M3 Power push through the pain and the rain in pursuit of the Century

The four successful centurians celebrate at the end of the ride

If Saturday’s ride were compared to a cricket match it certainly contained enough drama to keep everyone guessing as to the final outcome right down to the wire of the final kilometre. The battle was on for the 6 starters to break the hitherto elusive barrier of a 100Km ride. The drama began to unfold at 4.30am when frantic phone calls and text messages were passing back and forth amongst the team to see if the team were up to the challenge of riding in the worst storms to batter Sydney in a whole week. The team were spurred on into action by the Scottish iron man Kenny, who claims that when riding in his youth in Scotland in the perpetual rain that he never took water with him and only drank the spray from his front mudguard if absolutely necessary.

The ride up on the M7 bike track proved top be the calm before the storm and after customary refuelling refreshments were taken it was time for a mystery tour around the belle-aire of western Sydney in order to boost the kilometres when the scribe decided to take a dive right in front of the referees nose of a nearby footy game to reacquaint himself with tarmac once again and squashing his banana in the process. By the time of the return leg the rain had set in again in earnest aided and abetted by some strong winds, deciding that the bike track was too tame the team opted for the greater challenge of the M7 proper to go with the force 9 winds, horizontal rain, punctures, glass, debris and general abuse of passing trucks who delight in making their presence known with a 129Db truck siren right in the ear holes of the beleaguered riders as they tried to mend the gathering momentum of punctures that were coming their way.

By the 70Km mark it was clear that two riders were going to be in doubt of making the century but the four intrepid heroes pictured above opted to add on another 12Kms just to make sure that the century mark was passed which is a bit like climbing up both sides of Mount Everest to say that it was well and truly conquered, and as the Irish would say, to be sure to be sure. Well done to these intrepid 2 wheel travellers.

CHART SUMMARY OF ALL THE CRUCIAL ACTION

RIDERS	PUNCTURES	THRILLS	SPILLS	RETIRED HURT	RAIN	CENTURIES
6	3	none	3	2	lots	4

GADGET OF THE WEEK
This award has to go to Kenny who is a self confessed gadget geek and has had endless trouble transporting his bananas around on his back without turning to mush before he can benefit from the nutritious energy boost that they give whilst out on a ride. “An hour in the saddle and my banana turns to mush”, he said. So to combat this predicament he has come up with an ingenious invention to circumvent this eventuality or to be completely accurate his wife bought him this subtle contraption that has made mushy bananas a thing of the past. Here he is pictured enjoying his new acquisition.

RIDING TIPS
This one passed on by our very own Tachis. “It’s a good idea to sometimes check to see if your wheel is on upside down or not”, he said. Here he is pictured below doing this very thing just before our Easter Monday ride when he realised just in time that his front wheel would do better if it was installed the other way up. After he carried out this fine tuning adjustment to his machine it meant that he was able to go even faster on our ride which was bad news for the rest of us left trailing in his slipstream. He has also just superseded the 2,000Km mark in his training regime so our hearty congratulations go to him.

Here he is pictured getting some fine tuning to that front wheel from Sebastian the unofficial team mechanic.

Well that just about wraps it up for this edition but in the next publication we look forward to hearing some of “Hendo’s Handy Hints”, where we will learn about some useful tips to help make our riding more bearable and pain free.

Best wishes for now
from the scribe