Out in force

It was a cool start on the autumn morning this Sunday. The hairy legs no doubt helped warm us up and for the first time ever a full team turned out, all marvelous 8 of us. Nadia showed some objection, being the only girl, not that shaving would lead women to sexual dimorphism in bike circles, and felt that our name "hairy leg brigade" did not make full inclusion of her. Michael countered this by the fact that he had brought a camera and there would be cycling photos once again, Nadia cheered and we all rode off down beach road.

We were a lot more settled in pace then in previous weeks when tail winds blew our group appart. We arrived at Mordialloc almost all together, with Alex once more powering over Michael in the sprint to the lights. More surprisingly, our average was up on previous weeks peeking just over 31 km/h. The photos were taken in very orderly fashion in 2 rows as if we were in high schoool. For Nadia the photo was enough and she was off back to the city to play soccer. The rest of us were off to Frankston.



It was all easy going on the way out. We kept the group together and made sure that none of us dug too deep into energy reserves. It is one thing to climb My Everest and another thing to climb back down. It was going to be a long trip back. This was in the back of our minds as we reached the Mountains, all 60 meters of Oliver's hill. Andy thought that one hill was not enough and decided to wait at base camp and climb the golden arches instead. Bets were placed and we all took it cautiously throught the slow controlled section of downtown Frankston.

The final lights turned green and the moves started comming. First was Alex, droppoing off the front and onto the wheels of his rivals. Michael was out the front taking it easy. All eyes were on Damian, and rightly so. As soon as the hill began, Damian shot to the front. Everyone was searching for gears they didn't have. Barely sitting on his wheel, Michael corrected his course to turn left up Hope's rise. This threw Damian off just enough for Michael to take the lead and power out of the saddle and gasping for air to be the first on the hill. Alex 2nd and a chirpy Damian 3rd saying that he still had 3 gears left.

It was a solo ride down the hill for everyone and Ralf managed a big smile on the photo. We regrouped at base camp to the smell of Andy's coffee and muffins. Now it was the trip back. We formed a nice long echelon protecting us from the wind, each rider rolling off the front as they had made their contribution to the cause. Everyone seemed to enjoy this and it worked well, everyone taking their turn at the front and then relaxing in the wind break of the group. The cause, of course was coffee at Kennedy's.

As we went by Mordialloc again, the coffee smell must have wafted over the bay and the speed started to creep up. One by one the riders droped off. It was down to 3 on the final straight to the rest stop with Joel putting in a comendable effort. It was Richard's turn to buy coffee, and what good coffee it was. After coffee, we were all tired and it was a bit of every man for them selves. A fast group went by being led by a female that would have been quite at home with our group's name. We all tried to jump on. And as much as we could we held onto her all the way back to the start. We were splintered across all of beach road. Slowly we rolled in one by one.

We were all tired but enjoyed the day tremendously. A cheerio and a slow ride home for a bit of B&B, beer and bath.