It was black as pitch as I pedalled out of the garret on the slopes of Mt Dural this morning, joining a frisky Parramatta puncheur who gave me flogging through the rollers to Galstone, a PB and enough conversation to hear he was heading off to the Alps in a cuppla weeks.. he is the first company I have had on the commute and now has the URL committed to memory so may make a guest appearance down the NorShor OTP.
Temperatures a balmy 11C descending to 7 at the depths of GG cool and clammy as a mother in laws kiss down there, who would want to be anywhere else, perfect weather for a ride to the office. ( Compared to Saturday morning where you could almost swear you were in the grip of an English summer ) Tapping out of the GG in 3/4 time keeping the Pamp big circle form, panache and style, it will not be long before I will add speed to that list…but not today….
A duck into Fox Valley to collect Satnav and entourage, thence a short gallop down to the Launch via the Luton Driveway…only one small incident to report, a motorist horned me on the merge at Pymble hill, firing Satnav into a sprint that Cav would have a hard time maintaining. Satnav rarely uses such power but occasionally it comes in handy to discipline the traffic and remind them their average is not that much faster than ours.
Gathered at Gordon were 20 odd lycra covered mamils, forming a peloton around the newly fledged C.Hippo, throwing a red carpet out and fanfare for the lead out on his inaugural return ride. The first call as we rolled out was “Ute back” as it lead footed past us on the first slope out. Accreting more riders by the suburb the peloton swelled to a 27 or more behemoth, which considering it is mid winter, no particular challenge on is a pretty good showing , Drastic was making a rare appearance aboard his SS MTB, but still a few usual suspects missing. Not a slow ride in either, it seems that determination beat conversation this morning, YHC was only just able to breath and not talk as the various sprint opportunities seemed to merge together into one. Thankfully the RTA as was have installed enough traffic calming lights along our path to ensure hypoxia was not overwhelming. Archer street worked its magic again and quartered the fleet into even pieces, regrouping on the crest of Tindale and once more into the threshold of pain as Scaramanga loomed…Turnip having a go, swept to an early lead and gave it some welly but was trashed by Clutters at the top…
Various parts of the peloton arrived at the top of the Mur du Crow’s Nest, and rolled on with something like a regroup, but was shredded again through the North Sydney turn pike regathering on the 39 steps, (you can climb the 50 in 39 by skipping some..) and another eye watering sprint to the B&T…nearly a record, I think we had 20 plus seated and sipping by 7:39.
Great roll in and with sunshine today should make the roll out even better. Book your seats on your favourite bus.
Have a great one all
BT/Jenny