Redline Cycling, Outer Harbour, 2013 Milano Classica and my 33rd Wedding Aniversary

During the week I received an email from the Cancer Council with the subject “So you want more riding…” The last time I received one of these was to advertise the Tour DeSud, a 240km ride circling the South of Adelaide down to Victor Harbor and back. This proved to have a new challenge!

Milano Classica

Earn ultimate bragging rights after this one tough day in the saddle. Join legendary cycling coach Charlie Walsh on Sunday 28 April 2013 for a one day 290 km epic loop of Adelaide and the surrounding countryside. Escorted and fully catered, riders will tackle a route that takes in the climb to Mt Lofty before heading north to the Barossa and back home for well earned ‘legend’ status. For more information and to register please visit here.

I found this particularly interesting as its definitely a beefy challenge, even for my intrepid skills. The problems, not just the distance but the average speed required to complete it in daylight hours!  I’m thinking this will push me close to my limits but am I even worthy of trying!

I contacted Stephen Sanders, of Redline Cycling, during the week and he felt I should be able to achieve this as there were riders strong enough to tow me much of the way. Even after Stephens encouragement it still leaves me a little nervous thinking about it! From my calculations I suspect an average between 28-30 kph will be required factoring in short breaks. That’s huge! Stephen suggested I ride with the Redliners on Saturday morning or to ride with them on Sunday up gorge road! So the plan was hatched to join the group on a ride to Outer Harbour on the day of my 33rd wedding anniversary. Lynn was not apposed to this as she was attending a conference in the morning anyway and I should be home before her.

After such a tough ride the day before I planned Saturday to be different. I decided to drive down to Glenelg instead of riding down as originally intended and to have a decent breakfast and to take Staminade in one bidon and water in the other.

On The Morning

Following my plan I tucked into a serving of Quick oats made with skim milk and a cup of black coffee. I filled one bidon with Staminade and the other with water and packed a banana just in case.  Setting of a little early so that I had time to park the car and take in a couple of km’s to warm up the legs before the group assembles.

Even after a 4km warm up I arrived back at the Buffalo 15 mins early. I did not see the first of them until 7:55am. I introduced myself into the small group that had assembled which soon grew to a small group of 9 or 10 riders. I was made welcome and was told they were happy for me to stay on the tail of the group and that I did not need to take a turn at the front.

Eight am arrived and we set off at a nice 28 kph-30 kph pace to warm up. As yesterday, there was a headwind on our way out. The pace slowly quickened over the next few km’s until we were cruising at around 35  kph.  We were passing the odd group as we progressed and I had the chance to chat to each person as they dropped to the back. Everyone seemed nice and friendly.  We were broken up a couple of times by traffic but as a whole managed to stay together. On one occasion it needed a quick sprint to catch up to the tail which sent my heart rate through the roof but that soon settled when I was back on the last wheel. The pace was quick but even though my heart rate was running a little high I felt comfortable hanging on.

As we approached the roundabout Stephen said they will do the “Outer Harbor Sprint” here so if you want to get onto his wheel, as the person he pointed to was already taking off, and no matter how hard I tried I could not get onto the back of him. I ended up doing the sprint alone producing a PR so I can’t complain! I knocked 6 seconds off my PR for the 700 meter sprint.

We slowly regrouped on the roll, after turning for home around the roundabout. The pace was just a little quicker now as today the wind did not change direction. We now had a tailwind to help us home.  After passing Semaphore I did take the lead for a short while, keeping a reasonably consistent 37 kph for just under 1 km before I pulled back to follow from behind again.

Finishing the ride with an all or nothing 300 m sprint on the Strava segment “Alp de Pat“ yielded another PR, the last one of 15 PR’s for this short ride.

Sitting down with the group at the Watermark Hotel displayed plenty of banter and general friendliness.  To me, the ride was a success as I felt comfortable riding alongside these riders and felt they were friendly, helpful and generally supportive  I am hoping to ride with them again in a fortnight to improve my skills and hopefully meet some more of the group. I have not entered the 2013 Milano Classica  yet but hope to decide that after my next ride with them.

This is a great group to ride with and provides an introduction to, I guess I would say, more formal social riding, its a step I was looking to make but didn’t know where to find it.

I have the SSRC P ride which gives me a nice social riding group that has some small challenges but I didn’t want to go to the next step they have of the Wednesday night training rides as that is more focused on training for racing. Racing is not one of my goals!

I still look forward to helping others on the SSRC L ride and joining in on the SSRC P rides but I think these rides just add a new dimension to my group rides.

Details:

• Distance: 47.5 km’s
• Elevation: 41 m
• Riding Time: 1h24m01s
• Average Temp: 27C
• Average Speed: 33.9 kph
• Average cadence: 88 rpm
• Average/Max HR: 148/178 bpm

If you are unable to see the embedded Strava route map above then please feel free to check it out on Strava at “Redliners Saturday morning Outer Harbour ride“.

Not To Forget What Day it Is!

Lynn and I have been married for 33 years and today, accidentally, took a small stroll down memory lane. We first of all strolled the main street of Harndorf and followed that with a cruise over to the model car track at Littlehampton. It turns out there was a State tittle meeting on and so we bumped into half a dozen people I used to race 1/8th scale model cars against.  The last time I raced a 1/8th scale model car was in 1988 when I won the 2wd State Titles after racing model cars for 10 years. When the win, which I had chased for many years, failed to excite me, I moved on to Go-Kart racing for the next 10 years.  It was nice to see people we had not seen for many years. We finished the day by having dinner at Mount Barker followed by the movie “Safe Haven” at the cinema.

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