Okay so $100 worth of vouchers from TBE is not going to send anybody in search of a tax haven, but on the other hand we have twelve months of wearing the glory of being the Golden Spokes John Walton Memorial Team Challenge champions for 2009. Given that it took us two years to get a team to the starting line and considering the number of last minute withdrawals this was a great result from a great day’s riding. To top it off Swee’Pea was the first female rider to finish and Paddles took out third place overall for individual entrants.

The exciting result contrasted with an unusually relaxed start to the day, with time for a civilised breakfast at home with the family before rolling off to meet Cookie a little before 8:00. The breeze though light was - uncharacteristically for this time of year and day - from the west, and made for an easy ride east along South Street where I found the big man waiting near Vahland Avenue. Down Ranford Road towards Armadale it was pleasantly free of heavy traffic, and before we knew it we were on the Tonkin Highway bike path skirting the Champion Lakes course we would soon be riding on.

Rolling down Lake Road I heard an “Oi” and recognised a familiar tradie ute in a church carpark from which Paddles was about to be evicted. Apparently they had plans for it other than accommodating cyclists on a Sunday morning. We left him to find alternative parking and made our way to the check-in desk on the Champion Lakes “island”.

At this point I started looking for ways to fritter away the 50 Golden Goolies points I would earn from the ride. First, after confirming O’Dirty’s observation overheard on the recent Walyunga ride that the Champion System shorts’ low-cut front did indeed allow easy access for responding to calls of nature, I packed up prematurely and shall we say “perfumed” the front of my shorts. Second, having smirked when Cookie warned us not to bind up our spokes with the cable-ties provided to attach the timing devices, I promptly did just that and didn’t notice until I tried to turn my bike around to head to the start. I felt so stupid I could only giggle foolishly as I went to get some scissors and another pair of ties.

At the start line on the other side of the lake we found that the open and support races being used to warm up the course for us had started more than half an hour late, so we would have a bit of a wait. A few of us took the advice offered to warm up on the adjacent wide smooth path, the purpose of which was a mystery until a car came up behind us tooting vigorously followed by a horde of speed skaters. Having had enough of being tooted at or riding through mud on the unused outer path we retired to the hillside near the start line to soak up the sun and watch the real cyclists complete the remaining laps of their races.

Twenty minutes later we felt more like a carton of Dr Tim’s finest and a snooze, but honour was at stake so we did our best to reshevel ourselves under the starter’s orders. While we waited we had surveyed the gathering opposition. It was a much smaller field than turns out for the various freeway dashes and so forth that we have previously participated in, so we began to consider the thought that we would be among the pacesetters. In fact it was clear our main challengers would be the pair of orange-clad Team Type One teams who had mistaken the fresh breeze for a winter storm and donned their similarly orange lycra booties.

It’s worth noting at this point that when O’Dirty was charged with the role of impartial team selector I had suggested two options. One was to put together our strongest possible team to chase an unlikely victory, and the other was to pick two even teams to have a race within the race. In the end we went for the second option and invoked the eternal rivalry between north and south of the river, but our plans were scuppered by the late withdrawals of Blinder and Crash.

The C.C.Coglioni del Nord team had already been registered, so Digger was drafted at the last minute to fill Crash’s shoes. Meanwhile Swee’Pea had registered herself and Paddles had done last-minute individual registrations for himself and Mike and Cookie. On the day dreams of glory were rekindled and Cookie was given Crash’s timer, bringing us back to something like O’Dirty’s tentative proposal for an optimum team. I’m sure everyone not carrying a team timer breathed a sigh of relief that they would not feel obliged to follow Cookie’s wheel for an hour and a half.

So after a brief send-off from Alannah we were on our way. The start was much less frantic than I had anticipated, even with the small field, and the C.C.Coglioni machine was soon on the front setting the pace into a light southerly. We had barely reached the end of the finishing straight when Spunker surprised me by announcing the peloton was already split. About a third of the way round the course we came to a 180-degree turn which caused mayhem on the first lap, with several riders including your wayward scribe ending up on the wrong side of the witches hats marking the course, necessitating a bit of kerb-jumping to rejoin the fray.

It didn’t take long before the pattern of the first two and half-laps of the six lap course was set. With no other teams prepared to join in the pace-making it was left to Cookie and your humble scribe with help from Digger and Paddles to keep the bunch honest and chase down the occasional break. Spunker wisely counseled conserving our energy, but at the same time it made sense to keep the speed up as much as possible and if the odd non-team rider made a bid to get away then why not get on their wheel for as long as they lasted?

In fact I did feel sorry for the individual entrants having to mix in with the teams. With the Coglioni riding strongly at the front it was virtually impossible for a break to form since there were never more than one or two individuals near enough to the front at a time to try break off, and the obvious team tactic was wait and watch. Special mention must go to one of the individual entrants on a TT bike. While it bothers me a bit to see people entering mass start rides with cheat bars, he can hardly be blamed for entering what appears to be a timed format ride and then having to start with all and sundry. Being the individualistic sort he was often pushing himself to the front and did some sterling turns into the wind that I was happy to latch onto.

After a couple of laps things settled down a bit with less bids for escape and a few unfamiliar faces coming to the front. Somewhere in there a couple of feisty lads from one or both of the orange teams shot off the front with the wind on the back straight, but they were either having a laugh or underestimated the effort required to ride without half the peloton in front of them, because they were soon back in the fold. The Doctor and Paddles were regular visitors to the front during this part of the ride, Digger did strong turns into the wind on the front straight when everyone else wanted to hide.

Time seemed to pass quickly to bring us to the final crucial lap. I was wary of the penultimate turn into the wind but nothing came of it and if memory serves me well my anticipation drew to the front for a half-hearted pull into the wind that did no good for the overall pace.

At the last roundabout before the180-degree turn the marshal’s car encountered an oncoming vehicle that did not want to accept that the roads were closed and the pair were stopped in a stand-off. We went inside of both and slowed briefly to allow the bunch to regroup. This was to be the first of several hazards as we started to lap slower riders with limited concepts of things like “left”, “right” and “personal safety”.

In the back straight it was Cookie on the front again and the feeling of “here we go” was palpable in the Coglioni consciousness. But it was not to be as Cookie would whine later he “did not have the depth” for it. Sounds like weakness not leaving the body to me.

A little earlier what I presumed to be some orange-clad captains were chatting behind me about how they were going to leave us on the front for a bit and then sweep past us. A nice plan but in the end it is all about implementation and though they did indeed sweep to the front and lift the speed to the mid-forties for a few hundred metres it didn’t come to much more than the effort of their mates three or four laps earlier.

By this time we were fast approaching the three final turns where a miscalculation could see placings lost or worse an ignominious fall. The first of these is probably easier than it appears on entry as it starts sharp left then opens out to the right, but despite this being my fifth attempt for the day I still took it too cautiously and dropped back a few places. Paddles came shooting past on my right and I picked up his wheel as we approached the second-last turn. This could be taken flat out as long as you didn’t take a line too close the kerb that encroached menacingly from the left.

At this point I had a couple of surprises. The first was that Paddles maintained the momentum he’d taken out of the previous corner and shot off the front of the bunch by five metres or so. The second was that he stayed away going into the final turn. I was in self-preservation mode now, having pathetically resigned myself to the idea that with a nasty turn and a head-wind to finish I had no chance of going for line honours. Quicker more positive thinking would have seen me glued to Paddles’s wheel, second round the corner and who knows?

As it was I took the corner and it was no surprise that in the madness of the finale the bunch seemed to concentrate on the apex of the bend. Someone cut Cookie off, pushing him across my path and I was only centimetres from the sand when I managed to complete the turn and accelerate towards the line. Up ahead Paddles was caught by those who’d gotten through bend without losing speed. I thought at the time that Cookie had stayed ahead of me, and I passed Spunker just before the line so I thought we had three team bikes to the fore. I counted three orange kits ahead of me but was sure both of their teams were represented. Had we managed to win it?

It would be almost an hour of waiting, munching snags in a role and watching the Team Type One A-team strut about confident of victory. Finally, when most of the team had drifted off to ride home and only Paddles and your faithful scribe remained the moment came for cycling MC de rigeur Gary Suckling to stumble through the C.C.Coglioni del Nord name to confirm our win. I was too busy grinning my way up the stairs to collect our trophies but Paddles tells me the looks on the Type One faces were priceless.

Much post-ride analysis concluded that I had also passed Cookie coming out of the corner so it was closer than I had thought at the time. In the official results it came down to The Doctor, who it seems also passed Cookie in the finale, staying 0.15 seconds (about two metres I guess) ahead of the third Type One A rider. Brilliant.

We can only hope that as the space program gave us teflon-coated frying pans the successful control of nuclear fusion will provide similar quotidian benefits, such as a handy plasma bottle with which to contain my temper. Or so I was left to ponder after riding in to work later than usual.

I was coming up behind a callipygian looking gaggle of riders, heavily engaged in conversation and spread across the full width of the bike path on the Tompkins Park foreshore. “Bike!” I yelled but the call was lost in the wind. “Bike!” I yelled again as I drew closer, but still the conversation was more interesting than my advice. I was drawing close now and time was running out, so with the temper genie squirming loose from its non-plasma bottle I yelled “Bike!” again, this time in close proximity and at maximum volume.

As the word escaped my mouth it dawned on me that it was Mrs Paddles’s ear I was shouting into. I briefly rode on in a futile attempt to escape my embarrassment (which wind-tunnel tests have shown to be 100% shielded by the draft effect), but was called back by a cheery “Hello!” and dropped back for a quit chat before riding off to beat the cleaner’s curfew on showering activity at work.

It seems some lessons were learned all round. As I took the longer route via Fraser Road and the riverfront I caught them again coming off Canning Bridge. Your humbled scribe was more humbled in his approach, and the gaggle were now riding in pairs, almost to the left of that confusing white line they insist on painting down the middle of bike paths and the like.