Living just north-east of Perth city, I'd decided that the easiest way for me to get to the start of the Hike, 30 kms south at the Kwinana Train Station parking lot, was to, naturally, catch the train! Organisers had arranged with the Public Transport Authority to provide trains free of charge to all those travelling to and returning from the ride - great stuff. The southern rail link to Kwinana and beyond (which is built along the middle of the freeway system) had only just been fully opened, and so it was a great opportunity to try it out.
The 7am start for the A Group 60km leg necessitated me hauling my lazy arse from bed at 5am in order to 'fuel up', ride into Perth and the Esplanade train station (a short, lazy 15 minute jaunt) and hop aboard for the 25 minute high-speed train journey to the start point. Bleh! - a morning person I'm not. Still, having eaten, drank and attempted to kick start my idling metabolic system, I headed out into the night... Yes, I said night, because it was pitch black thanks to friggin' Daylight Saving!
(Rant mode on) For deity's sake, when are the perpetrators of this farcical system foisted on us without our consent going to dump it? Perth has more sunlight than you can poke a stick at already, and all the putative benefits touted about DLS are just so much horseshit - it's all about commercial interests crony-ing up with parliamentary hacks to equalise time differentials between West and East Australia. DLS in March? When the sun doesn't come up until friggin' 7:15 am? Piss off!(Rant mode off)
Arriving at the Esplanade train station, I mingled in with the mass of other riders clogging the platform and waited for the 6:05 am train, entertained by the endless announcements from the platform announce system reminding us not to leap out in front of the train and kill ourselves when it pulled in: well, at least, not to stand in front of the yellow line. I swear to deity, it was repeated so many times that the next time I see a yellow line anywhere I will halt and, pavlovian-like, await further instructions!
The 6:05 train rolled in - and rolled out. The thing was full of smartarse cyclists who had caught the train at various points North of the city and now enjoyed seated comfort! No space for other than a select few on our platform. The next train was our collective last hope! (At least if you were an A group rider).
Next one rolls in some 10 minutes later, and there is enough room for most of the assembled throng to cram on: unfortunately some people were left behind; hopefully starters for one of the later groups? Hint to organisers - more trains next year please!
The journey sped by - I contented myself with trying different ways of fitting myself and bike into the contorted space available to me: an interesting exercise in spatial co-ordinates.
Arriving at Kwinana station, we un-origamed from the carriage and moaned, squeeked and clattered our way up the stairs to the parking lot level (seeing cyclists trying to cram into a lift(?-huh) was weird!) and out into the (still) pre-dawn dark. The start was organised well, with distinct channels for the various groups of riders clearly indicating where to assemble.
As we waited, light slowly started to filter into the equation, and the day looked great: clear skies and zero wind - fantastic! It was a little 'brisk' temp wise, or so I thought: clearly the herd didn't agree with me as, apart from a few individuals with arm warmers, I appeared to be the only one wearing long sleeves! Oh well, I was warm :).
It soon became apparent that things would be delayed a little as cyclists were still disembarking from trains and trying to get into their alloted groups areas. Still, no bad thing - this meant a start in decent light.
At around 7:10am the race group started off (7 minutes behind schedule) and the A group got shifty and nervous - us next! Not sure why anyone would be nervous - it's just a slow paced little jaunt up to Joondalup 60km away! If that was the intent of some cyclists then it was quickly blown away by the start some 5 minutes later as the group headed off and adrenaline immediately got most of us racing to catch and hold various groups as they formed, split etc.
The first 5 kms were a bit of a frenzy - I fanged along attaching to various small groups, which then died with the effort of maintaining the initial 50km/h, and so went in search of the next grouplet. I eventually zoned onto a small group comprised of lean, rangy, fit looking people and hooked up - excellent!: these fit young people could haul my aged arse to Joondalup!
Which they promptly proceeded to do. Our little group kept steaming forward, picking up people as it went, and turned into a decent size pile rolling its way to Mt Henry Bridge, the first of the crossings over the river. Which incidentally I totally missed noticing - how I don't know as it's rather large, but there you go!
As the kms zipped by, I decided to stay toward the pointy third, at the edges of the pack and give a little room to the person ahead: previous years had suggested this as a survival strategy. The middles of the pack tend to get a little nervous, with people moving line without warning, overlapping wheels, touching etc. This is fine as long as you know the people you ride with, but in an anonymous bunch I'm a bit less trusting. Whilst being at the edges and not tightly drafting means a little more work air resistance wise, it was all good and pretty relaxing. Especially when a couple of tumbles occurred in the middle of the pack at around 20 mins into the ride, vindicating my tactic!
Steaming on, we hit the 45 minute mark and Perth itself: across the Narrows (which I did notice!) past the city and onto the Northern freeway. Really excellent to be able to see the city this way - I'm so glad the organisers were able to add this leg!
Onto familiar territory now, as the remainder of the course is that which the 30km ride from previous years (and retained this year) traverses. A little more undulating than the southern freeway, but still nice and smooth, and the kms rolled under our wooshing tyres: what a great noise the tyres of a sizeable pack moving at speed makes!
With (I think) 15 kms to go, a drinks station rolled up and some people attempted to avail themselves of its services, creating more than a little shifting and disruption in the group, with a consequence that the pack split a bit and it required a bit of 'hammer down' time to make up the first bunch of riders who had cleared out a little. This set the pattern for the final 15 kms - as the kms ticked off, the pace quickened and the pack started fragmenting. Being at the back after the initial split at the drinks station, I was having to weave around riders dropping off as the speed increased, so a higher level of concentration was required. As I hitched back onto the group, I saw the reason behind the speed increase - although most of this group had started towards the rear third of the A Group, it had trundled along at a good clip, and had come within chase distance of the first A group pack ahead! So the old competitive instinct had ramped up!
I was sort of hoping that we wouldn't attempt to catch the lead group, as I knew from previous years that there is a huge bottleneck at around the 3km to go mark when the route leaves the freeway, inclines upward to around 5% and goes up a narrowing off ramp toward the centre of Joondalup and the finish line, and everything grinds to a slow crawl. But, the collective blood-lust of the group was roused, and so there was no choice but to get on board :)
With around 7-8 kms to go, our pack caught the large lead group, and chaos ensued as riders tried to squeeze thru. For around 5kms I was on my limit as first one, then another rider hit the deck, splitting me and others off from our group, and forcing me to hit it hard to regain touch. Just as I caught my group for the second time, the off ramp arrived and it all ground to a slow trundle up the rise. From there to the finish line it was a nice little jaunt - lots of riders so no point in trying to flog it to the line.
Over the line to a welcome free refreshment and a stretch of the legs. A check of the Flightdeck - journey completed in 1h:25m:10s at an average of 42.3km/h. My thanks go out to the leaders of our pack who collectively hauled my unhelping arse to the end! :)
Decision time - should I train back home (30-odd kms south) or ride. No contest - I felt very good and so trundled off after a 15 minute break back home, following the very meandering cycle tracks back down the freeway towards Perth. Hooked up with a small group of riders for a leisurely roll back accompanied by some nice chats, and lovely weather. Cruised back into my driveway a very casual hour and 20 minutes later and that was it for another year!
Congrats to the organisers for a job well done, and many thanks for the opportunity to traverse the full freeway. And thanks to the 7100 odd riders who came out and enjoyed the day. Roll on next year!
Keep riding!
