“Down in the valley, valley so low
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow;
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow”.

Hey! For those of you who think that I’m just an elite cyclist from Bundy, well I’m here to tell you; that isn’t quite right. Well actually the Bundy bit is, but what you need to know is that I’m actually quite a cultured young lad.  You see, the above is just an entrée of my offerings that I’ve captured from a historical American folk song by Burl Ives titled ‘Down in the Valley’.  Yeah, you may snigger, however the resemblance to Team Uno’s outing on Sunday is apparent, especially in the following areas of wind and hot air:

• Inclement weather with strong wind and rain;
• Emotionally charged verbal exchanges of hot air and wind between the lads when things got a little messy;
• Oh yeah, and of course there was the very small hot air extraction issue of me getting a flatty.

The pre-start activities demonstrated all the evidence of an interesting day’s play ahead.  Firstly, Blinder lead the charge followed by Paddles and me in deciding not to participate in the 8km neutral section between Midvale dome and the official Herrin Street start point.  Obviously something that Blinder had schemed up to stir up O’Dirty, and by all accounts I think it worked.  Crash also gave a late call advising that he would also undertake the secondary start point, muttering something about running late because of a big night affair with his new boss – the edu minister.  These late decisions left O’Dirty, Cookie and Jools to traverse the neutral section in isolation.

Further points of note were with regard to grooming and clothing:

• Paddles broke the mould and presented with a very well groomed functioning bike, pity about riding in Mrs Paddle’s long-johns though!
• Our illustrious leader O’Dirty couldn’t be bothered carrying new Coglioni clothing apparel to the start point (unbelievably poor effort J)
• Blinder presented with a new $250 rain jacket and nearly cried when the sun came through, for 5 seconds, forcing him to put it back in the car.

For those unfamiliar, the main event consists of a reasonably flat 5 laps of scintillating repartee, totalling 78km.  Historically, the course has not been very pleasant as it is very congested with many riders on narrow roads together with crappy weather. 

In terms of the actual ride we kicked off to a clean start at approx. 9:28am followed by 3 laps which were completed in almost fine style as they were based on the draft technique previously instructed by the Princess at our last outing.  I recommend we refer to this technique as ‘The Princess’s Revolving Door’. 

We did manage to cop a bit of verbal slander though, from a young lass, who’d observed that we were a little wayward through one of the tight cornering sections.  In response Jools quickly corrected her by saying something like ‘excuse me madam but you’re a little wayward yourself’(or something equally as polite –not). Of course this whole episode troubled O’Dirty’s perfect cycling etiquette and began to weigh him down for the remainder of the event.

By lap 4 however, fine style and early adrenaline departed and were quickly replaced by the onset of mental and physical fatigue.  The calls of speed up and slow down were repetitively heard as the Cookie monster decided to push the pace.  Noticing this dilemma, I quickly devised a cunning plan to take one for the team and triggered a hot air extraction from my tube.  In addition to providing the team a rest, the road side mechanical break was particularly educational and well worth it for me as I received some extra special words from O’Dirty and the Uno lads for being the first Coglioni member to receive a puncture during a Sportif event!

Back on the road now as we drew close to the finish, O’Dirty and the Cookie monster were once again mustard keen to pick up the pace.  However little did O’Dirty know, the onset of rain had began to disturb Jools whom was embarrassed to confess his chaffed breastfeeding nipples were causing him performance problems on the track.  From what I could gather Crash may have been enduring his own bit of suffering, perhaps from his extra curricula late night work activities – if you get my drift.

With regards to timings I have us down with an average of 32.6km/h but the official scorecard states a little different.

Finally, in terms of the golden goolies points allocation I recommend the following to the scoring committee:                                                                 

Paddles – penalised 25 points for poor pants selection, but awarded 50 points for a clean dream machine
Blinder – penalised 25 points for scheming against O’Dirty (the best Captain in the world)
Crash – penalised 25 points, due to pre-event activities sucking up to the new boss
Cookie – penalised 25 points for dropping everyone on 10 occasions, but awarded 50 points for tolerating constant bantering to slow down.
Jools – penalised 25 points for abusing a fellow competitor but awarded 100 points for entering the event with girly nipples
Babel – penalised 1,000 points for failing to turn up again
O’Dirty – penalised 25 for not carting the new team clothing over the neutral section, but awarded 50 points for agreeing not to penalise me for a flatty
Stuey – awarded 150 points for supporting and sucking up to the team captain by providing a mechanical break and writing this report.