Sharon and I both participated in the annual Sallys Charity Ride. These charity rides have good and bad aspects for cyclists who want to ride in them. For example I could not tell you what cause we were supporting now after the event. I guess because we all get together and want to participate in these sort of rides the donation we make through our entry becomes secondary to riding in the event with all your riding friends. They seem to work well for fund raising but there are more and more of them popping up and I am not sure not all get enough support in the crowded summer calender of riding with weekend event clashes. Sallys Ride is early in the summer so no real clashes and it’s been around for a while now and an integral part of the Stan Siejka Launceston Cycling Classic weekend.

Sharon and nearly everybody else I know rode the 95KM, I did the 160KM Gran Fondo for 3 Peaks training and some extra miles in the legs. It was a nice day except for the forecast wind that we would have to ride back into coming home. My fondo started at 7AM at Royal Park and Sharon started at 8:30AM for the 95KM so everybody gets back around the same time.

Sharon had an unpleasant start to her ride when the group she was riding with sprinted off at the start leaving her on her own solo to try and catch them up without the aid of a bunch. She got to the Batman stop pretty spent of energy as they were about to leave, so as they dumped her at the start she dumped them at the stop (not that she road with them at all anyway). Luckily one of the other groups Sharon rides with turned up as she was recovering from chasing the others to the stop and she hooked up with them for the rest of the ride in a nice pack. They even had a spare jersey with them so she could change allegiances. The rest of her ride was great in a supportive pack driving back into the strong headwind.

I had a fast trip out over Fingerpost Hill and through Karoola, Hillwood and over the Batman Bridge to the first food stop. Unfortunately I dropped my chain just before Karoola with a really bad gear change and had to sprint for 8KM to get back onto the front bunch. I caught them again at the Old Bangor RD turnoff where it kicked up again and I just could not hold them after all that effort to catch up, I was a bit maxed out! I kept a good pace though and caught them again at the Batman stop and just had a short stop to get back in a group again. It was every man for himself in the 160!

I left the stop with 5 others and as we traveled past the Devils Elbow boat ramp a small white car came towards us and ran off the road, started crashing through guide posts, then big treated pine posts and then got airborne with all 4 wheels off the ground! It finally came to rest just short of a large tree in the car park. We were just so pleased it did not spear into all of us. Some unkept looking guy jumped out and started checking out his car. Obviously he was Ok and we got out of there with our heart rates a tad higher!

A couple of the old guys (old as in older than me) got dropped off our bunch on the hills into Beaconsfield and we caught another rider for a nice group of 4 all the way into the Greens Beach food stop. The front group arrived only 3 minutes before we did but there seemed to be some great urgency to get going again and given we had a headwind all the way back a bigger pack would be a real advantage. They announced 1 minute till they would leave so I stuffed down a roll and rushed for a pea. My pea must have been more than a minute as they had all pissed off already when I came out!

Luckily Geoff from Hobart was also left behind so he and I were quite well matched and we road all the way back to Launceston into that strong headwind swapping off between the two of us. It was hard work with little rest between turns. We picked up a couple of riders along Flowery Gully road but they quickly dropped off our pace and could not or would not take a turn on the front so happy for then to go. We picked up another 2 riders just before Exeter and one of them had a couple of quick turns on the front but the other guy just refused and sat on. Eventually we got sick of them and powered up Muddy Creek hill and dropped them.

We passed a heap of people we new doing the 95KM just after the last roundabout at Legana including Sharons group. We were on a mission to finish and just kept going at our pace, Geoff was stretching me a bit now but I was hanging in there and still taking my turn on the front. Riverside was complete kayos with the 20KM riders on the closed road with police cars everywhere and utter confusion and riders all over the road with no road sense and the like. There was even a penny farting and a tandem. Once past all this we had a clear run into Royal Park and only the Margaret St lights held us up.

We all regrouped and stuffed down a burger and a couple of beers before heading home and onto the Stan Siejka Launceston Cycling Classic to watch Richie, Chris Froom and one of our riders in the Masters criterium. The weather for the last part of the crit was a bit ordinary but the exposure Tassie got from it was great. One of the guys Maurice road with in France commented it was on the TV over there in Ireland so it got plenty of exposure for us. The wind today was 30KM/H from the SE gusting to 59KM/H. Apparently a picture of me made some report on the ride here. Finishing times for everybody here.

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