reacted so they got a gap. i jumped out from the back of the pack and tried to catch up but only really made it about halfway there. we started approaching the turn so i backed off and the chasing group started to make some ground on me.
as i followed ryan and judd through the right hand turn of the round-about, i head a crunch behind me and looked around in time to see chris and james doing a synchronized slide along the road. although it was not raining as we were riding, the previous showers had made the round-about quite slick and they both hit the deck. james bounced straight back up but chris sat on the road for a bit longer, before we had to move him to let the traffic through. both had some scrapes down one side and chris had hit his head hard enough to crack the helmet. well that is what it is for. better that cracking your skull. so the two guys that are both about to become first time daddy’s and both who shouldn’t be allowed out with due dates so close (james tomorrow) were the guys that hit the deck. since i am still on chris’ old bike, i didn’t have the video camera going and missed the perfect shot of these guys coming down. bugger.
after a bit of a rest and check that both man and machine were functioning properly, we headed off again. as we headed south down selby, the rain started up and gave us all a bit of a drenching. nothing too bad though and we soldiered on.
the final run through dalkieth was, as always, a bit disjointed with no-one sure who was going to work and guys getting left on the front then guys smashing off the front. so pretty much the usual. i was content to sit at the back and leap forward to fill any gaps that opened up. as we came towards the final rolling hills i saw jens come flashing past. i thought he was making his decisive move, but in reality he was watching ryan and saw that he was going now. judd was next to me and being new to the group was asking about the etiquette on our run through dalkeith. i told him that if you are really lucky you can get through all the lights and make it to the end unscathed. he didn’t think that anyone could be that lucky. basically the majority of the group were back together once we hit mounts bay road.
so, ryan was on the front at the lights and we were giving him crap about clipping in properly so he can’t just drift to the back and get a good lead-out. it did no good and to his debit (pay back from earlier) he stuffed around and slow timed to make sure he was not doing any work on the front.
jens had taken advantage of the situation and had scampered up the road for a solo bid at victory. 3 kms is a long way by yourself, even with a tailwind, so we just let him go for a while. he did pretty good and it took a while to pull him back. the group lined out quickly and barista boy dave was pushing hise massive frame along to give us all such a good draft behind. as he began to fade, i yelled at the guys in front to roll through. by the time i reached the front, three riders later, no-one else was coming through.
well if i was going to do the work, it was not going to be for someone else. i ticked it up a few gears and sprinted off, way, way too early. i picked up jens and powered past trying to cancellara it to the end. a quick look back and i had a good gap, but the finish line was still around the next corner and i was fading fast. a flash past and ryan had time trialed off the front and was now gapping me with ease. i sat up and slowly the other riders were trying to individually chase ryan down but to no avail. he was gone.
no coffee stop for me as i was looking forward to a day of building a play bench (like a work bench but for a two year old) in ben’s room for all his imaginative play toys. it took all day but finally got it finished. with two south perth rouleurs teams in tomorrows cyclo-sportif event, it should be a good outing.
I have to apologise before I post this link. It is a little story from a man who took his shaving a little further than just his legs (James, this may sway lis towards the legs.. Infact, she may say, ‘if you are going to do your legs you should go all the way’ (just to put you off smoothness)).
Enjoy the read and I hope to see you on the road tomorrow morning.
with the predicted overnight storms on friday night, i am not expecting a record turnout for this saturday. we will hang close to the city as they are predicting very strong sw winds around +30 km/hr by 9:00. however, this will give us an exceptional run up mounts bay rd with a tail wind.
sunday there will be two south perth rouleurs teams competing in the cyclo-sportif at york. reports are that there are over 600 riders registered for the event. should be a big day. hopefully the south perth colours will be flying well. for any others left behind and looking for a hills ride, i have mapped out an easy one (to follow that is) up the kahuna then across to the observatory. enjoy.
