Garland Group 1 Saturday Ride :: 11th February, 2012

With the last of the SPR/RCCC Summer Series Criteriums on tomorrow morning, I was set to ride perhaps a Group 2 or 3 pace but on arrival at the bike shop, John Sonego convinced me that Group 1 would be fine if we just sit in and take the odd turn at the front. I should have known that would never happen with the two of us in the group...

Dale had already lined up for a Group 1 ride but the group was far from full strength so we figured we should be able to dictate the pace of the ride down to Fremantle and back via Shelley. Dave Ellis was not riding this morning as he had airport drop-off duties and Al Flanders was riding the Pinjarra TT on Sunday so he dropped down a number of groups. There was no sign of some of the other regulars so we headed out with just 6 in the group.

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The ride out along Riverside Drive and Mounts Bay Road was a steady pace and far from flat out so it looked like the ride would be a comfortable one. By the time we hit the top of the hill on The Avenue, the group had intertwined with another larger group from Midland Cycles whose pace setters mixed in with us. As a result, the pace picked up and by the time we parted ways at the Claremont subway, we had recorded an average pace of over 38 km/h. The morning's ride was beginning to look brutal.

Dale, John and myself were keeping the pace up with plenty of work at the front as we made our way down through Swanbourne and into Cottelsoe. As we came out the other side of the Cottesloe cafe strip, we began to pick up the pace again after being frustrated by a Sunday driver. We navigated the roundabout at the top of Curtin Ave and headed for North Fremantle at a cracking pace recording a 47.1 km/h average for the 1.9 km stretch (a 5.2 km/h improvement on my previous best for the Strava segment).

The usual Port Beach Rd sprint immediately followed our blast down Curtin Ave and we had the perfect lead-out train formed with Dale on the front closely followed by John and myself. As we rounded the last bend into Port Beach Rd, Dale eased up allowing John and myself to ride around him. Half way down the stretch and John reached his limit and I powered on to finish a very good practice sprint finish. It was not a fast time (4th best time for the segment), but the combination work in the lead-out was excellent.

It seemed we had dropped Jeremy somewhere along the way to Frementle and we were down to 5 riders but we soon picked up Owain as we turned onto Canning Hwy at Stirling Bridge and we were back to 6 again. I was hoping this would give a us a chance to see how we might with a different combination on the sprint along Burke Drv but I don't think the other guys were too keen to expel that much energy so I completed the sprint much slower than previous times. That also happened to be the last time we saw Owain until we got back to the shop.

By the time we reached the Raffles Hotel, we had recorded a 36.4 km/h average so the pace was still up. John and I were happy to ease it up a bit and with the wind in our favour heading to Shelley Bridge we set a comfortable pace along Riverton Drive with a good pace line working.

The new surface on Manning Rd was very welcome and will assist with some additional pace once it is completed. For this morning, we kept a steady pace up to the Kent St intersection and we began the last leg of the ride up to the bike shop. We completed the morning with a 36.0 km/h average although some of us seemed to record a higher pace so it is hard to say whose computer is more accurate but given I used my Garmin for the 36.9 km/h pace a few weeks back, I will stick with mine.

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The pace didn't seem to trouble me afterward as I settled in to chat with some of the guys from the Garland Crew. Very happy with the effort.