Chains excite me!
Bicycle chains that is. Not so excited by the sight of Kenny McDonald dressed up as little red riding hood though. Purple haired Jwoww gets a pass because she was still in her work uniform.
Most of the club was shocked to see Jo “Jwoww” Wauch flaunting her natural hair colour, but if you sported a purple mane you’d probably keep it a secret too. Despite her obvious handicap, Jwoww managed to organise the race very well, complete with a laminated set of instructions that included no “Ralphing” (can’t imagine what she was on about myself) and a choice of riding crop of feather duster for personal motivation (maybe after the ride Jwoww!)
The last road race of the year was a team time trial, with a team from the mountain bikers pitted against the usual suspects plus a “two guys, one bike” dark horse entry in the shape of Andrew Devenish-Meares and Dave “Ralph” Rubie aboard a tandem.
Harrison Munday, for the day conscripted into the mountain bike team, was forced to draw hair on his legs with a texta. Don’t fret Harrison, that hair will eventually sprout. Other team members included Holly Harris, Dave “Mad Hatter” Harris, Ben Harris and Greg “Mountains” Manttan. The mountain bikers started first and disappeared quickly, probably turned early, hid in the bushes (where they felt at home), whipped each other with eucalyptus branches, bathed in the muddy creek naked and then had a 20 minute nap and rode home refreshed.
John “The Cannibal” Scott-Hamilton appeared to have eaten all his other team mates and showed up alone (if anybody has seen Andrew Kirk or Rob Tindale recently, let us know). Astride a fresh new TT specific bike he looked pretty dangerous.
Club president Andrew Swan had gathered Dene “Bourkey” Bourke, Lachie McPhie and Ice Cold Billy Mara. None of them looked particularly enthused, other than Bourkey who is like the energizer bunny of sandbagging on the start line. The worse he tells you he feels, the faster he goes. This team ended up in pieces all over the road, no doubt torn to bits by Swanny who probably tore up the road for 20 minutes, looked back to realise he was alone and then kept riding anyway.
Bob Murison did his best to whip Ray Phillips, Wilf Keller, Jack Parker and Pete “Captain” Creagan into shape, although these last two teams cheated mercilessly during the race by drafting each other, swapping team mates, helping each other up the hills and generally causing all kinds of chaos on the road which stymied the tandem team. The tandem passed them at least twice on the road out of town only to defeated by cheating (and gravity).
The Cannibal recorded fastest time of the day with a scorching 46 minute time for the 30km course, the hairy legged mountain bike team of doom with 47:22, Bob Murison’s team a 52:17 and the tandem in 60:10 by what was obviously a broken stopwatch – the ever watchful eye of Strava recording a slightly less impressive time but still 5km/h faster than that particular bike had done Dangarsleigh. The Tandem team were declared the winners on the basis that their “recorded” time was closest to the nominated handicap time, but the rules were so fluid that had probably changed by the time we hit the bowling club.
No matter. We’ll always have the sight of Jwoww’s purple hair and Kenny’s costume play as little red riding hood to cherish.