Sunday 23 May 2010 - The Oaks

Today's ride report brought to you by Mark:

The usual challenging logistics of getting everyone in the same place at the same time but eventually Stephe, Shov, Donal, Steve and Mark got away in convoy to Glenbrook. Just to prove the previous week's rain was coastal, it cleared by Blacktown and Glenbrook was sunny, cold and crisp.


[Donal, Shov, Steve, Mark, Stephe]

They say the fitter you, are the longer it takes to warm up and on that basis Stephe will shortly be lodging his entry for the Nationals [ed: harsh! Stephe was just 'smelling the roses', something the athletes at the front have obviously forgotten to do!].

It was certainly cold, although not wet, and looked like there had been no rain for a while.

We started the long steady ride up the hill that doesn't seem like a hill [ed: seemed like a hill to me!], until we reached The Pig. It was at the top that photographic evidence of the various levels of suffering was gathered, although it may have been more entertaining to have an audio recording of each rider's reasons why the Pig had won. But we would win on the way back...



The good weather had brought out the hard core and the recreational riders so it was important to stay left, although someone before us appeared to take that too literally and left an ominous skid mark off into the scrub on one descent. Otherwise it was all downhill on the way back and we regrouped for the single track, which was done at speed. A small OTB from Mark at the end when his bars clipped a shrub, and after that his iPhone was slightly mashed..... but it looked worse than it was, and a little eBaying for parts later had it fixed for a princely $40.

An efficiently executed plan, and Stephe made it back for the 12 o'clock ballgame.

The profile is a joy to behold:



The full set of photos (prior to the iPhone carking it) are here. And the usual .kmz is here (51kms).