Weather forecast for Saturday the 21st of July was showers clearing with a min of 7C and max of 14C. That was forecast for Noarlunga, the closest forecast to McLaren Vale, the starting location for the latest SSRC L group ride. Not really a forecast to induce people to go for a group ride let alone people who are new to group riding. Its always colder in McLaren Vale by a few degrees too so I knew I would need to rug up for this ride.
You can read Wattys Official Ride Report to find out more about the ride.

Post Broken Chain

After breaking my chain on Thursday I was keen to give my bike a reasonable distance workout to make sure I had joined it correctly this time, yes, I think I had failed to join my chain right when I did my recent major service, so it appears to have been my own failure. The L ride is about 42 km so I decided to ride the almost 25 km to the start. The night before the ride David had rung me and had asked if I was riding down so we had decided to ride down together. We agreed to meet on Panalatinga road just south of the Pimpala road intersection at 6:45am, the same time I had meet Matt B the first time we ran this route and had managed to arrive spot on time at 7:30am for the meeting time of the ride. I suggested that a few minutes earlier would help but didn't expect it.

On the Morning

Riding out the driveway at 6:30am, knowing that I would be 10 mins early for our meeting time, with all the winter riding gear on except the over boots, which I had forgotten. I was even wearing my spray jacket because the roads were wet from plenty of rain overnight. As predicted I was 10 mins early for our meeting time. I was pleasantly surprised, and impressed, when David turned up 5 mins early, he really isn't an early morning person, so kudos to David for this!

And on the Way We Go

After an adjustment of Davids saddle bag, so that his rear light was on the right angle, away we headed, South, along Panalatinga road. By the time we turned down Wheatsheaf Road we both felt we had tired legs, not at all what you want before a longish ride but hopefully they will be ok later. David was just coming of 2 weeks of a bad cold and had not ridden much and I had been resting up for the up and coming "Bicycling Australia's Every Second Counts Challenge" starting on Monday. The morning did not feel...[...READ MORE...]...