Haven’t been miffed blogging about last Saturday’s ride until now. But there it is anyway:

Went for another big ride. I guess it was a training ride for the ATB. Never ventured past Mt Eliza before (and I’d only done that twice) so it was an adventure. First below is the what I wrote about the ride on the BV forum:

+1 also about our group riding. I said to someone near Sandy that someone should film us and show it to others how to group ride properly!

My biggest ride also at 134km and I feel OK today. Only slight soreness in the quads. I was struggling with pace by myself out of Safety Beach once I was dropped.

Thanks to Stubacca for stopping and calling to see where I was.

Saw two little screaming kids on BMXs get chased by a magpie along Nepean before Mt Eliza. Most amusing Razz

Detoured through Mt Eliza loop so I can do that fast downhill S-Bend. Fun!

I started to struggle out of Mordi back to St Kilda. Thanks everyone who gave food advice before Sat otherwise I proly would not have lasted and to Keely’s food talk between Franga and Mordi.

My shoulders, upper arms and right hand (and to some extent, my legs) were getting really sore towards the end. I started getting dead (right) foot as well. I thought about dropping off and taking it easy but riding in a group made more sense.

Thought of coffee and food at the end kept me going and it was worth it.

Richard, hope you get well soon. Glad it wasn’t a break.

It was another sensational day weather wise which just made for a perfect ride. After setting off on the return leg from Safety Beach I almost had to catch my breath when I looked out to the left over the cliff and saw the view. Stunning!! Coming into Safety Beach I was concentrating and wasn’t looking. I wanted to stop and take it all in and take some photos. But I didn’t want to be dropped so kept going. Of course I ended up being dropped anyway and was I think second last into Frankston regroup point (I think some had been waiting 20min)…

Anyway, its not a race and I enjoyed myself heaps.

Max 62.3km/h (PB!)
Avg 26.6km/h
Distance 134.78km
Riding Time 5hr 04 min

Onto other news…

1. My MBC R1 has finally arrived into the country from wherever. But I don’t trust my shop will have them trucked to them and assembled this week. But hopefully by sometime next week. Kinda sick of waiting and now I really don’t think I’ll have it long enough to break in and serviced/checked in time for the ATB.

2. I’ve been trying some Crank Brothers Eggbeater SL pedals that was generously lent to me by one of the BVers. The first few tries did seem weird because there is no platform on them to speak of, but then you realise that the stiffness of the shoe is what holds you and gives you power. Clipping in and out was no different to the Smarty pedals that I’d been using, although I did feel they were really loose (I’m sure that’s only psychological because the actual clip mechanism is the same across the range). I love the clean look of them but next week I will try the Quottro SL pedals, which have a platform, but again, only a smal part of the shoe actually touches the pedal.

3. I ordered some bike bits from ProBikeKit at least two weeks ago now. I received an email on the 14th saying the order had been shipped but haven’t got the goods yet. Apparently depending on what you are getting the shipping time can be hit or miss. Some get orders within a week, some more than two…grr

The monthly BBC ride was the first time on a bike since the prevoius Saturday because of illness. And that’s about as many days in a row off a bike as I’ve had since starting cycling last Dec. So I was itching to ride because the weather was nice during the week but I just didn’t have the energy to ride…

Maybe the  mini-break was what I needed though because it made me really appreciate the ride (not that I don’t always enjoy my riding). I rolled up at the BBC at 7.30am and found probably the biggest BV forum group ever! It was an awesome site …There was even a tandem in the mix (complete with 2-way radio and headsets)! Exactly 10 seconds into the ride someone does a horiztonal trackstand (failing to unclip shoe and falling) at the lights and we were still just outside the BBC!! Haha. I could laugh because I had just done my first one last weekend, except I wasn’t in the front row with 50 riders behind me!

I had already mentioned in the forum that I was going to take it easy and it turned out that I ended up doing the slowest Black Rock ride ever. But that’s exactly what I needed. I met a newish BV forum member and BBC debutant vidman and his lovely wife polka dot lisa along the way there. I rode with one or the other most of the way up to Black Rock. I must apologise to Lisa for causing her to be yelled at by a pedestrian because I decided to take a short cut at the ped lights and told her it would be OK.

We were told that Kenny and vidman had stopped about 1-2km’s before Black Rock, and so everybody started the journey back to the BBC. At this stage, its usually every (wo)man for themselves as people sprint for waffles. So I started on my way and soon joined Kenny and vidman.  We took is slowly all the way back and I was able to enjoy the view like never before and have a chat. I think we arrived just after 9.30am and the place was already quite full and a long queue was forming for waffles. By the time I found a table (a rough count found that BVers took at least a quarter of the tables) and got to the front of the long queue there were no more waffles left. Croissants and multi-grain bread with chocolate sauce is just not the same! After a bit of chatting I decided to give it another go. I get to the front and again I just miss out!!! So in defeat I got some muesli, yogurt and fruit. Right towards the end I saw some more come out but I was already full. But then I thought, I didn’t do all that cycling for nothing. So I stuffed two pieces down even though I wasn’t hungry.

As I was leaving someone noticed my brake pads really needed replacing. Its amazing how I never notice these things and its quite dangerous when I think about it. My back ones had pretty much worn down to nothing. I went to my LBS to buy some new pads and they were able to put them on for free, which was nice of them.

All the talk of bikes with people and seeing the many, many nice wheels sitting on the racks at the BBC made me really want to get a roadie again (well, more than I normally do anyway). I love my flat bar, but with the distances that I do on weekends I think a roadie would be better (so everyone says). And I want to expand my riding to beyond Beach Rd and also maybe do some time trials. I started eyeing off road bikes about a month after buying my flat bar. I even tried a few out but in the end couldn’t decide. Now I’ve narrowed down the search to a couple of Avanti bikes and also a Melbourne Bicycle Centre branded bike. These fit into my “budget” of $2000. Well, its not actually money I have. It will have to go on credit but its an amount I can live with having to pay off.

The bikes I like are:

Avanti 07 Giro

Avanti 07 Carbonio 1.0

MBC R1 Carbon Shimano Ultegra

Perhaps I’ll go into these bikes in more detail in my next post. The bottom line though is that SWMBO is against the idea of me getting another bike because of a number very logical reasons, such as “no room in the flat”, “we need to save money” and “your bike is perfectly fine and not even a year old”. But since when does N+1 have to be logical?