friday 21st mar - good friday

ride report by chris

it seems fear of the pool boy and tennis coach were not enough to stop some of the guys from turning up for the ride today. a group of 16 was a reasonable turnout for a good friday ride.

after the last public holiday becoming a bit of a smash session this one was a lot more controlled. we only managed to drop two or three and dr paul “ninja” was able to get to the belltower ahead of us. how does he pull that off?
major disappointment for the day was the usual coffee haunt wasn’t open so we had to settle another location. i can’t comment on the quality of the coffee as i didn’t have one.

anyway, the ride was the usual public holiday lap of the river going clockwise via shelley following the river to freo, north along the beach and then back to the city along the river. a little longer than the usual weekend ride but when done at a sensible pace complete in under a couple of hours.

the usual shenanigans ensued along the riverton stretch but thankfully everyone had listened to my request to regroup along the leach hwy. a little detour around the roadworks at the applecross gave us the chance to admire homes i know i’ll never be able to afford. this wasn’t without incident though as stu dropped his chain , needless to say it wasn’t terminal and we continued on.

shockingly things were reasonably well controlled all the way to pt walter where the pressure put on by a couple of the guys meant the group split up a little. however it seemed the group had listened to the pre-ride briefing as another regroup at freo meant we were all back together. except for the ninja, who at this point used his mastery to do whatever ninja’s do.

so a steady roll along the beach allowed a suffering lennie (complete with secret weapon) to catch back on, not for long though as she decided to make a solo run for home.

from here on in things warmed up a little along the northern river foreshore. i set a steady pace on the front and things were strung out single file for a while at least. it has to be said, the speed along here wasn’t quite what it is on the saturday rides.

the group slowly got back together along by steve’s but not without incident. john went down after a moments inattention led him to touch the wheel of a bike in front. a little blood and a bruised ego was the only damage done thankfully.

all that remained was the finish along mounts bay rd. now by this stage my legs were pretty shot so i decided to tactically drop down the back and have a bit of a rest before the inevitable sprint finish. i knew the flying fynn was behind me somewhere as we headed towards the brewery and thought i’d find out where he was so swung out to go find him. sure enough, there he was sitting at last wheel. ready to kick hard as he usually does. well a thought came into my head; i could spoil his sprint if i boxed him in. at least someone else might get a chance at the “win”.

as the speed picked up i was suffering sitting out in the breeze keeping ryan boxed in, anyhow my cunning plan was foiled and the two chaps who managed to get a break were mown down by ryan and others.

so, a good solid ride and several of us hung about afterwards for the usual bench racing and some tasteful jokes from the ninja. nice.