saturday 16th feb - freo & cott

ride report by chris

well a lovely day for a ride with a light breeze blowing and a decent turnout of at 30 odd riders. pete had already determined the route all that remained was laying down the rules. the committee (michael w and myself) decided that easy to attadale, regroup after the ascent at pt walter and then finish it off a with the usual flurry along through dalkieth and mts bay rd.
i thought i'd have bragging rides on longest warm-up but michael w had already completed a lap of the river with emma who was off to work for the day.
things progressed well with bruce and i controlling the pace from the front to attadale. plenty of time for a chat, and yes rachel your friend (sorry didn't catch a name) and yourself took full advantage of it didn't you?

a little encouragement from bruce meant i fired off the front along the river in order to heat things up a little. i assume things strung out a little and then the call went up to start pulling turns. so those who wanted to did which helped keep things nice and quick to the foot of the hill at pt walter.

now i enjoy the swapping off turns thing and encourage everyone to get involved, you're only on the front for a short while if it's done right. you then get time to recover out of the wind before your turn comes up again. it's often easier to get in the loop than try to hold on at the back.

so back to the ride. it seems we lost a few people at this point, for which as substitute patron i apologise. once over the hill the pace eased up a little but the usual suspects just couldn't control themselves, even with a little yelling from yours truly. by the way, kom points to me. although without pete, cade, the newly married mr fynn or mike b around 'twas a hollow victory. was that you hiding down the back mr bonner? did the week back in the classroom take it out of you? ;-)

once we had regrouped (sort off) it was a steady roll down to freo. thankfully the traffic that got backed up behind us didn't get too cranky or try any crazy manouvres to get around us.
pete probably wasn't aware that the rotto channel swim was on but we knew this would make things interesting along passed cottesloe. prior to getting to cott however some of the big kids just couldn't control themselves. sitting 2nd wheel i was constantly pulling on the leash of nick and big chris (good to see you out again, looking to be strong too) but eventually they just had to kick when jerrard decided things were a little too staid. joined by bruce they quickly pulled a few lengths on the rest of us and were soon joined by several others. naughty children, your names have been entered in the black book. it seems we need to institute some sort of fine system to discourage this behaviour.

normally i like going along by cott as you can cruise along and admire the scenery but with the volume of traffic and pedestrians today was always going to mean we'd better pay attention. we got through with no surprises and headed along to the final drag race for coffee.

stevie b managed to sneak off and get across the lights at the grammar which meant the rest of us had some work to do to catch him. having spent a fair stretch of time at or near the front i was hoping for a tow to uwa. sooner rather than later however my ego decided the pace wasn't high enough so i moved to the front to kick things off. this had the desired effect of motivating others and meant i could get a rest amongst the bunch. i rolled through and attacked again onto jutland parade which kicked things up a notch.

at this point michael and someone else went off the front chasing down our bunny steve. i had bruce's wheel and gave him the call to kick to which he politely responded. we caught michael and his colleague and had steve firmly in our sites. i managed to pass him prior to the top of the little pinch. now normally ryan would have blasted by us all prior to this and sailed off into the distance whilst we cursed his name.

all that remained was the usual lunacy of the mts bay rd finish, with steve and i left on the front (thanks everyone!) i knew the bunch was going to nail us. steve had other ideas and made a suicide run of the front, my legs were shot but i tried to hang on anyway. sure enough the bunch came flying by so i have no idea who took out the all important sprint finish. finishers please claim your place with the commissaire.

things wouldn't be normal without the usual cafe report. it seems new faces every week is the norm these days and again this was the case. coffees came and were consumed, the news of ryans nuptuals spread along with that of the impending delivery of yet another bunch baby. cristophe, i trust all went well and that mother and child are happy and healthy. we expect to see you out sooner rather than later in the true bunch tradition.

as a final farewell, it would seem you now need to be riding a cervelo to be part of the in crowd, nice to see an r3 sl out and about. i think that brings the number in the group to 5 or 6, seems we need to rename the ride the Cervelo Owners Club Riding Group or COCRinG.