sadsacnews: SADSAC: Rosedale - Gormandale 08July

This would have to rate as one of our most successful rides of recent times. A total of 24 riders braved the chilly and foggy conditions for one of our most challenging rides. As with a couple of previous rides the numbers were boosted by some of the Wednesday Straty group. I hope the pace was not too pedestrian. We even had the champion of the flat ground Bob (What! Are we walking today?), join us for the mountain stage. The warm up leg out of Rosedale had barely started when our first delay hit with Bill suffering a flat. We waited for the mechanic to run up with a new wheel but soon realized we may have been on the wrong ride. Once repaired the team paced the favoured rider back to the main field who were found sunning themselves next to the creek.

After another 10 or so Kms of undulating terrain we paused at the start of the Willung South road to prepare ourselves. Apart from one injured rider we all headed off onto the lower slopes with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Just up the road we found one of the roadside fans a bit too aggressive and Dave, having had dealings with the offending interloper before, protected the following riders from said beast. The real climb started shortly afterwards and did not appear to be flattened at all by the recent earthquake. The team regrouped at the top of Powers Hill for the high speed dash to lunch.

Conditions were starting to warm up during lunch and the coffee and cakes helped us to recover from our previous efforts. Once we had repaired our second puncture, a side effect of a larger group, we headed off for the shorter and flatter return to the start point. We even drove home in the daylight.