saturday 5th jan - canning vale

well it was a fast a furious ride today. don't know how it happened either. the route (see below but reversed) took us down canning hwy to north lake road, left onto south st, left onto bannister rd, left onto nicholson, left onto albany hwy which turned into shepperton rd into the city.

it all seemed pretty straight forward.

we had about 40+ riders turn up which can always play havoc if we get caught at lights.....and we did. almost every single set. from the very start we lost half the pack.

as is the etiquette of our ride we slowed down and waited for them to catch back up. unfortunately this sometime meant that they would get caught at the next set as well. can make for a very frustrating ride. but that is city riding for you.

so canning hwy was quite sedate. once we hit north lake road and onto the small rises, the pace went up a bit. not excessive, but no longer comfortable anymore. probably for some of our riders it was excessive, but that is where you really dig deep to stay with the pack.

south st was a mixed bag as we got split at the lights again and slowed the group down to make sure we were all together. I got on the front with Michael B and we set a reasonable pace along the rest of south st to the turn.

once we hit bannister rd, it was all on. the squadra barista boys all got to the front and decided to smash it into the head/cross wind. i had my ring hanging out for most of bannister just trying to hold a wheel. there was no way that i was going to make it to the front to do a turn. this would have been the point where the pack pretty much disintegrated.

i would describe our group as semi-social. we like to have a chat early on in the ride, but eventually someone will crank it up and then it is time for breathing only and no talking.

anyway, nicholson rd was a bit better and albany hwy was definitely better as we had a nice tailwind back home. funny how the rides get planned that way.

doing around 50km/h in the group is certainly a nice feeling. I even had a crack at a late breakaway but got stopped at the lights as i got 50m down the road. anyway, back across the causeway onto riverside drive and nobody would come around one of the squadra barista boys to do a turn, so i decided to give him a hand. of course it meant that there was no way i would be sprinting, but i had pretty much run out of top end speed by then.

i don't even know who "crossed the line" first as most of our group had come past me by then. everyone eventually limped into the coffee shop at the bell tower with some dribbling in a few minutes later.

to top it all off, the coffee machine then broke down so no-one got a coffee.
luckily for me they could still make hot chocolates.