We ride from brighton (qld) through sandgate into the wetlands then across to shultze's canal and at the nundah crit track we get onto the road and ride through to brets wharf where we follow the river front until we hit the goodwill bridge then cross into southbank for lunch break after which we head back along the same route - the milk run.
On the alternate ride we start at toowong, head along the centenary highway up to montpelier rd then head south to oxley , rocklea then along fairfield rd get back on the bike path follow the river to dutton park, up to the top of the hill then coast into southbank for lunch then across the river and down to brekky creek before doubling back along the river to toowong, its a shorter run but the hills! the hills!
To make the ride more interesting we have fixed challenge stages during the ride, they are short parts of the ride that use different bike skills, hill climbs , tight cornering, sprints between stop lights etc. On the fixed challenges the two guys who win the least points split the tab for lunch, needless to say i've helped pay for a lot of lunches!
But during the ride anyone can call a random challenge at the start of a new stretch and then we all pick up the pace to catch the guy making the break. Yea i know, we have weird ride games but the winner gets to look smug and the caller of the random challenge gets a point deducted if he looses.
It was all pretty casual for a while there, but as i started to get fitter and started to be more competitive (after which i had to suck my lungs back in), it dawned on me that the older of the two sons 26 was starting to call randoms on the long stretches or if we had a stiff head wind, or anywhere i would rather dawdle and conserve my str!, little bugger was wearing me down, fair enough, all in the spirit of friendly competition, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.
But when he started sucking wheel for most of the rides, i got a bit cheesed off and decided i would make it my mission to deprive him of him of that smug look. I'm not normally a competitive person just for the sake of it but the gloves were off
/plays eye of the tiger
It was that time that i started thinking about replacing the cruiser with a road bike (by this time i knew i was hooked into riding) and got serious about training, joined the forums here, reading and learning heaps, started riding the roadie and upped the daily ride from 18 to 50 clicks and rode for cadence. On the group rides i continued to ride the cruiser improve my riding technique, disguising my slowly improving fitness by dropping back gears to match pace if i needed to and doing nothing too flash.
Two weeks ago i brought the roadie along for the first time, they were a bit cautious cause of the new bike and wanted to see what i was capable of on it so the number of random challenges were at a all time low, but i kept it casual ( gotta love the mind games ) putting on the pressure at the fixed challenges but watching his style as he went though his paces.
The next ride the smugness was back, totally confident of his riding prowess and he had picked up a new trick, after sucking wheel he would make his break and call out the challenge for short stretches on his way past the rest of us grrrr. But for some reason he had upped his seat height and because of this it would creak with every stroke when he put the pedal to the metal so after the third or forth time i twigged when he was starting to make his break, i could hear the creaking start then get faster .
So after that ride like rocky in russia i trained like a demon each day forgetting the diet and concentrating on doing bursts from 80 to 120 cadence and going up the gears.
The stage was set.
We were doing the milk run today so after a huge meal last night i got up early and pigged out on wheatbix to make sure i had a tiger in the tank.
Like most good things its the journey and the struggle thats ultimately more rewarding but the look of disbelief on his face was priceless as time after time i came up with the goods, revving up the bike and staying ahead when he made his breaks, the high cadence giving me greater controll in the tight bits, even managing to pull away from him sucking my wheel along the dreaded stretch of shultzes canal. Lunch never tasted so good and i thanked him for it
I casually reminded him of the 20 yr age difference between us was that wrong? 
Im stuffed, stiff and sore, i hurt in places i didn't think i could but it was a good day.
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