This was an impromptu ride organised at the last minute by Andrew Watts. Andrew wanted to climb Old Willunga Hill for the first time in 11 months. He has not had much chance to ride his bike in that time and had lost a lot of bike fitness. He is trying to get some of it back now.
Why The Standish
It was going to be a little tough with the extra 6 or so kg’s over my normal bike but then we were expecting a slower than normal ride so it should be ok.The night before I went out to check over the EMC to discover a wobble in the back wheel. 
Further investigation highlighted that a spoke was loose so looking closer at that I decided to tighten it. As soon as I placed the spoke spanner on the nipple I realized why it was loose, the rim had broken. As you can see from the photo it was not repairable. What was I to do! I decided to pull out the old Standish mountain bike David used to ride to school on and change the peddles so I could use my cleats. A quick adjustment of the seat height and I had almost full leg extension so I had a bike to ride 
I decided with Lynn that we would both drive up to the rose garden in Willunga where Lynn and I would ride down the bike track towards McLaren Vale where I was to meet the rest of the small group. Lynn would turn around part way there so that she could be in Willunga to take some photo’s of us heading towards the hill. At the cross over of the bike track and range road Lynn turned around and headed back. I continued on, while passing Shav Bird who was going in the opposite direction, to meet with Andrew Watts, James Jordan, David Ellison and B.J., sorry I don’t remember BJ’s name 
Setting off at a nice steady pace around 20-25 kph I was able to easily keep with the group. I had decided that once we reached Willunga Hill I would try to do a PR. That was going to be a real challenge with this lump of lead! As we entered the main street of Willunga Lynn was in the middle of the road taking photo’s. Unfortunately it looks like Lynn’s camera has broken because none of them turned out! I knew James and BJ were going to stick with Andrew for the climb to give some moral support so I cranked up some spin and forged ahead. David had decided to follow me a little distance behind. He is currently on a 500 km challenge so is taking it easy. My heart rate soon hit my wall of 170 bpm and it stayed close to that for the entire climb. The first half of the climb I was slowly closing down on a Tailwind rider but I think he realized it by the half way mark up the hill which spurred him on enough for him to pull away! Lets face it, if your climbing a hill on a roadie the last thing you want is to be passed by a mountain bike
When he started pulling away I slowed a little to let my heart rate drop to 165 as I was getting very tired! It was only 3 weeks ago I did the same climb on the roadie at almost the same speed with a heart rate around the 145 bpm. I guess that’s what a 6 kg heavier bike does! In fact I managed the climb 30 seconds quicker then! My average HR for the entire climb was 167 bpm compared to 147 bpm for that last ride! This time I took 17m24s to climb the “Old Willunga Hill (Short)” 3 km, 6.4% average grade, Strava segment. I manged my 4th fastest time for this segment out of the 8 times I have climbed it so it had been a respectable time comparing it only to my previous attempts!
I knew I would have to wait a while at the top which was just fine by me, I needed to recover! David was as fresh as a daisy, how disgusting was that… Once the rest reached the top, Wattsy achieving his goal, we headed North across the range to Penny’s Hill road. BJ headed further along the range while the rest of us headed down Penny’s Hill road. The Standish was struggling to keep balanced on the quick descent, well not as quick as usual as I wasn’t game to take it over 60 kph. We headed down McMurtie to the bike track where I split with the rest to head back to Willunga to meet Lynn while the remainder headed off to McLaren Vale for a coffee where Lynn and I joined them later.
Ride Data:
- Distance: 35.9 km’s
- Riding Time: 1h44m37s
- Av Temp: 28C
- Av Speed: 20.6 kph
- Av/Max HR: 135/172 BPM
- Av Cadence: not recorded
- Elevation Climbed: 412 m
FULCRUM 2013 Racing Quattro Road
For anyone who might be interested I have ordered a set of FULCRUM 2013 Racing Quattro Road clincher wheels at an economical $350. I hope to blog a review on these soon.
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There’s only one BJ and his name is BJ, though some have been known to call him Brian Jenkins. Now if you want to get to know some of SA’s secret treasures, ride with BJ, just don’t expect to start to early in the morning.
Yep, I had some comments from Heather on http://www.adelaidecyclists.com and had identified him as Brian Jenkins
He was intersting to talk to on our short journey!
Yep, Brian is the true gentleman of the back roads of Adelaide, the hills and beyond. From memory he has a few blog posts that are well worth a read. A nicer, more thoughtful bloke and bike rider you will not meet.