Tag Archives: hale rd

saturday 5th april – hale rd

ride report by chris

the morning rain was always going to limit the numbers and both bunches totaled about 11. hey, i ran out of fingers alright and i wasn’t taking my shoes off ‘cause it was raining.
nick thought he was saved due to the small numbers for his bunch but there was 1 or two so he was committed. anyway, they elected to tag along with us guys.

given the shear volume of rain things were always going to be relatively controlled and the amount of water on the roads ensured this was the case. we set a steady pace out to hale rd and explained to nick and his group the planned route, where we would wind the pace up and the various regroup points.

normally on this ride things heat up pretty quickly as soon as we hit hale rd, so i took it upon myself to ensure this remained the case. sadly for me after a tough few rides this week and a day off crook my legs really weren’t up to much. all i succeeded in doing was firing up cade and sending bruce, ben and christophe down the road with him. with bigger numbers i wouldn’t have been too worried but given my crap legs i just got myself into a tempo and figured i’d catch them at the regroup.

unfortunately cade had a mechanical problem with what was apparently a slipping chain as he attempted to change gears and went down at speed. luckily he didn’t bring anybody else down and with the wet roads slid and didn’t lose too much bark. still no fun for anyone and a reminder that it pays to be sensible when it’s raining. once we gathered up the various bits and sorted cades bike out we were back on the road. ben headed off with cade back the way we had come whilst the remainder of us followed the planned route.

this little accident put paid to any further shenanigans and christophe and i set a steady pace down kalamunda rd. the remainder of the trip was relatively uneventful, but christophe did comment that there was no abuse since people had to keep their windows wound up in the rain. we didn’t even get one honking horn today which makes for a change, shame it had to be bucketing with rain for this rare non-event.

bruce did the right thing and headed off home once we got back to bayswater whilst the rest of us headed for the café at a much more casual pace than usual. once over the plain street hill from my perspective it’s always a mad panic to hold onto someone like pete or the pool boys wheel in the vain hope of having something left for the sprint. today however i wasn’t up for any of that and suggested to the guys that i would be the lead out man. so off i went hoping to just be able to hold it together to the finish.

i can’t have been doing too badly as will was the only one who managed to hold my wheel and didn’t have enough or couldn’t be bothered to come around at the end. so that was it, with only half a dozen of us stopping for coffee and a feed, prompt service was assured and delivered. poached eggs on toast for me, very nice.

saturday 23rd feb – hale rd

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so i’ve been away for a couple of weeks and how the weather has changed in that time. bloody cold wind has apparently been blowing all week, so even though the temperatures have been pleasant, the wind chill makes for a cold start. i’m not sure whether this kept the punters away, but we only had about 30 starters this morning.

the course today was to try to take advantage of the wind and get a tailwind home. most of the rides are picked based on this, but i am thinking of changing it next week, so that the final 10 kms is into a head wind. that way, if anyone wants to try to break-away, they really have to work for it.

anyway, today would take us out shep rd and onto welshpool, up hale rd and back along kalamunda rd and finally guilford rd. nice straightforward box. it should have meant, headwind, cross-head, tail & cross-tail to get home.

nice even pace out along shep rd and onto welshpool rd. everyone was being nice and the wind did not even seem to be that strong yet. i was talking to paul as he is in a similar industry to me and having a pleasant time. damn daylight savings now means that you basically need lights to get to the start of the ride and sunnies are not initially needed. paul reached back to get his sunnies and dropped them on the road. we were about third wheel so i don’t know how there weren’t run over. he stopped to collect and i waited for him to help draft back to the pack. mike also eased off to lend a hand, but we luckily caught them at the lights.
as we got further along welshpool lorraine dropped her chain and had to stop to put it back on. about four of us slowed down to help her get back on. we chased for quite a while, but kept getting stuck at the lights. the pack eventually had to stop on hale rd so that we could get back on. good job to whoever initiated that.

hale rd was again a easy cruise and i got chatting to a new guy on our rides. brendon has just moved from kalgoorlie and was on his second ride with us. as he is on a fifo roster he said he can’t make it every week, but thought it was a good group to ride with.

along kalamunda rd the pace picked up a bit as we started to feel the effects of the tail-wind. nick and scott were on the front and picked it up to over 40 km/h. more like 45 most of the time. i looked back and saw that gaps had started to form in the pack. i still wanted to keep it together as there is a section between when we cross abernathy rd and the great eastern hwy that is narrow and difficult for cars to pass us. if we are together as a group then we don’t piss off as many motorists and there are more of us to fight back.

not that it matters that much as dr nic was telling me about a guy that was upset at some cyclists so he reversed his car into them when they were stopped at the lights. ahh, perth. the home of mr dickhead.

so, the boys backed off a bit at the front as they were actually just trying to half-wheel each other and ended up racing instead. about this time steve decided that it was “unsafe” in the pack with the constant pace change you get after about fifth wheel, and took off the front. i yelled out not to chase and went to the front with nick to keep a constant pace. steve got through the lights at abernathy and disappeared into the distance.

look, i don’t think that it anymore unsafe at the lower speeds as opposed to when guys have their ring hanging out all ride and make mistakes because they are tired. accidents happen in both situations, but it is the outside influences like motorists that i am trying to control. i think we may need more “smash-it” sections with a regroup in between. this would allow the boys to stretch their legs a bit more, but still keep the group together for the crucial bits. it’s something i will work on. hence the “trying to keep everyone happy” tag at the top of the blog.

so, steve got away and we kept it together nicely to guilford but raised the average speed to take advantage of the tailwind. once over the bridge and into bassendean, chris jumped on behind a small car at the lights and got a bit of a draft to gap the pack. mike and i were on the front and started to chase a bit to try to bring him back. i suggested that we roll through and instantly we picked up the pace. it wasn’t smooth but a quick peek at my speedo and saw that we had jumped from 35 to 50 km/hr. we started to string out and i found myself on the back by the time we were stopped at the tonkin hwy lights.

the pack found it’s own pace for a bit as everyone was waiting for the rolling hills to start. on the first hill, i changed lanes and got a bit of a draft from a 4wd to help me to the front and past the leading few. mike soon joined me and instantly came past me giving me his wheel. we pushed on for a bit more and i was aware that a couple of others had also attached. however, this is where it all came undone for me. two weeks off the bike, lots of car & plane travel, macca’s at least five times while we were traveling and generally no replacement exercise all started to take their toll. i had the legs to go and the cardio to push, but my recovery was shot to pieces. where previously i could have kept pushing and recovered while drafting, now i was fighting for air and trying to get my heart-rate down.

so gave a flick of the hand to tell the next person to come by and i sat up. pretty much everyone past me and i was forced to pick my way through the rest of the pack debris to get back to the city. there was probably a good 10 kms to go, and i managed to jump from dropped rider to dropped rider to keep my pace up. along the way i managed to jump on with nick and few others. nick was also suffering due to travel and lack of exercise. however, his three weeks in spain etc, have left him with a few kilos to shed to get back to fighting weight.

it’s been a while since i have been dropped, but i still remember my first ride with this group over three and a half years ago. i was dropped heading out past rebold hill and having only been in perth for two weeks did not know where i was. i spied some one in the distance and rode my arse off trying to catch them so that they could show me the way home. now at least i am organizing the routes so that i know the way home if i get dropped. not looking forward to tomorrow’s ride in the hills. it may be a very boring blog if i keep falling off the back.

so in the wash-up at the end the remainder of the pack caught steve but the sprint was won by wayne. i will try to be near the front next week so that i know what is going on. with nothing to add to the picture collection, i will follow chris’ lead and steal a pic from the pez website. today is the sister of “attempted” blood doping cyclist ivan basso.

saturday 19th jan – reverse hale rd

not a bad turn out this morning. about 40 or so but it may have looked even bigger as mickey’s novice group is also growing. bruce was back with us after his girlfriend had a baby girl last week which meant he couldn’t ride. no commitment from some people.

anyway, the route would take us up great eastern hwy across ascot and along guilford rd. cut across to kalamunda rd then back down hale to welshpool rd and home via shep rd. the forecast was for south easterly winds so this should give us a nice tailwind home.

i reiterated again that we need to keep it together until we get back to welshpool rd and just keep it to a moderate pace. i’m not trying to restrict peoples riding, but we have the safety of the group to worry about. it frustrates drivers even more if they have five little groups they need to negotiate rather than one pack.

so we headed off with steve b and scott on the front. already there was a bit of half wheeling going on but i was sitting second wheel so if they started upping the pace too much i would just let them go. it was to early on in the ride for anyone to chase anyway. we picked up nev on the way. another good reason for posting the route beforehand. at least you can be a bit late and still know where to catch up. paul g mentioned that i was looking like a concerned father, as i was constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure the group was together. i guess that is just how it has developed lately.

as we cruised up great eastern, there were two utes of note. one over took us at a slow point and the passenger said “hey, peleton!”. maybe he was french, or maybe he got the munchies late one july night and caught a bit of the tour on sbs. probably the latter. the second ute of note was on the other side of a two lane hwy, going in the other direction, and the driver yelled out “get off the f~ckin’ rd”. maybe he was….nah, i’m not making excuses for him, he was obviously a f~ckhead.

across ascot and onto guilford rd where chris and myself took to the front. nice easy pace where i could still carry on a conversation. i also needed to be on the front as we had a few turns once we got into guilford, so i wanted to make sure we went the right way. a couple of turns later and we were on kalamunda rd. the pace was ok and i saw that there was one of the new guys, john, on the front. he started with mickey’s group and found it a bit slow, so stepped up. the group stayed together well through high wycombe, then i noticed john coming back through the pack. he had pushed a little too hard on the front to maintain the pace and was not really really paying the price. few more km’s practice at pace and he will be right. there is no easy way to get better. even with epo you still need to do some training. (not speaking from experience, or i would be a lot better).

it was about this point, as dr melvyn and i were riding together, that i remarked to him that dr pauls campagnolo knicks looked a bit see thru on the white strip that crossed his arse. the couple of inches of crack was confirmation of this. we didn’t tell him till we got back to the coffee shop though. also made a conscious effort to not ride behind him. “back in the cupboard for them” he declared when we mentioned it. not before getting a photo though, so everyone can see.

after crossing roe hwy, we still stayed together well. i was being repeatedly surprised by the groups restraint. these were the normal smash it spots as it is wide roads and head crosswinds that would hurt the group. we turned into hale, (or hawtin as it is called at the northern end), and this pretty much marked the halfway point. a little way along here i tried to change into the big ring and it seemed to half go, then drop back. funny. i tried again and noticed nothing happened. i grabbed the cable from under the down tube and it was very, very slack. bugger, broken cable and now i was stuck in the little ring. well i guess there will be no sprint for me.

it stayed together for about one km, then cade decided to come around everyone and shoot off the front. i was about third wheel and was hoping like hell that no-one would chase. they all knew we were going to stay together till welshpool, and i had even reiterated it to cade as we were on kalamunda rd.

well no. the front few guys took of after him. i just shook my head and held my pace with paul o next to me maintaining the group. ok, i thought, a few had gone, but let them go as i’m not going to yell at them and treat them like kids. (i will blog them instead). so they start putting some distance into us and i keep maintaining the same pace we were supposed to go. a few more break out and come around us to bridge to the break away. even some of the not as good riders tried to bridge, and ended up in another group stuck between us and the break. i just kept the pace but was shaking my head every time someone came around. there would have been about 15 riders that went.

the lights at tonkin sorted them out and we caught them there. i went to the front and had a few words, but in reality, what can i do. we have such a spread of abilities that i have to try to keep everyone happy. if anyone wants to step up and lead a slower group, i would be very happy. and by slower i mean the constant pace that we did for the majority of the ride. it was still over 30 km/h so it wasn’t a total cruise, but not the +40 km/h that happened later. for all the boys that went off the front, i would say that at some point in there schooling, the report card said either “doesn’t listen to instructions” or “blindly follows what the other boys tell him to do”.

anyway, we got onto welshpool rd and the pace picked up as expected. i knew i w
as going to have a rough time as i was gear limited, but managed to hold pace as a number of the stronger guys went to the front. as i have said in earlier posts in needed to work on my spinning, so it was probably good for me. i was glad i had an eleven cog on. the lights at leach pulled us back together slightly and the new hotmix they had laid was very nice to ride on. no real attacks followed, but just a general upping of the pace till shep rd.

not sure who was waiting for what, but the pace eased a bit along shep. maybe everyone was now trying to make sure they had their breath back before we hit the causeway and lined up for the final sprint. with ryan playing surf life saver this morning, there were a lot more in with a chance of not being totally blown away. bruce had turned off early to tend to his new daddy duties, so this really limited the number of potential sprinters down.

i decided to have a dig on the last rise before the causeway lights. the lack of gearing didn’t help, and probably just hurt some of the chasers more than anything. we lucked the lights and hit the causeway at a bit of a pace.

i tried to hold on as long as i could, but didn’t even make it across the second bridge before my cadence got the better of me and i had to ease back. it is not the most ideal sprint finish as there is two sets of lights and the second set is the finish line. not easy to pick a winner if everyone has to slow down to stop getting killed. anyway, they got held up at the first set at plain st so i thought i was in with a chance to get back on, but they only slowed a bit then the lights went green. i just cruised in to the end, but they got caught again at victoria st so i think it was a bit of a dud in the end.

so coffee awaited, or hot chocolate in my case, and a chance to socialise, which is the whole point of this ride. the coffee shop seemed to have gotten a few more wait staff as the coffee’s were coming out pretty fast. however, dr melvyn had found a way to circumvent the wait and ordered a milkshake instead.

i had a big day of stripping the bike down ahead of me as i needed to add a few gears before tomorrows hills ride. i also had a new bottom bracket to install and had to tilt the new saddle down a bit as i was wondering why i was getting a bit sore up front.

stay safe.