cyclo-sportif - swan valley

race report by peter.

so today was the first cyclo-sportif race that didn’t clash with any other wacf race and we took advantage of it. it was nice and close and would be the flattest course available across the season. last year this race was both a success and a disaster for the organisors. they had their biggest turn out with over 600 riders, but it was also the day one of the worst storm to hit perth happened. rain was belting in sideways and a few people were blown off their bikes. this year they had over 800 riders register and the rain that did hit was nowhere near as cyclonic as last year. starting at the velodrome in midland, the groups first had to roll out to the actual course which was over the other side of the roe hwy at herne hill. once there, the circuit required five laps for us to complete the 78kms. it was unfortunately not just a nice rectangular circuit but had a number of left and right turns that would complicate things during the race.

but before we jump ahead to far, how did we get there. well we had a team of eight riders registered. this was great as the maximum allowed was nine, so we would have enough people to share the load. the team consisted of the usual race boys; myself, michael, chris, mark, ryan, jerry, stan and bruce. by saturday arvo i had received a text from bruce saying that he would not be available to race. on the way to the venue i received a call from stan saying that as his wife was due this coming friday, he was not coming either. so we were down to six. since our south perth kits had not yet arrived, we raced under the old rio tinto colours as this is who we raced for last year, and i could get enough jerseys to make sure the team was all wearing the same.

the intermittent showers that sprinkled us on saturday, persisted into sunday and the radar showed a number of them heading our way. they were not too bad though and would pass quickly. we registered, kitted up and headed out to the real start point. with over 800 rider in over 100 teams, they needed to start the teams at 30 second intervals.

maybe i should explain just what cyclo-sportif is and why it is so popular. it is touted as participation not racing and as such is structured so that there are no winners. the format is basic team time trial, but you must finish with all the riders you started with (barring injury or serious mechanical). so if someone is slow on the hills, you wait for them; if they get a flat you wait for them. this format is so very popular as anyone can enter and you get to ride with the people you like rather than a basic group race. times are posted, but not ordered and you actually need to import them into excel and reorder them to see how well you did. it offers all abilities something and hence it’s popularity has grown.

the core of our team had been doing these types of races for three years and it took us a while, but we finally got it together to learn to stick together. this meant pushing weaker riders up hills and a lot of yelling to make sure people knew what was going on. our strategy was simple. single file, 30 sec to a minute on the front, then peel off and jump on the back. this allowed us to go the fastest, and people could regulate their time on the front depending how buggered/fresh they were. it also meant that even if you did a 10 sec turn, that was a rest that someone else was getting.

the teams are ordered, based on their previous performance. as we had not raced this season, the organisors would not have any idea where to put us, but as we were a rio tinto team, they would probably use the other rio teams previous time. we ended up mid pack about eight minutes back from the other rio team. this was good and bad for us. good, cause i didn’t think that there would be any other teams that would pass us as most of the really good teams would start last. bad, cause we would not have as much clear road ahead of us.

our race number was “kk”. it starts at “a”, completes the alphabet, moves to double letter, then moves back to numbers. for the other distances (60ish and 30ish) they use different coloured numbers. what it really meant was a lot of congestion.

at the start line, gary suckling did the race commentary and introduced the teams. in three years he has never been able to pronounce my name properly. i mean, it is only three letters so it can’t really be that hard, but i have never heard him say it the same way twice. soon, we were off.

the cold that my young lad had given me on thursday was being held at bay by the cold and flu tablets that had formed part of my healthy breakfast. i was feeling good and ready to go hard. we past the team that started 30 sec ahead of us before we even hit the first corner. picked up two more before the back straight and kept passing teams the whole way around the first lap. i was totally unsure of the wind direction as we seemed to doing over 40km/h up the rolling hills of the back straight. a couple of the boys had the early ride struggles and we had to back off a bit but were still going relatively hard. the first lap was really just to get to know the course as i had not done it before. i really was not expecting so many corners and had not really researched the race too well. very unlike me.

we were being held up on many of the corners as it was unsafe to try to slip by some of the less skillful teams with the damp road conditions. there was a lot of yelling going on as we had to warn a lot of teams that we were coming past. as approached the finish of the first lap, i saw up the road that they were still starting the shorter distance teams. damn, there were a lot of people riding today.

sometime on the second lap, it started to rain. it also brought about a change in the wind as it picked up to throw the rain in our faces. it became a crosswind on some of the straights and we had to echelon across the road in order to maintain speed. this proved difficult in two respects. we had to continuously pull back into single file to pass other groups, especially those that were all over the road. and the constant corners and changes of direction meant that we had to form off to the left, then the right and back again. this meant a lot more yelling from the bunch to make sure everyone was in the right spot.

halfway down the back straight, michael informs us that his rear tyre is going down. protocol required us to all wait for him as he changed the tube. he suggested we treat it more like a criterium and he will sit out a lap and we can pick him up next lap. fine with us, we powered on.

more teams were overtaken and it was hard to know where we really stood as no-one was catching us. on the back straight of lap three we past the other rio tinto team who had an eight minute head start on us. we had expected to pass them but it was a good gauge of how we were going. a little bit later we picked up michael from the side of the road.

lap four began to not feel as good for me. the first three laps were ace. i wished i felt like that more often. the only memorial part of lap four was mark putting his head down when on the front and missing a marshal indicating for us to turn. we all turned, he sent straight. he didn’t get far before realising his mistake, but he was hammering along before the corner. we all thought that he was going to take it too fast.

at the start of lap five, the final lap, we caught group “gg” who looked like they had stopped for a mechanical. we past them by but not long after they past us back again. with a full complement of riders, they were fresher than us and managed to keep on going. ryan wanted to pass them back, but i was on my limit and some of the other guys were not going to go any faster. he was very disappointed, but he was not feeling what my legs were feeling, which was pure crap.

the final lap involved a lot of yelling to slow down as my quads had started to cramp if i got out of the saddle. i was having trouble holding a wheel and was really running out of steam. the final couple of km’s were an absolute struggle and ryan had to drop back to help me. we ended up riding two abreast to block the wind and get everybody home. we finished in 2hr 06min according to my clock and had cover 80kms at an average of 38.3 km/hr. the official results had not come out yet, so this may change.

a slow ride back to the velodrome where we at least get changed out of the rain. the track racing was well under way and there were stalls from all the major bike shops in town. as we were passing through, josie had her wheelrace heat and her boyfriend, cj sutton was pushing her for the start. we watched her race then grabbed our meal and sat down to watch the rest of the events. in the final of the wheelrace the scratchmen were both riding for european pro teams and cj buried himself to lead out graeme brown back to the main pack. brownie had an enourmous turn of speed and past almost everyone except one new zealand rider who hung on for the win.

so we will only be available for three of the races this year and our first was quite a good hit out. next race we will be riding under the south perth rouleurs banner and i hope to get a few more of the guys involved across a few teams so we can get our group out there.

saturday 28th june - cresswell & herdsman

ride report by peter

rain, rain go away. wait till i have stopped riding… you bastard. i know it doesn’t rhyme, but i don’t care. i wanted a nice ride today. and despite the rain it was quite a good ride. only a handful of hardcore riders braved the elements and it was not raining when we left the carpark. probably 15 riders all up, but we had to wait a bit longer for some to arrive.

it was another new route today, but really just an old one that we hadn’t done for a while. similar to the tv stations ride, this would take us out grand prome but turn off before morley dr. another small detour and we would come up past the yokine golf course before heading over for a lap of herdsman lake. back down to dalkeith and the usual sprint home.

the roads were wet from the previous showers and i was glad to be at the front as you didn’t get as much spray in your face. we took it easy out great eastern and over the river at ascot. a few more showers made it interesting but not too bad for me as i had my bright orange rain jacket on. a few close calls at the lights with wet brakes made it tricky, and we probably went through a couple we shouldn’t have, to avoid a mass pile-up instead.

the cresswell hill adjacent to the yokine golf course used to be a favourite of vicki and her wednesday morning hell sessions. it is a stepped climb which means you can set intervals at each point in the climb. i.e. hard, harder, spew. today i was taking it easy as i have come down with a head cold and am supposed to be racing a cyclo-sportif event tomorrow. i made sure ryan knew were to regroup and then let them loose on the hill. not unexpectedly, ryan was first to the top with jerry (who is claiming to be sick) not far behind.

a slight change to the route as we went straight out to flinders to do a right hand onto royal. next time i will stick to the original as i think it would cause less problems. we took it easy along royal and main streets but the pace began to pick up once we started out lap of herdsman. similar to last week i had not picked a spot to go hard as i couldn’t quite remember the route. however, this stretch around herdsman is ideal as it is double lane and a good road surface the whole way around. there are a number of traffic lights but this can be both good and bad as it may slow the breakaways or hinder the chasers. this time we stayed together the whole way, but is was getting a bit rough towards the end for some of the weaker riders.

we turned onto shelby st and took it easy as we headed towards shenton park. a slight diversion due to road works but we were still headed in the right direction and turned done past the claremont hotel. once we hit the familiar territory of victoria ave, the boys started to pace it up a bit. a couple of extras caught up to our group and suddenly everyone wanted to show how strong they were. ryan managed to smash them up the small rises on birdwood parade to show who was boss and we all scampered after him on the decent.

by the time we hit mounts bay rd the “extras” had turned off onto the bike track even though they were heading in the same direction. we started single file pretty early and nick was on the front pushing a hard pace from the outset. after a while i came past him to do a long turn as no-one else was keen to play. i still had no sprint, so my job is to be domestique and just ride hard and consistant. nick eventually came back past me and went off the front hard. i couldn’t hold his wheel so i gave a flick of the arm to let the next person through. there was a hesitation which allowed nick a bit more space and i thought he may get away. we were not that far from the finish, so he may have had enough of a break. pretty soon, everyone came crashing past me and mowed nick down in their path. ryan held off jerry again for the line honors, and i past a completely spent nick as both we limped our way to the coffee shop.
the rain had stopped by now and it was looking to be a beautiful day. a quick hot chocolate and a bit of discussion about the new kit and launch breakfast coming up and i was on my way. the bike now filthy and no real time to clean it properly before the race tomorrow, i will have to hope the quick wipe and lube keeps the chain going. there should still be a ride tomorrow, for those that aren’t racing, and i have mapped out the kahuna for you… cause i won’t be there.

the picture is of darrens wet weather bike. even though he has the record for the lightest bike, he rides this 11kg monster, with full mudguards, when the rain sets in. i think his light bike will dissolve if it gets wet.

how did i get here???

by peter

so i was on a plane this morning (tuesday), after getting up at 4:00am, and as we were coming into land, i saw my old house in paraburdoo. it got me thinking about bike riding and how i got to were i am today (which is a long journey to not get very far). i was prompted due to the fact that i remember organising groups to go riding when i lived up in the pilbara. the groups weren’t big and half the time it meant mountain biking, but it was more about the riding than what we were riding.

so, shall i go back further. how did i start riding??? growing up in western victoria in hamilton, a city of around 10,000 people, the majority of the guys i went to school with all did the usual footy or cricket. when i hit year seven, i was not yet 30kg so i would have been smashed playing any contact sports and wasn’t wide enough to cover one stump in cricket. i did karate for about four or so years, but have never thrown a punch in anger and probably wouldn’t remember how to now.

a mate that i had know for many years started talking about cycling as his dad used to do quite a lot in his time. we both had very basic “ten speed” bikes but we started to do rides around the district, probably going a whopping 30km in one hit. my aunty used to have a holiday house in the grampians, which is a fairly big national park in western victoria. it was only 90km away from us so we started going there during summer and would spend a week riding in the “mountains”. these are nowhere near as big as the mountains in europe, but are bigger than what we get in perth.

so, this was really about the time i had my growth spurt and shot up so instead of the skinny, weedy kid, i was now the skinny, weedy taller then most of my classmates kid. we started doing more rides but had no idea what we were doing. standard kit was tracky pants and t-shirts and no helmets as the laws hadn’t come in yet. it was around the time that greg lemond was racing and we both painted our bikes in a three colour blend going from yellow thru orange to red. cool.

i remember some of our first hills rides in the grampians. i have no idea how steep the climbs were as i have not ridden them for so long, but they were so long and we had to take lots of breaks on the way up. in reality the total climb was about 11kms and it was not a consistent grade the whole way up as it had many flat spots. it took us about 2½ hours to get to the top and about 20 mins to get back down. 2½ hours to do 11km!!! i’m sure i could do that with the kiddy trailer and the mountain bike nowadays.

so, i finished high school and moved away to uni but kept my riding up. had been riding my re-painted repco traveller 10 speed up until then when my parents bought me a repco superlite 12 speed. i think it cost close to $500 which was quite a lot of money for our family. i started to increase my mileage and often went exploring the district on the weekends and when my uni schedule allowed it. bike knicks were not really in vogue like they are today and i was wearing those adidas three stripe cut off shorts. well not even real adidas. we couldn’t afford them so mum was a dab hand at the sewing machine and striped me up some fake adidas.

so doing more and more and i started getting to the point where i thought that maybe i could do some racing. i had always been of the opinion that i was not good enough, but had now upgraded to proper cycle kit and shoes with toe clips. if as a new cyclist you had been afraid of clipless pedals, you should try these things. think normal pedals and toe clips, but add a shoe that had a ridged sole and a notched cleat that bites down onto the pedal edge. none of this twist your foot to get out. you had to be aware as you approached an intersection, and reach down to loosen a strap and get your foot out before you stopped. then you had to make sure that you leant over on the side you released or you were in bigger trouble.

so, racing in ballarat. i turned up to my first ever bike race (i had done some team triathlons previously) and was put in “c” grade as i had no experience at riding in a group. the race was a whole 20km and i had done over 100km in training the previous week. i felt i was ready. the group was about 20 riders and i loved the sound we made as we coasted down a hill. yes, i was such a group riding virgin that i had never heard that sound before. we started doing that whole rolling through thing and it was a new experience for me and quite scary as there were other riders around. the basic circuit had no real hills and took us back to the start line for the group sprint. i had no idea what i was doing and got boxed in on the left as the group started to move. i just stopped pedalling and waited for the group to roll past then came around on the right and past everyone to take the win. wow, i was still in my small chain ring. how easy is this riding thing i thought as i rolled around to cool down and have a spew (pushed a bit too hard). next week, they put me in “b” grade. i got smashed every week until towards the end of the season, when i convinced them to put me back into “c” grade.

after a couple of seasons i finally gave up as i really didn’t like the early morning ballarat rides in the rain, sleet and hail. i kept riding but didn’t take it as seriously as i should have. decisions like that are so easy to make when you are 21.

finished my degree and eventually got a real job in the pilbara. moved up to paraburdoo in 1996 and brought my bikes with me. now para is that small that it doesn’t have a taxi service as you can walk from one side to the other quite easily. it also has only three sealed roads leading out of town. one went 80kms to tom price, one went 7kms to the mine (with an offshoot) and the other went 200 odd kms to the main coast road. there were also lots of tracks thru the bush but they were of varying quality and very hard and sharp when you came off.

so, i had upgraded by then and was now riding a second hand peugot ventoux frame that i had bought of the mate who got me into cycling. i was still on down-tube shifters but now on 14 speed gears, and running shimano exage. rides involved up to the airport and back along the tom price road (20km round trip) or along the mine road and off shoot to the channar mine gate (15km round trip but with a hill) or some distance out the main road out of town. the real problem is that there are no places to stop and get water and the temp in summer was usually over 40 deg every day and dropped down to 30 deg during the night. most rides usually involved a lot of sweating.

started doing a lot more mountain biking around now as the boring roads made for boring rides. i had upgraded from a apollo no suspension cheap and crappy bike to a giant atx 890 with full suspension. i thought it was so cool, but it wasn’t really that good. i guess this is where the organisational skills started to come to the fore as up in the pilbara, if you don’t do it, no-one else will. i started convincing workmates to come out riding with me and soon we were getting trashed on all the trails around the town and some exploration drill tracks near the mine. i can remember one ride that we did where we didn’t head out till 3pm and within ½ hour my brake levers were so hot, i couldn’t touch them for prolonged periods.

i discovered a few guys that liked road riding, so we started heading out on regular rides after work and on the weekend. again, they weren’t long, but we managed to get more and more people involved. i had upgraded again and was now riding the cannondale caad 3 that i had when i first turned up in perth. however, i had also managed to upgrade all the running gear by doing a bit at a time. strangely enough, it would have cost a lot less if i had bought a whole new bike, but it was easier to pass by the financial manager that way. i had also managed to convince a number of other guys to get new road bikes and they found they could go longer and faster. some of those guys are still riding now, while others have lost the love for the bike.

after 5½ years of sucking in the red dirt of the pilbara, we jumped right across the country to the lovely hunter valley. i was back to riding by myself again as there was no organised group that i could find in singleton. the funny thing about singleton was that even though it was a much bigger town than paraburdoo, there was less happening as people didn’t have too. just down the road was maitland with 80,000 and newcastle with over 400,000 people. so if you needed anything, or wanted to do anything, you just went down there. so it was back to exploring the countryside again.

being a decent farming area there were lots of roads to discover and lots of little towns to ride between. it definitely didn’t feel as isolated as para… or as hot. it was a surprise to me one day as I rode down the hill, that was the only sealed entrance into my suburb, that I came across a group of cyclists waiting at the side of the road. I stopped and turned back to them. asked if I could join them and started doing some group rides. they weren’t long, but it was good to be able to ride along and have a chat to someone for a change. they also showed me some new roads and a few climbs in the area. half of the group belonged to the triathlon club, but I wasn’t interested as I was a cyclist.

every year, there was a corporate triathlon in newcastle and a lot of the mining companies had teams and individuals entered. i entered with another guy who was keen to swim and run but not ride. it was the typical sprint distance race over there and was only a 500m/20km/5km event. there were lots of guys that trained up for ages just to do a 20km ride in this event, but i could see that it was a big achievement for some. i still had no interest in doing a triathlon all myself. running and swimming sucked.

so over the following winter the cycling seemed to fall away a bit but some of the guys and girls i worked with were training up for the city2surf in sydney. for lack of any other exercise, i started running with them and was soon doing 5km runs. it hurt like all crap and i used to have to run with a knee brace after a few years of playing basketball in both ballarat and paraburdoo. soon my body got used to it and even though i didn’t run the city2surf, i kept the running up. it kind of occurred to me that if i just learnt to swim 500m then i could actually do a triathlon.

down to the indoor pool we went and i had a crack at this swimming thing. the thing about learning to swim as a kid compared to learning to swim as a 30 year old, is that you just seem to be crap from the start and don’t get any better. i really struggled with swimming and could only do two laps of a 25m pool before needed to take a break. i was so inefficient that it was just killing me. anyway, this is more about the cycling, so i got better, did some triathlons and was soon training up for a half ironman. there were four of us that all worked together at the mine and all lived within about 500m of each other. perfect training partners.

i started organising our training by reading lots of stuff in magazines and online and trying to implement whatever i could. i had a lot more kilometres in my riding legs and would use that to my advantage in races. i was last out of the water but would pass my mates then run until they all past me again. occasionally i could hold them off to the end.

the organisation wasn’t just limited to these training buddies and cycling. soon we had about 15 people turn up to our house after work to go for runs in the evening. i would map out courses and make allowances for the slower runners to take short-cuts and put in enough hills for the stronger runners. then when summer finished and daylight savings ended (hey, it works on the other side of the country) i started mapping out new routes that had adequate street lighting to make sure the girls were not running through scary dark patches.

by then i was also organising that group of guys that i had bumped into early one cold morning on my way out by myself. our rides were getting longer and talking in more climbs, but i always made allowances for people to be able to take shortcuts if they needed to or time for them to regroup.

after a half ironman and a number of sprint and other distance races, we made the move to perth. i thought my riding was going pretty well but i was in for a rude shock. in typical move fashion, we were living out of a suitcase for a number of weeks. we had access to our early release items from the removalists, and in my case this included my bike and all my riding gear.

i did a search on the web and found the excellent wa triathlon website. it had stacks of info and a forum that seemed to be constantly updated. i posted a note to say that i was new to town and needed to know where to ride south of the river. within about two hours there was about four or five replies saying to head to the south perth bike shop and see gary and vicki. someone even posted their phone number so i could call him if i needed extra info. a very friendly and trusting town i thought. anyway, i turned up to the bike shop and met simon, who let me know what the go was with group rides and bike paths etc around perth. i showed up on saturday not knowing what to expect. it was bad.

not a bad ride. not a bad group. not bad organisation. it was bad cause i thought that i was a better rider than i was. i got dropped. dropped bad in a new town with no idea where i was or where we were going. i now know that we were coming past rebold hill and turned onto west coast hwy and then took the usual way home past the swanbourne shops. i got dropped on one of the hills and then got caught at the lights. by the time i got to west coast hwy i couldn’t even see the group. i rode my little arse off and saw another rider just in front of me. suddenly they turned and i almost missed them. i spotted him out the corner of my eye and quickly turned up past the swanbourne shops. i eventually caught up with him and it turned out to be wayne who had also been dropped. at least i was now with someone who knew where they were going.

it may be because of incidents like that, that i insist on regroup points along the way. it probably fits into the same category of stopping when you see someone with a flat tyre as you may be in the same situation one day.

anyway, i kept the riding going and also found a couple of the guys that i had ridden with in the pilbara were also now in perth. my first hills experience was not a good one. rob h and michael w took me out for my hills induction and we went a now familiar course. being a small group we went via the midland bike track and out to the bottom of the zig zag. from kalamunda we went to mundaring then back down through darlington. i didn’t fair too well. it was 110km by the time i got home but even before that i was struggling. the last 1½ hours were a bit of a blur for me as i was on auto pilot just trying to hold a wheel. the guys had to continuously slow down whenever there was a small rise in the bike path as i kept falling off the back. i eventually got home safely but probably scarred for life.

for me the triathlons kept going, though i was struggling a lot with training as i was missing my training buddies. there were not too many from the south perth group that did tri’s so i was pretty much on my own. early morning runs and rides with evening swims were part of the build up to the half ironman in busso each year. i managed to convince the financial manager to let me buy a triathlon specific bike and scored a full carbo quintana roo lucero. nice bike. it’s amazing how much more power you can put out on a triathlon specific frame. i also started to go to vicki’s wednesday morning sessions which at the time where still leaving from the shop. it was all interval based work with sprints, hill repeats, the dreaded one legged drills and a lot of yelling… at you. i found it good as it focussed on particular things and probably did quite a bit at improving me as a cyclist.

so, even though i was focussing more on triathlons, i managed to negotiate a new road bike. this was under the assumption that as we were expecting our first child, it may be the last bike i get for a long, long time. i ended up with the fondriest domino plus that i am on today, but like most things, am always wanting to upgrade. that is a different story though.

by now we had started to develop the sunday ride a bit further. we had increased the ride from the usual, one climb and coffee, to up to four climbs and over 1,000m of vertical ascent before the coffee and then a 30km trip home. i think this happened due to simon not always being there for the sunday ride and everyone turning up wondering where we can ride. after a few times of semi-argument of where to go, i found that if you rocked up with a plan and just told everyone where you were riding, people didn’t question it. i would often talk to michael w during the week to work out where we should ride but this soon developed into the mapmyride routes that we are using today.

gary and vicki had sold the shop and soon it became simon’s saturday ride and my sunday ride by default. i had stopped the triathlon training but was still doing vicki’s wednesday sessions which had moved to king’s park. it, however, was not enough and i put on weight hitting the 79kg mark. this may not sound like much, but my work pants started getting tight. i was in denial and started carrying my phone on a pouch rather than in my pocket as i didn’t want to buy new pants. luckily kids are the spreader of disease and after having the flu and three bouts of gastro i was back to my original 72kg.

after returning from one of christophe’s organised bike tours of france, simon informs us that he is moving on from the south perth shop. with very little interest coming from the shop, i decide to step up and organise the saturday rides as well. when mickey took over from simon, he wanted to make some changes, but we were happy with how we ran our rides and he soon lost interest and concentrated on the beginners.

about this time i started e-mailing the maps out to those that were interested so that everyone knew where we were riding. the mapmyride website was a very handy tool and soon we had a repertoire of at least 10 saturday and sunday rides. as this grew i became worried that it may be viewed as a spam service and so i moved it to a blog format. this allowed everyone to access the information at whatever time they wanted and stopped me from having to send out e-mails every week. the blog “where are we riding today” was a good start and provided a good platform to keep everything organised.

what was also going on at this time was the other rides that did not involve the saturday group in its entirety. there was a number of rio tinto based groups that i was also organising. cyclo-sportif races with up to four teams, great perth bike ride, the freeway bike hike and the brw corporate triathlon were also on my plate during the year. i somehow became the point of contact within the company for anything cycling/triathlon orientated. it hasn’t been all bad and my design for a rio tinto jersey is now being worn in perth, melbourne, brisbane and some parts of the usa.

so everything was travelling along smoothly. we had a good turn out on both the saturday and sunday rides and had a new kit in the pipeline. about then the incident happened and it all went to shit. maybe i was in the wrong, maybe there was a conflict of interest, and maybe my actions were responsible for taking the food out of the poor bike shop owners mouth. either way i made a complete split from the south perth shop and let everyone else decide where they would ride from.

we moved up the road to ensure we were still in south perth and continued to ride as we always did. some technical difficulties meant that the blog was shutdown but i reinvented it as the current one. there is a plan to move to a hosted site rather than the blog based one which will give us more control over what we can and cannot post.

so, we started racing this year and stu and i kicked it off with the tour de perth. a bunch of other races followed with different guys from the south perth team joining in when they could. the highlight for me was coming second at the state road championships in the masters 2/3 division. so after 17 years, i finally make it onto the podium again. with our new kit just around the corner and a lot more people involved with the blog and running the group, i can only see good things in the future.

so that is how i got to where i am. but the question is still asked of me “where are we riding today”.

ride routes 28th & 29th june

ride routes by peter

another newish course this saturday.
we have done a similar one in the past back when simon used to lead us, so the hill next to the golf course will not be new to some of you.

sunday we have our first cyclo-sportif race that does not clash with a proper wacf race.
it is nice and close too as it starts at the velodrome in midland.

saturday 28th june
cresswell & herdsman

sunday 29th june
kahuna & peet & patterson

tour de france tipping comp

update by peter

i have set up a blog to run this years tipping competition.

http://tourtipping.blogspot.com/

i have posted the rules and a contact e-mail for teams entry.
cost will be $10 per team and you can enter as many teams as you want.
all money will be distributed as prizes plus there will be some extra prizes this year as have been kindly donated.

so, have a look at the site and flick me an team entry.
money will be collected later.

sunday 22nd june - welshpool & mundaring & kalamunda

ride report by peter

so my first hills ride in a long time and before i even started, i knew it was going to hurt. if i hadn’t been racing, i had been unable to ride due to other commitments. the racing was generally on flatter courses too, so it has been a different style of riding.

many of the usual suspects toed the line this morning, but we had an influx of estrogen as we also had four girls come out with us. davina was out on her final hills ride before she heads to the usa for eight weeks of racing. you can keep tabs on her progress via her blog which can be found here. a friend of hers, bec, also joined us along with sandy, who i used to do triathlons with, and anna an old regular. as far as the blokes went, we had ryan to keep us honest on the hills and carlo, a friend of stu’s who was a bit of a dark horse.

i had mapped out a new route this morning to take in the mundaring weir road. we often ride mundaring weir, but are usually heading towards kalamunda for coffee rather than away from it. i thought the change would be good, but to get to it, we would have to get across the scarp via welshpool rd. after mundaring, we would head back through darlington and back up to kalamunda for coffee. it was planned to be just over 100km by the time we got home.

the morning was fresh, but not as cold as yesterday. everyone was rugged up but wary of the fact that it was going to warm up as the day progressed. we headed out great eastern hwy to get onto orrong rd and picked up mike on the way out. great, both mike and ryan to hurt us on the hills. nice and uneventful on the way out and pretty soon we were beginning to climb the “lower slopes” of the welshpool hill.

everyone had been doing turns on the front and just as the road began to point upward, the guys peeled off to leave sandy and anna to lead the way up the climb. michael came to the front with davina on his wheel and i jumped on as he set the pace. a train of ryan, mike, mark and a new guy, carlo came past as the climb got harder. i switched wheels to see how long i could stay with them. i was sitting on carlo’s wheel when ryan swapped turns with mike and set a higher pace. i pulled off to the side and i think jerry may have been there too. all blood was channeled to legs so the short term memory was not functioning properly. anyway, eventually it ended up being ryan, mike & carlo up the road and they had about 100 metres on mark and myself by the time we past the servo.

after that, i don’t really know what happened to the front guy’s navigational skills. all three turned up lesmurdie road. when have we ever turned up that way??? mark asked me if we were going straight and we just kept powering by as they eventually looked back down the road and realised their mistake. the aim now was to try to stay ahead of the hapless trio.

as we crested the next section, we saw a few cyclists a bit further up the road. these turned out to be, doug, dr paul & dr greg. doug had lives up that way so always joins after the start, whilst the docs had left early and were going to do their own thing.

after the second “step” in the climb, we were still ahead of them but they were closing fast. ryan and mike had dropped carlo and very soon they had overtaken us. it was now a matter of jumping on board and holding on till the end. on the final pinch i tried a bid for glory, but came up a little short as they caught me as we crested the rise. we then rolled down to the intersection together. there may have been a dispute as to who should really claim the first on this climb, but the commasaires have reviewed the tape and have declared that they were stupid to turn up lesmurdie road.

a regroup at the top and we were off into bickley valley. a few of us tried for the landspeed record down the glenisla rd as it was ideal weather with little wind at that time. as i said yesterday, it was the winter solstice, which is the shortest day of the year. as we past through bickely valley it still had not seen the sun and was absolutely freezing. their winter solstice must mean a day of only three hours direct sunlight. another quick regroup to make sure we had everyone and we were off again, but unlike every other ride, we were heading away from the coffee shop.

the road to mundaring has a couple of main climbs and a lot of undulations in between. we hit the first one as soon as we turned onto the road and as i was “leading the way” i ended up with a decent gap on the rest of the field. carlo bridged across to me and soon ryan, mark and mike were there too. jerry briefly tried to make it across, but was a little short and didn’t manage to get a wheel.

the pace wasn’t high, but consistent, and we swapped off turns all the way to the weir. the decent into the dam wall was a lot of fun, especially the last couple of hundred metres where they have laid hotmix. all that road needs is about 20km more of it and it will be awesome.

as we came up out of the weir, we changed plans and would stop at the roundabout as i was concerned that some of the group may not know the way and would get lost. this meant that the second climb would not be that long, and ryan could go harder sooner. he did. about halfway up the first pinch out of the weir, he started going hard. mark and carlo dropped off but i managed to hang on, but only just. just as the climb approached the roaundabout and the grade steepened, both mike and ryan stepped on the gas and i had to let them go. i think mike pipped ryan for line honors.

regroup and off again. the pack stayed together till about the halfway point, where ryan, mike and carlo took off on one of the rolling hills. i again, managed to stay around for a bit but soon ran out of legs and could not hold wheel. mark and darren picked me up as they came past and we were only about 150 metres behind once we hit the regroup point again.

the rest of the decent into darlington was going to be controlled and the group would stay together. there were too many twists and turns for people to get lost in, and michael and i also wanted to take the group down one of the steepest hills in the area. this particular hill is called mills rd and averages about 17%. when going up (and we will do this one soon) your arms get sore from pulling up on the bars and you are always searching for an easier gear. when going down, you are going over the crest and still can’t see the bottom of the hill. you tend to ride the brakes the whole way down as you pick up speed in no time. there is also a semi-blind corner that you don’t want to cut, just in case. a small bonus climb to get us to darlington, and we started another descent.

this eventually brought us out at the base of ridge hill rd, our last bonus climb for the day. my legs were not cooperating by now and when carlo and ryan went, i couldn’t really respond. i just rode tempo to the top but kept them in sight till the start of the zig zag.

as we regrouped a coup happened. not from within the ranks, but rather from my legs. they said “i swear that if you make us ride up kalamunda rd i will put your foot through the spokes when you are coming done welshpool”. they were pissed, and who could blame them. i hammered them pretty hard today, and they were out of condition to start with. my cardio backed the legs and my brain made my mouth tell everyone that i think we should just go straight up the zig zag. a few of the others turned off to go home and then ryan and mike took off up the zig zag at pace. i was content to just cruise along and enjoy the view for a while. a couple of other “hardcore” riders decided to still tackle kalamunda rd. darren, dr melyvn and anna all deserve the insanity medal for that one.

about halfway up i thought that i better make the most of it and took off catching mark by surprise. michael must have been expecting it and sat neatly on my wheel until i ran out of puff. he then took off up the road to leave me suffering alone. mark and jerry started the long chase and eventually swallowed me up then spat me out the back while they went after michael. i snuck down a back road and beat all three of them to the coffee shop.

as i said before, today was davina’s last ride with us for a while. i can still remember the first sunday when she and josie turned up. we went up carawatha hill in mt nasura near brookton hwy and davina had to push her bike up, claiming that she was a track sprinter, not a road cyclist. how things have changed, as now she is smashing it up those same hills and going racing in the usa. josie has also just returned from a few months racing in europe and will be heading back again soon. for the rest of us that are well past our prime, we can all live vicariously through those in the group that are doing well in the sport.

coffee was good. service was not too bad considering it was closer to 11 than 10 when we arrived. so refreshed, rehydrated and recovered (maybe) we were on our way again. a fast descent down welshpool was not an option as the wind was not in our favour. a group of us stayed pretty much together until the bottom, when i ran out of legs (again) when they began to time trial to the regroup point. all present and correct and we started rolling through to keep out of the wind. we managed to box ryan in almost till the end but he still managed to stretch his legs for a couple of hundred metres to the intersection.

lining up for the final sprint along berwick, both ryan and davina were eyeing each other off as neither wanted to be on the front. knowing i had no sprint, i went to the front and paced the final section from kent st all the way to the end. as we came onto the flat section and the final sprint, ryan, jerry and davina all jumped off my wheel but ryan was too strong and managed to hold off a fast finishing jerry at the unofficial invisible line.

so, a good first ride back for me, as i actually finished without totally dying and managed to keep the big boys in sight at the major climbs. we have a cyclo-sportif event next weekend so not hills for me, but after that the next race is not till august, so i expect that i would have reacquainted myself with most of the climbs in perth by then.

Team SPR @ Mt Helena and the Case of the Forgotten Shoes

Race Report by Chris

So another weekend and this time a hilly race was planned with the WC Masters. Bruce was keen, I needed another workout and with the weather looking good there were no real excuses.
A scheduled 9:30 start was sounding very civilised and meant I could have a proper breakfast before heading out. Ah Coco Pops, breakfast of champions.
A cool start for the day so I made sure I packed arm and knee warmers and warm shoe covers just in case. The drive out there was pleasant and I arrived with plenty of time to sign on and have a look around at some of the other toys. Young Steve Bush had come along for his first race with the oldies and quickly got shoved into B grade.
Bruce showed up eventually and we had a quick chat about strategy, sit-in was my plan. Bruce had similar ideas I think. Steve seemed a little apprehensive.
Numbers looked good for B grade and Bruce’s assessment of the course was rolling with no real climbs. Things were looking promising, I like rolling hills that rely on power to get over. Long climbs tend to bore me and so I don’t really commit to attacking them like I should.
Anyway, with ½ hour to start time I figured I’d best get organised and warm up, although there was a short neutralised section to the start I knew from previous experience that one of the guys would attack from the gun. In this case it’s always good to have done a couple of efforts so it doesn’t hurt as much.
So, back to the car to get kitted up. Out of my civvies and into the cycling kit, decided on the arm warmers but left the knee warmers in the car. Then the clincher, reached in to grab the shoes and...”sh*t, where are my shoes?”
Went through the usual looking in places I‘d never have put them in the first place but no joy. It seems I have joined the ranks of Forgetful Jones.
I was not happy! Motivated and ready to race it seems I wasn’t going to be allowed to due to my own ineptitude.
With not a little embarrassment I went to let Bruce know I had no shoes and would not be able to race. As luck would have it to add to my shame Lorraine had come along to support a friend racing and got to hear my tragic tale.
So lesson learnt (I hope) I drove home fuming, 2 hours of driving and no riding not a happy camper. In case you were wondering, Bruce finished 13th but I have no idea about young Steve as he has not been listed on the results sheet.

Speed and Power Calculator

by john

If you're like me, wondering how much faster you could go without that 3rd helping of rockyroad ice cream...then look no further ...

http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm


P.S. if you see this...
Error 404 - Not found Die angegebene Seite konnte nicht gefunden werden.
(translated it means 'the site cannot be found'.)

it's a not a real server error but a fabricated 404 message. my guess is fritz is having a tantrum over the sudden amount of traffic hitting his server...you may have to be patient. maybe bookmark it then try again later.

saturday 21st june - sth lake

ride report by peter

today is the winter solstice, which, for those that remember some of the things they taught us at primary school, it the shortest day of the year. it was also probably the coldest start we have had as well. at 7:00 it was officially 3.4 deg in perth city. by 7:30 it was 3.3 deg but luckily an hour and a half later when we hit the coffee shop it was 12.6 deg. almost summer. hopefully, as the days get longer the less you will hear me whinge about the lack of daylight until daylight savings kicks in again.

so, due to the cold start and the short day, i was expecting a less than impressive turn out. to my surprise we had close to forty roll in all kitted up in whatever winter gear they could find. we were doing a new route today and it would be a learning experience. i will apologise now for the stretch along armadale rd as it was a bit busy and will be excised from the route in future. we intended to head down canning hwy and onto north lake rd till it hit armadale rd. we would then return via nicholson rd and albany hwy. as we had never used this route before, i was unsure about which spots to let the boys loose, so i picked a familiar spot were this route and the banister rd route combine. at least people should know where they were headed by then.

the majority of the ride was pretty sedate as it was a reconnaissance. north lake rd had a couple of rolling hills that tested the back markers a bit, but all in all the roads were good all the way down to beeliar drive. i was splitting my time between making sure the guys on the front knew where they were going to making sure some of our weaker riders were keeping up at the back. i felt like a bit of a sheep dog, roaming the edge of the flock, trying to keep it in check. ryan was also doing an admirable job helping lisa along when the going got tough. michael had one of our first mechanicals, with a flat tyre, but he waved me on when i was going to stop.

we turned onto armadale rd and lost our nice clear double lane. suddenly we were in a 90 zone of single lane traffic that was in a hurry to go do stuff and things. we battled on but i was hanging out for the left turn that would take us away from all of it. nick commented after we turned that we should have been single file as he saw a number of cars pass very, very close to the outside rider. it doesn’t matter now as the route will be changed.

swinging onto nicholson rd we were soon into nicer quieter roads that skirted suburbia. as we past livingston marketplace, where sharon has her optical shop, i was chatting to ryan about places to make the fast stretch, and this seemed ideal. nice smooth roads and double lane. next time we will know better. as this road came to an end, dr melvyn had our second mechanical with a suspected flat tyre.

as nicholson turned left and continued over roe hwy, it was on for a few km’s before we connected back with albany hwy. a few of the guys took advantage of the fact that ryan was on the back and took off hard to try to keep away. i was somewhere in the middle and struggling to hold pace let alone bridge across. rob came around to help, which was good for a while, but then i was fading fast and couldn’t hold his wheel. ryan came flying past about then and bridged across to the leaders but didn’t go past them as he was content at that. i managed to limp in, and with the benefit of a set of traffic lights, i kept in contact.

we slowed the pace down at albany hwy to allow the group to reform as we had spread out quite a bit by then. the next fast section was only just down the road and would take us back into town and to a well deserved coffee stop.

as albany hwy merged into shepperton rd, the pace was on again. the rolling hills make this last stretch interesting as do the traffic lights, as both can potentially allow a rider to get away for a solo bid. this time, however, the lights allowed the group to reform a couple of times as we all got caught. james took off after one set, but i was content to play the spoiler today and just pull back any breaks that went. everyone was itching to go, but no-one wanted to commit until ryan jumped at the base of a small rolling hill. as i was on the front, i managed to semi-stick with him. i was there, but not exactly on his wheel, but far enough from the rest of the group to say that it was a breakaway. unfortunately, when my body said enough, this left me in no-mans land and was pick up by the rest of the riders as we came down the hill into the causeway.

this is where is started to get messy.

a couple of the boys began to slide along side the cars at the lights like motorbikes do when you are stuck in traffic. this is fine for them, but on the bicycle, they are going to have to negotiate around us again, which puts us in a potentially unsafe situation. about three riders crept around while the rest of us waited behind the line of cars. this gave those guys a decent advantage when the lights changed and we were struggling to catch them.

ryan bolted out of our group and easily bridged across to them. chris hit the front of our group and tried to bring them back all by himself. knowing that i had no top end speed for a sprint, i rolled around to the front to try to time trial the group up to the leaders. it didn’t last long and by the time we had crossed the causeway, i was spent and peeled off to the side.

no idea how the ride finished, though i can make a good guess, as i limped in minutes afterwards. not a good sign for a big hills ride tomorrow.

no coffee stop for me as it is bens 2nd birthday today and we were having a party. i did manage to catch up with lorraine, who was there with her wrist still in a cast, to talk about a potential bike kit launch breakfast. i will keep you informed as it comes closer.

i am running a tour tipping comp again this year and will have that up and running soon too. same format as last year, where you must pick a new rider everyday, but not the same rider between rest days. confused??? don’t worry, i will post the rules on a separate blog soon.

ride routes 21st & 22nd june

ride routes by peter

a couple of new routes this week as i was getting a bit bored with the others.

we will be heading down south on saturday along north lake rd and as it will be our first time, we will be taking it easy.

sunday is a monster day and i will be suffering due to lack of recent hills rides. four climbs plus a couple of bonus ones will certainly test the legs. should be a good day.

saturday 21st june
sth lake

sunday 22nd june
welshpool & mundaring & kalamunda

other training - track

so anyway, in my quest of being a better biker, i have started going to the velodrome on a tuesday night. it is a scary experience the first time you head out there, but there are people to help the novices along and pretty soon you are scooting along on the banking.

it is good to develop a proper spin to your cycling and also some sense of where you bike is sitting in the group (as you have no brakes and can't stop pedalling). i seriously have not had to concentrate so much whilst riding for such a long time. oh yeah, and it's fast. so fast that you are just a blur on the photo.

it is pretty cheap ($10 plus bike hire which i think is $5) and goes from 6pm to about 8pm.

you just need to bring a helmet and pedals/shoes..maybe some bike clothes unless you want to do the whole world naked cycling thing.

there are quite few people that turn up and it caters for all abilities so i encourage you all to turn up and have a go.

peter

world naked bike ride

opinion by peter

over the weekend there were some news reports of bunches of nude cyclists taking to the streets. mainly in spain and london, but apparently it is a worldwide "event" to highlight pretty much whatever cause you want. the website talks about "indecent exposure to cars", but if you look at some of the pics, they are protesting anything from puppy farms to nuclear power. it's funny that we really haven't got past the "sex sells" mentality, even for environmental and moral crusades.

it hasn't really taken off here, and it's not just the weather. if you look at the website for the melbourne and sydney ones, there are only a handful of people participating. in london they have a couple of thousand. maybe we should have it incorporated as past of the cyclo-sportif race calendar. they usually get a few hundred riders. or maybe it would be a way to get more people to watch track racing if there was a nude match sprint (gotta watch those splinters).







not everyone should get naked though...

Sunday - Welshpool Rapids & Kalamunda River

Report by John
Updated with Video

All those with nothing better to do, and either no decent coffee machine, or indoor trainer turned up - i think there were 6 or 7. i waited in the rain hoping no one would turn up but alas they trickled in like drowned rats - equally disappointed in seeing a fellow cyclist…so we had to go.

someone murmured about going straight for a coffee - and thus a mutiny was hatched.
pete’s planned route was sabotaged before we even started.

i was little disappointed - i mean if you make the effort to go riding in the rain, may as well get hypothermia and make the most out of it. then again i must confess i was not totally unhappy as it started to ‘persist‘ down.

the ride up welshpool for me was better than anticipated - i kept in touch with the front guys (kept in touch at about 100m behind) for half the climb. todd was on my tail most of the way until he had a spell in front with me taking him on the last little kick before the finish.

the other climb up kalamunda hill felt good as well. trailed dr carl for a bit then took him. there is a flattish section about half way up that i’ve learnt to change into the big ring and scoot along. managed to keep about 35kmh for a while there but never caught sight of the front 4 guys. i reckon they must have been about 400m in front.

Pete and young Ben met us for a much needed hot drink (thanks carl for the $5) , and i think pete was filming us on the way back down the hill. at first glance i thought some cop was trying to make sure we weren't speeding...no chance of that!

every time i climb it’s a learning experience balancing lungs, heart and lactic acid (”the kids in the back seat” ) with my brain telling everyone to “settle down”.

i think lance was right - we ride not for the pleasure, but for the pain. it gives us such a sense of achievement to ‘handle it’ - not matter where one is in group’s pecking order.

all in all, happy i did the ride (so nearly piked out), but very relieved to make it down the hill and back home in one piece.

apologies for not mentioning everyone who rode, but i have trouble enough remembering what i did let alone anyone else...

Team SPR Misses Podium at Neerabup

Race Report by Chris
WC Masters15-Jun-08 Neerabup 9 Laps
The choice between sleeping in, doing a hills ride or having a race with the old boys. Since I am a bit lazy with my training and not a big fan of hills I let Bruce know that I intended to head out to stretch the legs. Once Bruce committed there was no backing out for me.
The predicted big storm didn't arrive overnight and I was hoping that it had slipped around Perth. A few showers and a reasonable breeze though would make it interesting at the very least.

Not surprisingly there wasn't much of a turnout and both Bruce and I were hoping that there would be enough numbers that B grade didn't get merged with A. Thankfully B had around 12 starters and as we waited for the off the rain began. Beautiful.

Bruce and I spent the first lap up the front, our "plan" was to take things easy and see how we felt. Things started pretty steadily so I wasn't too worried about spending time on the front as long as it wasn't too strenuous.

Bruce and I had discussed tactics prior to the start and neither of us were terribly confident. Anyway we decided that we would see how we were feeling and then later if either of us went up the road the other would try to slow the bunch and cover any chasers.

On the second lap a couple of guys in JCC kit went to the front to up the pace, I covered the move and things were strung out for a little while through the rolling section of the course. One of these guys attacked on the next lap and the bunch let him go, I thought it was way too early for a solo effort with 6 or 7 laps to go. He ended up getting out to about a minute after a couple of laps and we figured we were racing for 2nd place.

There were a few attempts to get away a couple of them I knew weren't going anywhere. Trying to break away with a tail wind or downhill doesn't work in my experience, unless it is a long technical descent. The tail wind section wasn't particularly long and didn't really give you much time to put a decent gap into the field.

Anyway when a former Olympian (not telling what year) has a dig you take notice, I chased after him and caught on. Bob Addy is one strong guy and I have learnt not to let him get away. Anyway we were soon caught by the rest of the bunch, he went again a little later and with another guy got a fair gap on the bunch.

Once they were back in the group, thanks to Bruce and a few of the others I attacked up the first of the inclines at the back of the circuit. The guy who had been away with Bob came with me and we swapped off turns for about 2/3 of a lap before being joined by the group again. I rested up and figured that might be my lot for the day. Once we got back around to the lumpy section things weren't quite as intense as I thought they should be so I went again. This one didn't last too long but had certainly hurt me and hopefully the bunch. I slipped back through the bunch and Bruce moved up towards the front. For a guy who was complaining of not feeling well before the start he put in a big effort driving the bunch along for a while.
By this time I was figuring that we were going to be doing well to have a dip at the finish. We could see C grade up the road and I thought maybe the guy who had been away since the 2nd or 3rd lap. As we crossed the start/finish line the commissaires told us that C grade were on their bell lap (we had 2 to go), I figured we would either chase to get buy them or take it easy and let them have their sprint. We didn't chase but the pace didn't drop significantly.
As we came over the last incline before the start/finish we could see the solo rider ahead of C grade and one of our bunch headed off after him. Personally, I thought this was a bit rude and perhaps the others did too because noone chased. Ettiquete would suggest you leave C grade to finish their race, this guy didn't care and went through their bunch anyway.

So, now we figured we were racing for 3rd. Bummer, bell lap and two guys up the road. With a long drag into the wind for the finish I wasn't confident Bruce or I would be up for much given the work we'd been doing. I made an attempt to thin things out around the back figuring it was better than dying wondering. Others had the same idea and the move was covered and emulated, pain and more pain. "Why am I doing this to myself" I was asking.
About this time the wind really picked up in an almighty gust blowing a shed or some such over in an almighty crash. We didn't know it yet but the drag to the line had just been made a lot tougher. Bob (the Olympian) had gone up the road chasing the two leaders and had latched onto the guy who had gone away on the previous lap.

Up the final incline the pace really dropped off and my ego got the better of me, I figured I could go to the line solo so I attacked as hard as my tired legs would let me. Funnily enough it didn't work, Bruce came by yelling at me to jump on. Yeah right! I slid back to the bunch in a vain attempt to slow the rest of the bunch.

So I jump on and we reel Bruce in the gap to the others is closing and the poor bastard who broke away early gets chewed up and spat out. I tell him well done as I go past, that was a really solid effort. Then the sprint for third begins in earnest Bob and the guy with no ettiquette just manage to hold off the bunch for 1st and 2nd. Mick Russell yells for me to jump on as he and another guy come by, I barely manage to do so as the three of us pass Bruce. So by my reckoning it was a 5th for me and 6th for Bruce, not bad since I know I didn't have anything left in the tank.

A good workout at intensity was what I was after and received as I aim for the CS event at the end of the month with Team Porno and an eye on the Collie-Donnybrook in August.

saturday 14th june - benara rd

ride report by peter

as saturday rolled around, the predicted ne winds did not appear and we had calm conditions instead. usually this would be better, but i was banking on a nice tailwind on benara rd to give us a push. with the predicted clear 23 degrees meaning very little overnight cloud cover, the temp had dropped to about 6 deg by the time i rolled out from home.

the usual suspects were there this morning minus ryan who we expected had slept in again, but would probably join us as we rolled by his house. we headed out great eastern hwy and crossed the river at ascot, turning onto guilford rd. the group took it really easy this morning and it made a good change from the last time we did this route. there were some hot-heads which split the group up early when they got a draft from behind a truck. this made for a very splintered and dangerous trip through guilford. no truck this time so everyone was together by the time we hit benara. everyone except dr paul and dr greg who turned off early for a shortcut.

i was sitting at the back of the pack with ryan when the pace came on. not ideal positioning, but the road is long and i was sure that there would be wheels to catch to propel me forward. after the second round-about, i had made my way to the front and launched a nice attack where i managed to gap the field significantly. i had a really good group ride on thursday and thought that my form was up and ready to play. unfortunately, this was saturday and i found i had no legs. i pushed on trying to will some more power out of my body, but i was going slower and slower. the bunch lead by nick reeled me back in and back was the direction i was going. everyone who was in that group managed to get past me as i was struggling to hold the pace.

i managed a bit of recovery before finding my way to about mid-pack again. at the two main sets of lights that stopped us, it was strange to hear that not a word was spoken. maybe i wasn’t the only one feeling it today. as we came through the last roundabout and started the final stretch, i attacked again. this time i didn’t get as far before ryan came screaming around me like i was standing still. i tried to hold out as long as possible but soon the rest of the pack engulfed me. i managed to hold on and limp to the end of benara rd.

we slowed it right down for the next section to allow any stragglers to catch back up and also allow us a bit of a breather. as we headed towards whatley crescent, the pace picked up a bit as the guys saw dr paul and dr greg up the road a bit. this forced the group to “line-out” and i was stuck at the back talking to shao as we approached the intersection. bad positioning again, and i was sure that we would miss the lights altogether, but managed to scrape through on the amber.

a handful of boys had attacked straight away and managed to get a bit of a break. i sprinted around the main group and headed into no-mans land. wary of my previous two efforts i tried not to max out, and aimed for a steady pace to try to reel them back in. i past dr paul just as the lights changed which stopped the rest of the pack. i was seriously screwed now. the guys were up the road in front of me, and the ones behind were now stuck at the lights. i decided to keep plugging away, and hoped that i could make up the ground.

a group of five or so should have been able to keep away from me on my own, but there weren’t really sharing the work load. it took a few km’s but i finally managed to grab a wheel. it turned out to be dr greg who had latched on as the train went past. rob had been doing the majority of the work with a turn from christophe, but then rob was soon back in front again. he was frustrated and so kept going through the lights at guilford rd when the rest of us stopped. not a yellow card, or a red card, but a serious black card as the lights were very red.

i got on the front as the lights changed and time trialed my way along east parade with the other five in tow. it turns out that the other group then got every single red light on whatley cres and was never in sight of catching us. we caught and past rob and kept the pace on over the police station hill as usual. with only a handful available for the final sprint, i decided to lead it out as i felt i had no top end speed. with james on my wheel i wound it up along riverside drive until about halfway. gasping for air, i signaled for james to make his move, but he said he had nothing. ryan and jerry came flying past and that was the end of the sprint for me. ryan managed to dodge the sloooow car that i was catching and held on to the end.

the rest of the crew rolled in a few minutes later, all grumbling about the lights on whatley cres. by then the day had seriously fined up and so we really shouldn’t have had anything to complain about. coffee and a big breakfast for some offered a nice end to the ride. the shorter distance on this one also meant that we had longer to chat at the coffee shop too.

i have been playing with some new routes for both the saturday and sunday rides that i hope to unleash on the group soon. variety helps keep it interesting.

ride routes - 14th & 15th june

routes posted by peter.

moderately strong ne winds predicted for saturday, so lets have a fast run down benara rd.

no sunday ride for me again this week, but i will endeavour to meet the group for coffee. it will be a hard course on sunday. not because of the climbs, but to see who has the will-power to ride past the coffee shop after only one climb and keep going. be strong.

saturday 14th june
benara rd

sunday 15th june
kalamunda & observatory

Sunday 8th June 2008 - Part 2, Canning Mills, Peet and Lawnbrook.

Sunday Ride Part 2 By Ryan (following on from Darren’s report)

Well, I was not feeling the best today (I dehydrated my body on Sat arvo playing in the park (boxing, rugby finishing up with soccer) and do not think I refuelled it adequately even though I drank a lot of fluids on Sat night (coke and lemonade are good rehydration drinks? J), also have a cold sitting in the background threatening to become full blown given half the chance (flus are in the head after all, they need to be suppressed).

Quick summary of my ride, it was my first time up Canning Mills road and it beat me mentally. I started spinning at the bottom and everyone dropped off, then the road kept going and kept on pointing north.. Passed another lone rider and said g’day. Then my legs started to say they did not want to play, my heart was pounding and my head was asking “When does this end?”. I took a look back and saw Michael B was not too far behind so I thought it was fine to ease up a smidge and wait for him to catch up.

Michael B caught up and went past saying it was only him. I asked how much further but received no response. I went past him momentarily, then Stuart came past and Michael B jumped on his wheel. I thought I would just sit on behind them which I did for a little while until my head gave in and I eased right up (not happy with myself for breaking but will endeavour not to do it again). I then spotted the road I had been given orders to stop at, I had to be sure and read the sign properly and in this time, Stuart and Michael B were still going up the road, I made a poor attempt at telling them we had to stop but then felt they would notice noone had followed and would turn around (they did eventually).

I was at the back at the start of the downhill section but was in second spot behind Mark (who loves downhill sections) when we hit Peet road. I was still feeling rough but was thankful as I looked right at the steep section of Peet road (looked very steep when looking down it) that we had not had to come up it. I was happy behind Mark then Stuart came past and Michael B jumped on the back of the train. I sat in for the rest of the uphill section. When the road went flat, I thought I would have a turn on the flat and pull everyone along at a decent rate of knots. Coming out of the roundabout and the road started going up again, I let everyone go past and resumed my stalking position (riding like a sprinter Michael B said).

I sat there until the hill up to the school and I saw Stuart stand and give it a bit, followed by Mark, I took this as my cue to up the anti and I had to dig deep to get the weary body out of the saddle and press hard towards the summit. I managed to summon the required energy and power to gap everyone by the top.

Next section is short and sharp to Karragullen servo and I started at the back. Turning onto Brookton, I slowly went around people where there were some gaps until I was up front and I started pulling at a decent pace. Then Melvyn did his special and shot past then it was all on till the servo (I arrived first to find CRT people already there waiting). Brief regroup and we were off again, now wrapped up with CRT folk. CRT group were good and had some strong ladies.

I decided to take it easy again and sat in behind the group with Stuart at the front do most of the work. I was a little confused where we were and picked up the pace and went past at a time when I thought we had a little while to go, turns out we were almost at the intersection where we had a small regroup, sorry Stuart, a little rude to take off with not much time left, I told myself I would do more work on the final climb of the day (turned out to be Lawnbrook).

Lawnbrook is not my favourite climb as it is one which is a little steeper than I can comfortably climb but I told myself to put some in this climb so when I hit the bottom, I kept the gears heavy and started grinding up and passed Michael B at the start of the climb. Kept on going and then the head started playing tricks and body did not want to play. No, I was keeping on going, I kept on pushing and I thought the road was flattening out and I looked down at my back wheel and there was another wheel right behind it, a red one, it must be Michael B. I eased up a little and he came up next to me, I said I did not want to play anymore and how much further to go. No response but he was breathing hard and pushing hard. So I decided to dig deep again and passed him on the right.

I kept pushing till the road flattened out, I thought this is where it would end, then Michael B came past again and kept the pace high. Fair enough, we are on the flat now, my territory so I upped the pace and pulled Michael along at a steady rate till I thought I could ease up and past me he went again. Hmm, seems this tussle was not going to be over till the T section so I put my head down and bum up and went past again and pushed hard till the T section where we were regrouping. Tough climb it was and Stuart rolled in 50seconds after we arrived and then about another minute back till others started to roll in. Time Trialled to coffee shop for some fun, I think Melvyn tried to latch on as I went past.

Coffee shop was uneventful, but please note matching Dashing Assos Doctors.

Ride home was puncture ridden. Jerard and I arrived at the Albany Hwy/Shep Hwy intersection first and wondered where everyone had got to. Jerard said Mark had pulled up with a puncture and everyone must have stopped with him. We sat there for a little while watching some ‘locals’ having a lovers quarrel. Which moved from the MacDondalds to some bushes. Mark rolled in and saw the quarrel and stopped to tell the ‘fella’ off for slapping his missus about. The ‘fella’ then started moving towards Mark so Jerard and I rolled up the road to where he was (a ute had stopped as well and was telling the ‘fella’ not to lay a hand on the girl (ute man disappeared fast).

‘Fella’ proceeded to tell Mark not to tell him how to live his life as he did not tell Mark how to live his. Mark told him that he would tell him what to do if what he was doing was breaking the law. Mark then told ‘fella’ to stay away from him. I took out camera (phone) and ‘fella’ told me to tell the police his name was JT and they would know him as he was recently out of prison (quality ‘fella’ I tell you). I told him I was not calling the police and he then accused me of being a paedophile (I asked how old he was and he said he was a man, I told him I was not a paedophile if he was a man.. Not sure he grasped the concept).

We learnt Dr Mark had punctured twice and fallen off (when pulling over to change first puncture). We rolled off when we saw everyone arriving but group broke up again. It was late now and I had a little sprint with Jerard coming up to Canning Hwy (well Jerard did not play so it was a solo sprint working on technique). Rushed home to wife.. I had some sucking up to do (no photos included).

Sunday 8th June 2008 - Part 1, Canning Mills, Peet and Lawnbrook.

ride report by darren.

part 1, - only because i scrambled home after the last climb. I encourage anyone who was
1. close to the front.. or
2. made it to the cafe
to fill in the rest.

sunday morning could be described as cold - but not too bad. the wind was coming from somewhere but didnt really play a factor in the days activities.

todays route had us going up canning mills rd, or did it, most of us were confused, was this cohuna? so i stepped in... "definitely canning mills road", that made me the leader for the first part. this would be the only correct piece of info i would dish our for the day. i guess i was still distracted by the amazing mr dickhead, must have been the same guy from the saturday ride, who swung straight into the car parking spot i had been waiting 5 minutes for at the shops on saturday afternoon, who refused to move or apologise no matter how loud my protests.

a fairly ugly looking bunch today, luckily bella joined us for her second day in a row in the hills despite a physics exam tomorrow. as the minutes ticked past 7am and after a bit of banter in the carpark Mark reached deep into his lycra and produced a measuring device....a portable bike scale, to become the official (enough) bike weight measurer for the group. nice work, but still some calibration required as mine came out heavier than anticipated - back to the drawing board.

about 16 brave souls headed down the new route to albany hwy, via manning road. stuart and mike b led the way for a fair chunk at a decent pace. mark and i found ourselves at the front after cannington and worked up a sweat as we pace the group down albany hwy to gosnells.

at the tonkin hwy lights i told ryan the regoup point thinking that is all the instructions required . we held a moderate pace down connell ave to the end, ryan kept asking, "is this the climb yet", not yet ryan. I found myself at the back of the pack as we swung left into luchich to start the ascent, if only we were heading in the right direction, a quick u-turn and off to canning mills we went.

back on track, we snaked our way up canning mills which can be described as nasty. I initially stayed at the back while ryan, mark, stuart and jerry led the way. mike b was back in the pack taking it easy, well for about 10 seconds, he held a consistent strong pace, picking off riders one by one and caught the lead guys somewhere near the top. as i took the initial climb easy i had a little in reserve (despite holding 180bpm for the climb) and soon found myself holding jerrys wheel with mark a few meters ahead (no chance of passing either). stuart, ryan and mike b were the first to the top, with evidence that stuart held on for the kom points (if only i told ryan the correct regroup point). so telling everyone to regroup at urch was a mistake, as stu and mike headed off to the correct regroup point (wasnt fast enough to reach them) with ryan waiting with us. no one seemed to mind too much and ryan sped off to round up the pace setters (sorry guys and gals). Bella complained that her rear derailleur was playing up and she was locked out of some easier gears (this didnt seem to slow her down on the climbs).

the steep descent down urch is always fun and a little scary especially as you hit a bend just after the last really steep section. the climb out of urch onto peet and then to the school hurts a lot. with ryan, stu, mike, mark and gerry setting the pace i found myself behind dr marc and bella with shao on my tail. shao pushed me on the steep parts so i decided to dish out a bit of pain on the flats and just as he would get back on my wheel again i would accelerate again (now i am starting to understand this theory of inflicting damage). dont know who was first to roleystone but marc beat me to the top in our own little mini comp.

After a short break we all headed off down brookton hwy to the servo. The pace was definitely on as we descended the hill with mark, melvyn and ryan pushing for the karragullen sprint points (where-ever they are measured?). At the servo, no one seemed to want a coke or a gatorade so we headed off but found ourselves amongst another group of CRT riders (chain reaction training). the CRT group seemed to have many more x chromosomes that y (a point not lost on some of the group). so whilst mark, marc and i took it in turns to smash out a decent average at the front of the pack (later joined by stu, jerry and ryan), dr carl, todd and melvyn enjoyed the view from the back. dr jerry's excuse was retinal hypoxia - or something.

as we headed down toward the observatory turn off we were passed in the opposite direction by the ultimate bogan mobile (a black SS clubman ute with spoilers, flares, 20 inch mags, lowered at the front and raised at the back- the mining boom has a lot to answer for), todd and i had a chuckle. The climb to the observatory was uneventful with Stu leading the usual suspects at break neck speed and those not fit enough to hang on falling behind. As ryan stole the KOM points in the last metres from stu, i found myself a few hundred metres back battling with dr marc again with the heart rate well and truly in the red zone.

at this point we debated where to go to next, others wanted to do mundaring weir road but my vote was for lawnbrook since we had not done that for a while and since it was the designiated route, convinced them that we should. the run down walnut was fun and i decided to take it it easy up lawnbrook. at the top I heard that dr gerry hurt mark and I think ryan hurt himself as he said that he was feeling like crap.

I will leave it to someone else to finish the day off as I headed for home with a few other at this point... thanks everyone for a great ride.