Wattsy's Hell Ride Adventure.

6.30am Saturday, the alarm goes off and I scratch myself, roll over and hit the snooze. 6.39am, alarm goes off and I reluctantly drag myself out of my nice warm bed. This is so much more difficult given that it p*ssed down all night. I get up and get into the riding gear, slowly getting enthusiastic as it's looking clear outside, with not a hint of rain/wind.

I get on the bike and start riding towards the Black Rock clock tower and notice that it's a bit colder than it looked from inside the house. The toes and fingers are a little colder than I'd like. I pass a m/bike cooper going the other way on Bluff Rd. I think to myself, "that's unusual for a bike cop to work this early, but whatever...***** it's cold".

I arrive at the clock tower at 6.55am and am amazed to see a hundred or so riders already there just hanging around. I look around at the bikes and am blown away at the quality of bikes...oh, and very few 'fat old bast@rds' like myself. I think, "you'd have to combine half the fields body fat content just to make up mine." I look for Hitchy, cause he said he's be here. I can't find him so mumble stuff like, "sheila, all talk and no action, probably only rides a mountain bike anyway etc etc.." At 6.58am I hear, "this'd have to be Wattsy", from my right side and turn around to meet Hitchy. First thing I notice is his awesome bike, and then the size of his thighs. We shake hands and I mention how cold it is. Hitchy politely mentions that it's not so bad now, but was really cold at Sunbury when he woke up this morning at 4.00am. I nodded and acknowledged this calmly but was thinking, "*****, has this guy ridden from Sunbury already?!" A quick calculation puts his round trip at 160km's+ for the day...Fark, what am I doing here? Hitchy then points out the bike cop and tells me it's now common for the ride.

7.00am and the first riders take off. We all follow at a leisurely 35kph. I'm riding with Hitchy and we chat for a little while but with riders going everywhere, talking stops and we concentrate on the surrounds. I'm smiling at this stage cause I'm so impressed with myself for just being here. Now, at this point I should note that I've ridden nearly every Sunday for the last 9 months or so in the Brumby's group which has between 50 and 100 riders depending on the weather, so I'm not intimidated by riding in a pack. This pack, however, is different. I was intimidated cause there were guys going everywhere and didn't seem to follow a pattern. The 'pack' as a whole was more aggressive than I had expected, maybe the reason why we had a police bike and highway patrol car for an escort.

Anyhow back to the ride...so we're rolling along Beach Rd, and I notice that the speed was slowly rising. By Ricketts Point, the pack was travelling at 42kph. Now, my smile was still there cause this wasn't excessive at this stage, but I was thinking, surely these guys will sort themselves out soon and and the pace will settle down...WRONG! By the time we got to the Parkdale Flats, the pack was riding at 50kph...FARK. I just kept remembering what Ed wrote last week...stick with the front guys to stay out of trouble. Easier said than done Ed. I couldn't believe how quickly the other riders would ride around me and take my spot. Damn, I wasn't expecting this...Wattsy was no longer smiling, rather he was grimacing.

We arrive at Mordialloc and 200 odd riders bustle to get around the round about first. CRAP, a group of 50-75 riders get around and some cars stop the rest of us. I finally get around after what felt like 5 minutes, but was more like 10 seconds. I look up and the main bunch had already gone through the next set of lights and they were all out of the seat and pumping hard. I jump onto a group of riders who are all out of the seat and sprinting to catch up, we run the red light cause we know to stop means we have no chance. For the next 10 K's we ride at 48 - 50 kph in a vain effort to catch the front group. My hr was 190 - 200 for most of this time. By Patterson River I knew I was beaten and dropped off the back of the chasing pack and then slowed to a 'leisurely' speed of 35kph.

I ride to Frankston by myself and decide that I would go on to Mornington and then cruise on home. I ended up doing this and rode a lazy 90 km's for the day. By the time I got home, I had justified in my head the days events. It was my first Hell Ride, and while I enjoyed the experience, I need a few more months of hard training before I can keep up with these bad boys...A man has to know his limitations!

It was a pleasure meeting Hitcy, albeit for such a short time.