friday 25th april - anzac day

anzac day public holiday means a number of things for australians; dawn service, parades, two-up. for us it was an opportunity to slip another ride into the week. we lined up our normal public holiday route which took in shelley, attadale, freo and cottesloe. as always it is meant to be a recovery ride and no sections were designated as “smash the crap out of the group” sections… meant to be.

anyway, had quite a good turn out with probably around twenty riders. as usual, a public holiday is an oppurtuntiy to get away, get on the turps the night before, or get told by the missus that you will be doing something other than riding. my missus had let me come out and play so off we trotted for a nice casual lap.

it was cold again, and i was rugged up. i had been out on thursday morning and didn’t fare too well. the other guys had to stop and wait for me twice, which is quite embarrassing. i’m putting it down to work stress and lack of sleep caused by work stress. i am coming to the end of a major project at work and there is a lot on. i usually don’t care, but for some reason this one has affected me a bit. so it was either that, or i was coming down with something. hence the extra layers of clothing.

it was a nice pace as we came down through kensington and past curtain uni. the roads were fairly empty so we were not expecting any hoon trouble, especially not this early. so as we were coming down lawson st and were just about to turn onto manning rd, we had an interesting altercation with a motorist.

lawson st is a double lane rd and we were taking up one lane as we have the right to do. this car, and i can’t even say it was a hoon car as it was a rav4 or honda crv size, came past and gave us a very aggressive blast from his horn the pulled back into our lane so he could also do a left hand turn. anyway, the left hand turn is not the usual, just give way, but has a set of lights which, unfortunately for the motorist, were red.

right, i thought, i am going to see what this dickhead is on about. i rolled up to the drivers side window and knocked on it. this 60 plus year old guy was sitting there, deliberately looking forward with his hands on the wheel making sure he didn’t make eye contact with me. probably silently praying that the lights would change. so andrew also pulls up next to me and actually opens his door and says ‘what did you do that for’. the driver is visibly shocked and probably close to shitting himself as we have now invaded his nice safe little cocoon of a car. he makes some excuse that we were taking up the whole lane, which we reply that we are allowed to. then andrew asks him why he used his horn as he came past, to which he says that he only wanted to warn us that he was coming around. bullshit, it was a full blast to show what a man he is. anyway, the lights change and i am trying to get him to go, which for some reason, he doesn’t want to and wants to argue. here is a guy that was in too much of a hurry and got pissed off that we were delaying him now didn’t want to drive his car. so we shut his door and we headed off first. he then had to come around us again. stupid guy.

it was funny seeing the look of terror on his face when we opened his door. as i have said before, we may look stupid in our pretty lycra, but i’m sure that the twenty of us could have put his car on it’s roof. i know that cyclist have the reputation that we are all testosterone fuelled menaces to society, that run over pedestrians and deliberately hold up traffic, but drivers need to look at us like their old grandmother. we are slow, take up the whole lane and if you collide with us, you will probably kill us. i am probably preaching to the wrong audience, but some people just don’t seem to care that they take our lives into their hands. see lexus.

anyway, we made our way down to shelley, via fern ave and saw some other public holiday ride coming back the other way. there would have been about 100 riders, so it was probably the old papas ride. shelley was very contained and the group stayed together well. apparently lennie lost her chain at the end of the road before we hit the bike path, but no-one let me know so i didn’t realize she was gone till to late. we cruised up canning hwy and missed the appelcross section of the river ride. if we do it when going clockwise, we then have to go past the old folks home on the bike path and with a group this big it is too dangerous.

once we turned onto burke dve the pace picked up a bit. not too much like there was an attack, but enough to start stretching the group out. stu was the main antagonist, which was strange as earlier in the ride he had said that he was not feeling too well. the pace stayed on till pt walter where the hill sorted the group out a bit. luckily there was a general slowing once we were over the top and most people managed to clamber back on.

we turned to get onto riverside drive and past the left bank, the pace picked up once again. still no real attack, but just stu pushing hard to make everyone hurt. darren commented on the nice cruisey public holiday ride we were having. the pace continued until we caught up to a small car with learner plates on. the car alost came to a stop when it went over the speed hump, so about four riders diverted around it. the car was still moving and john almost got squashed between it and the median strip which had started again. silly boys. even worse since it was an inexperienced driver who could panic and just run you over by mistake.

i gave them a stern talking too as we past through freo and headed up to cott. the wind was starting to pick up, or was it there all the time and we just didn’t notice as in was on our backs. either way, it made things difficult as it was almost a direct crosswind so you couldn’t hide behind the wheel in front. the pace stepped up again as we hit marine parade and headed towards cott. i just let it go and sat in where i could. most of us were expecting a nice quiet ride and like chris previously, was looking forward to seeing some nice scenery in cottesloe. not to be as we came through with enough speed to ensure the mind was focused on the wheel in front. i don’t even know who was driving the bunch by this stage, but a number of guys were keen to stretch their legs.

the return through dalkeith was the usual fare, with the pace coming on as the undulations started. i was keen to stay out of it, but when three guys shot off the front, i did a turn to pull them back just before the main climb on birdwood parade started. can’t even remember who was in the break and it was only yesterday. anyway, they went again as the gradient increased, and the guys i had dragged back up to them, didn’t have anything to go with, so they gapped us again. cresting the hill we could see a road block up ahead. probably the wrong thing to do even though the guy said it was ok, but we went through and past an anzac memorial service being held in an adjacent park. the group kind of stayed together till mounts bay road ready for the final line up.

with the wind in our faces, the slog along mounts bay would be hard. with ryan contesting the crit up in midland, there were very few real long range threats in the group. i was second wheel and when the front guys peeled off i thought that it was too hard to go it alone so started to roll through instead and signaled for the others to join in. it worked fairly well until one new guy got a bit confused, left his run too late and formed a big gap that he could recover from. by the time i rolled back to the front we were less than a k from the end so i thought that i would put in a big effort. all this did was give a nice lead out to a bunch of the guys who rolled past me and onto the finish line, while i dragged myself to coffee.

only a small group was at coffee and we were joined by my family for a hot chocolate and muffin. with not many public holidays left in the year, and the group generally getting faster, i fear that the cruisey ride may be a thing of the past as people try to take advantage of the extra ride. oh well, at least we were riding.