No dear reader the Kalamunda Christmas Handicap has not been held without you. Though by the time it comes around in early January you may wish you had been at the Christmas trough while others toiled on the tarmac, alas it is not so. All I have for you today is a brief report and estimated times from a pre-Christmas sally to the observatory via the iconic handicap climb.

O’Dirty had organised the day on the pre-text of getting Mike* and Swee’Pea timed on Kalamunda Hill before they returned to Sydney. Obviously his evil intention was to make as many people as possible suffer on a fine summer’s day, AND get fresh times for handicapping purposes. Your humble scribe was one of many who fell for this ruse.

I dropped in at Mike and Swee’Pea’s on the way into town to deliver his new jersey only to find him hobbling about with a suspicious looking wound on his heel. Were it self-inflicted it would put Sick Note’s claim as the master of absenteeism in serious doubt, but Mike told me some cobblers about being attacked by a fearsome beast from the deep, and I had no choice but to leave him in a gibbering drug-addled mess and make my way into the city.

Recent turn-outs have confirmed that real Coglioni do not fear a tough day out in the hills, and this morning would confirm that they also laugh, if not at the cold, at least at the heat. With a forecast maximum of 39 and the temperature coming up with the sun nine riders was certainly an excellent roll call.

The ride out via the endorsed route was uneventful, with O’Dirty and Paddles doing stoic work into the light but menacingly warm easterly. In fact so conspicuously absent was your lazy scribe from the front that O’Dirty later suggested I might be preparing for a stab at the record. In truth it was mere sloth and the thought that with 100 km or more in the heat and hills on the agenda there was no need to drive the pace just yet.

The start of the climb was somewhat confusing, as we arrived in a rabble splintered by Ridge Hill Road (or in truth by the fearsome false flat of Watsonia Road, having regrouped at the bottom of the Zig-Zag), then appeared to regroup for a controlled start before setting off at will. Let’s hope the starter gets some practice in before the handicap. As result I cannot attest to the accuracy of the following times, since several started before me and as many after. I’ll leave it to the comments page for people to berate my estimates and substitute their own Swiss-timed results for the handicapper’s scrutiny.

It’s not yet clear whether Paddles is going for worst ever time on Kalamunda Hill, or best ever time with a flat tyre. He seems to have the field covered in either event, as no-one else shares his obvious enthusiasm for swapping tubes on an incline with traffic whizzing past at 70 km/hr or more. Meanwhile Ted had tried to fool the handicapper by not bothering with breakfast after a hard ten km run the previous day. He almost succeeded in cracking 20 minutes as a result but one doubts if the handicapper was fooled.

The route from Kalamunda saw some innovation from O’Dirty as he took us the long way round to reach the observatory from Pickering Brook via Patterson Road. This was too much for Ted who decided that eating and riding are a good combination after all and so headed straight to the cafe in Gooseberry Hill for sustenance. O’Dirty wanted a bet each way with his new route, alternately insisting that it avoided the main climb then suggesting the low point this way might be as low as the old endorsed route via Glen Isla Road into Bickley Valley. Stats from the ride suggest that in fact you are intially spared 50 metres of climbing but in the end have to do the last 35 metres twice, so it’s much of a muchness, though you do avoid the steep pinch at the bottom of Walnut Road this way.

The Coglioni bunch was taunted briefly by a pair of Quickstep riders out for secret training. The second rider was undoubtedly Tom Boonen after a big night, and although they distanced us briefly both were reeled in when the climbing got serious and the flies got annoying, prompting an acceleration from your impatient scribe that was immediately covered by Spunker. The pair then bridged to the taunters before leaving them in their wake on the final climb.

All good things must come to an end and with the observatory reached it was time for me to head home so I cannot report on the adventures of the rest of the peloton as they braved the increasing heat. Luckily for me Paddles also wanted to get home early so I had his company as well as the remains of the morning’s northeasterly as we bolted down the Roe Highway bike path wondering if the tarmac would melt our northern European tyres.

All in all a fine though hot day out with a satisfying variation on the classic route to a favourite destination.

*Not his real nickname. The events leading to his absence from the ride have provided so much nickname fodder that the author is confused about whether or not the nickname committee has reached a conclusion. A suggestion made by Spunker was looking good until it was noted by an outsider that it might in fact be in rather poor taste. The committee was a little uncertain about the relevance of this point, but for now it is up in the air.

Take one Tuesday ride, prepared earlier. It should include Meads, the bonus climbs at Chidley Point, and a couple of turns up The Coombe for good measure. Add one part Bif, one part Spunker and one part Cookie. Stir gently until a big-ring only agreement starts to form. Don’t stir too much or a big-ring and small-cog agreement might form, and you will have to throw the whole batch out and start again. Also, be careful not to add Paddles, Digger or The Doctor, or common sense might form instead. The results will be usable, but not fit to serve up to O’Dirty. Bake slowly in a pleasantly warm afternoon for an hour or so, fan-forced by an early sea-breeze.

I had to go up to the West Perth office to run a few errands so it seemed foolish not to factor in a lunchtime ride with Cookie and Spunker. The Doctor was half-expected but was a no-show, and before I knew it the others had concocted a plan to make it a big-ring ride. This plan turned out to have individual interpretations. I limited myself to a 50×21 bottom-end but was happy to click up when the opportunity arose. Spunker, being the only equipped with a really big ring, was happy to use whatever poor suffering sprocket he could jam his chain onto, so I guess had a 53×26 to resort to, while I Cookie chose to do the whole ride on 50×21, which explains why he was falling behind on the fast sections.

Having not done this ride for a while I was filled with hubris and went like a mad thing at the bottom of Meads. As the gradient eased off I expected that I would accelerate as gravity relaxed its grasp or a last spurt of effort drove me, but nothing much happened as there was no more effort to be hand and gravity was mustering its forces for The Coombe and beyond. Fortunately Spunker was also fast in its grip and I made it to the top without him whooshing past as every expectant moment seemed to portend.

On to The Coombe then. Frankly, I was disappointed after all the talk there’d been since this twister was added to the original bonus climbs at Chidley Point. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a worthy addition, especially as its location makes two ascents mandatory, but subject to correction by theodolite I assert that there is no way any part of it is steeper than the first five or ten metres up from the Chidley Point carpark. After all the hype the first assault seemed like a relatively painless grind.

Chidley Point then reminded me of its mean pitch, especially the middle pinch of the last climb, hidden as it is from clear view by the openness of that piece of road. Back to The Coombe for a second time I was starting to think that a spare pair of brake pads is probably a good thing to carry on this route. My hubris would almost prove to be my hamartia, as I thought that if Cookie wasn’t on his way down before I got back up then I’d just have to do it a third time. Fortunately I decided to stop and wait for Spunker to confirm that the second assault wasn’t some kind of foul trap for young players, and this delayed me long enough to ensure I didn’t have to follow through and do it a third time, as strength and joints were well and truly fading.

By the time we passed back through Kings Park I was struggling to hold Spunker’s wheel. The Mars bar I’d eaten before the ride was long gone, I was all out of HTFU, and with willpower all but gone I was forced to watch him pull away up that horrible drag of a non-climb up May Drive. After a few minutes at my own pace my heart caught up with me and I was able to match his pace and then catch him again as he got caught up in the road works behind Frasers.

Two days later my knees still hurt and I can see I need to inject some more madness into my commute if I want to follow this recipe again.