This morning the SSRC meet up with AC Winter Ride #3. Winter is well and truly on us and after yesterdays weather I thought we'd be lucky to have many turn up. As can be seen from the photo below, we had a fairly reasonable showing, despite the cold and windy conditions.

Gus made a guest appearance where he gave a quick media release before buggering off to some swanky party in the city leaving us to attend his son's birthday which he had forgotten about (Epic fail Gus!) and leaving us to our own devices.

Where's AVO?

Today's route took us south from the Buffalo, down the Esplanade through Brighton and blown along the sea front. We tried out the motorcycle group method of marking junctions, although I'm not sure it worked that well. I don't think many were too keen to sit and wait for the entire group to go past and with a motorcycle it's easy to catch up with the group - not so easy on a push-bike. In future we might be better off with a fast, medium and slow group, at least we gave it a try.

After Brighton, we headed up the hill towards Marino and picked up the bike trail towards Hallett Cove. This mostly runs alongside the railway tracks and offers some good views of the southern coast line. You end up at the shopping centre at Hallett Cove where a few people peeled off for coffee or to head home.

A group of seven of us headed inland to pick up the Coast to Vines bike track that runs south through Reynella, Morphett Vale and Hackam before popping out in Noarlunga Downs at the end of the Expressway. 

Everyone look at the camera!

Veloway closed at the end of the Southern Expressway

Shortly after leaving Hallett Cove, I received a called from Matt K, our TEC, saying that we had four Gawler Wheelers in hot pursuit trying to catch us up. They'd had a bit of a mare coming down from up North and picked up a few punctures along the way so had missed the start and had been chasing us since we set off. We slowed down expecting them to come down the Coast to Vines trail, but they'd actually been a bit more intelligent than I'd given them credit for and headed down the Veloway, aiming to bump into us as we came back up. They did exactly that very close to the end of the Veloway and joined our group heading north back to Hallett Cove.

If you ever take the Veloway, don't be deceived by the flattish Expressway running next to it, the Veloway is not flat in that part of the world! We had a couple of re-groups along the way and all eventually ended up back at Riminis in Hallett Cove, where the photos below reveal the real reason we ride.

At this point my part of the ride stopped, but I'm sure others will comment on what happened after this.

Thanks to Matt K for being TEC today and trying to keep us semi-organised. Thanks to Gus for organising the ride in the first place and thanks to the Gawler Wheelers (Lorraine, Mick, Pete and Craig) for making the effort to come down to sample some southern hospitality.

Total distance: various (30-110km)

Metres climbed: 700m (ish)

Average speed: 22.7 

Pun***re Fairy visits: 1 + GW punctures

Grin factor: 8/10

SSRC rides run every week, alternating L and P ride routes. Next weeks ride will be an L ride on Saturday. Event details here

We found some stray Gawler Wheelers en route (Sorry about the pole Lorraine!)

Probably the healthiest plate on the table

Pancakes anyone?

Plenty of marshmellows today