Readers sick of the York theme will be disappointed to know that the superb response I got to my plea for ride reports has given me time to get over my writer’s block in grand fashion.
What a difference a year makes. The Gran Fondo was a non-event for C.C.Coglioni in 2007, yet in 2008 we turned up with thirteen riders and two teams. Zippy and the Chicken and I decided to make a weekend of it by driving up on Saturday afternoon and staying overnight at the Nosh’n'Nod. The room could have been bigger but it was conveniently located and obviously designed for cyclists since the wardrobe swallowed a bicycle in one gulp. Our neighbour was here with his family for the ride too, and he was out fettling a fine looking fixie when we arrived.
After a bit of relaxing around town as other bike-laden cars arrived we decided to try our luck with pizza for dinner at the Castle Hotel. On our way there we saw a team-mate of our neighbour trying out his fixie. He looked over his shoulder to check for traffic and forgot to keep pedaling, resulting in a painful looking encounter with the bitumen. He seemed none the worse for his fall, but with team-mates like that…
The Castle is York’s “real” pub, where Emu Bitter is a boutique beer, but the wood-fired fare was hot and tasty, if a little slow coming. The Chicken enjoyed playing on the staircase while we waited, but she was getting a little testy by the time the pizzas arrived so we beat a retreat back to our digs. I’d done a reasonable job of following my advice to carbo-load in the days leading up to the event, so I was only a little perturbed to find that in a fit of madness Zippy had only ordered small pizzas. Still, can’t be too careful so I topped myself up with a tin of beans that I hoped the Chicken wouldn’t be needing.
Saturday afternoon’s fine weather didn’t hold through the night, and it was blustery and threatening rain when we woke up. Staying overnight seems like a plan for a relaxing start to the day, but the demands of packing up for checkout and heading out for breakfast put paid to that. We joined O’Dirty at Cafè Bugatti where they serve a fine bacon and eggs for $9.50, and waited for the other Coglioni to arrive.
Suddenly it was only half an hour to our allotted start time, and my slow and organised start to the day was starting to unravel. I’d failed to comprehend the simple fact that the timing bands needed to be distributed by number to the appropriate rider, so I handed them out randomly before realising my blunder. After a dash back to the B&B to collect my bike I spent most of the remaining lead-up time scurrying around trying swap bands and find riders who’d ridden off in odd directions on unknown missions.
Somehow though in the end we were all at the start with a few minutes to spare, and thankfully Spunker was on the ball enough to know that the letter after E is Rr, meaning we as team F would start in the second bunch. I allowed myself to slip to the back of the group, cunningly hoping to gain a second on anyone from this bunch I might finish with. Then we were off, and my cunning plan was almost my undoing as my fellow Coglioni started to form a sack towards the front of the bunch while I was stuck at the back.
Fearing an early split I decided to move forward rapidly and found myself catching my teammates just as a gap started to appear in front of them. They seemed to be chatting rather casually so I dispensed with civilities and chased onto the back of the now receding leading group, assuming at least Spunker and The Doctor would follow. It would be a while before I had the breath and wherewithall to confirm that this was not the case.
The lead group at this stage was made up of a CRT team and (I think) a Plan B team, with one Coglione as interloper. The first ten minutes was utter madness, as the big boys from Plan B (or was it CRT?) set a frightening pace into the wind. I was “sur le rivet” just staying in touch, and contemplating what plan B might be for me. I imagined forlorn images of myself half an hour from now, struggling miserably into the wind as I was caught and dropped by the more sensible Coglioni.
Fotunately the pace settled to something more maintainable and I soon found myself coming forward to take a turn. Each time this happened was a humbling experience as the shelter of the group gave way to the headwind and I was forced into a virtual sprint just to maintain the speed required to reach the front of the group and slide across to the left in relief. We soon started to pass refugees from the first bunch on the road and some those were revitalised enough to join in.
As we drove on into the wind a clear division was established between those who would and wouldn’t take a turn, with a dozen or more rotating smoothly at the front and as many passengers hanging on at the back. Every time I reached the back of the front group I hesitated a moment, foolishly expecting that shame or some other force would bring one of the hangers-on forward to share my world of pain, but it never happened.
After some distance had been covered at a good pace considering the conditions, some clever chap decided just after I’d done a turn that we were rotating in the wrong direction given where the wind was coming from. He shouted his opinion so much that it prevailed and I was forced to move forward again after only half a rest. He was definitely getting a pump in the spokes if he changed his mind after I’d done my turn, but we stuck with the change for a while and it did seem to work better in that less effort was required on the resting side of the line.
Each trip to the front was harder than the last, and I wondered often for how long I could hang on. But the going was often easy enough when I did get out of the wind, and I resolved to try to stay with this group at least to the turnaround. After that the tailwind home should make it easy to stay in touch and it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t.
It didn’t quite work out as I hoped. At around the 40 km mark I dropped back to get some sugar into me but struggled to retrieve some sour snakes from my pocket. No luck by the time I reached the front of the passengers so I continued drifting backwards to be last wheel by the time I managed to extract them. At that moment the guy a couple of bikes ahead lost the wheel in front of him and in a moment the gap had grown to a wind-filled chasm of twenty metres or so.
The rider in front of me had reacted quickly but was now isolated between the bunch and the culprit and me. So much anaerobic energy had been expended doing turns that a sprint to catch up was out of the question, so I gritted my teeth and rode around the culprit hoping that if I caught his mate we might be able to work together to get back on. The culprit was on the ball now and jumped on my wheel as I set about my futile task.
The bunch seemed to stay tantalisingly within view yet out of reach for some time. Shortly after passing under the highway we entered a more sheltered area where a hill took over from the wind as the pain giver. I still thought I had about 10 km to go to the turnaround, being blisslessly unware of the shortened course, so I was shocked when the lead group came down the road towards me. I thought we’d been going well but it seemed they’d put some serious time into us.
I finally caught the guy ahead of me and mumbled “G’day how’s it going?” as I rode past and offered him my wheel. This was obviously a terrible insult of some sort because he sprinted around me and took off up the remainder of the hill at a cracking pace. By then the turnaround was in sight and I was grappling with the implications of having only covered 46 km. Some serious madness engulfed my brain and I contemplated riding on til I’d covered the requisite distance. Fortunately some more sensible autopilot took over and I made a wobbly U-turn with the culprit still on my wheel.
Several small groups passed in the other direction and I kept an eye out for my teammates. It wasn’t long before they came in view, still riding tidily together, and looking a lot less casual than they had when I’d seen them last. I felt ashamed that I’d been dropped from the lead group, but took some consolation in knowing they would be thinking I was ten or more kilometres further up the road than was in fact the case.
After a brief descent and briefer climb I finally had the wind behind me, and settled into cautious exploitation, knowing I was already well stuffed and tailwind or not there was still some riding to be done. My erstwhile bunch was no well out of sight and all thoughts getting back on were banished in favour of steady riding. Down the road a bit a couple of guys slipped past me and I quickly latched onto the wheel, feeling more than ready to take turns in a group of three. Unfortunately one of them had done his dash catching me and was soon dropped, only to be replaced by a strapping big bloke all too ready to take a turn.
So we carried on nicely til the big fella saw some of his team up the road and went past me saying “time to show off to my mates” as he wound it up to 55 kph. When he slowed down a bit I suggested he could pull a turn like that any time he felt like it but unfortunately team camaradie pre-empted his new alliance and he dropped back to ride with his mates, leaving my new-found CRT buddy Simon and me to ride as two again.
Unbeknowns to me the group I had tried so hard to stay with was coming apart up the road, and we began to catch up with the casualties. Before long we caught CRT’s Ross, who had rested up a bit since dropping off and was happy to join us. This was joyous relief for Simon who was starting to flag. We rode on as three with waves of strength and weakness passing palpably through each of us as we approached the final kilometres.
Somewhere along the way we picked up another CRT survivor, who must have been Beau judging by the finishing times, adding a much-needed fourth to our group. Together we dragged what was left of our arses home, suffering together when the wind improbably and unfairly turned against us in the last five or so kilometres. We got caught by a small but rampaging bunch as we came into town which prompted something of a mad and unnecessary sprint for the line. Bifness compelled me to join in and nearly caused an embarrassing crash at the final turn which rushed at me from nowhere.
Post-ride I was a little lost for what to do next, having finished a good half an hour earlier than my most optimistic estimate for the expected 108 km. Having hidden briefly from a rain-shower I rolled back to the finishing area where a blue Coglioni jersey soon appeared. The face didn’t seem familiar but I but put that down to latent delirium, said hello, and tried to decide between having a punt at Lill or Collette. Of course it turned out to be Deb who’d been roped in at the last minute.
It wasn’t long before all the remaining blue and red Coglioni had crossed the line, and after what seemed like an extraordinary amount of post-ride faffing we eventually regrouped at the town hall for an excellent lunch. Despite the wind it had been a great ride. My only disappointments are that more Coglioni didn’t make a weekend of it (next year?) and that the shortening of the A-distance means that riding a sub-three hour ton remains an elusive goal for me (GPBR?).
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