I met John Tait at Salter’s cycles at a little before 10am. The day got off to an odd start with an elderly gentleman nearly running me over as he parked his car, then within minutes of leaving Salter’s, John had a flat rear tyre. Back we went and got one of the lovely young men at the store to change it for John. The upside of this, however, was that the other young man at the store began chatting with me and told me of a couple of good hill training circuits. He had the computer on in the store and we happily google mapped the sites.
Eventually John & I got underway along the bike path and John set a cracking pace of 26 – 29kph which had me huffing and puffing a little as I’d done a tough ride on Saturday and this was supposed to be my `Recovery’ ride. We met up with Graeme and his friend Gary, at Pier St., Altona. As we were chatting, who should walk up but Mary. When asked why she wasn’t joining us, she sheepishly admitted to having had a big night out on Saturday with her workplace Xmas party. Mary and her partner took out the `best couple on the floor’ title for their dancing and she was still quite chuffed with herself, despite being a little the worse for wear.
After some consultation we decided that the fjord would be under water from the previous night’s rain, so we cut up the western side of the old racecourse and over the rail line. It was here that John had another unfortunate incident, as when we went to cross the rail line, Graeme decided not to ride through a very muddy spot and spent a little time looking for a dry patch to get across. Gary was in the lead with John close behind when I looked back and saw that we had left Graeme a fair way behind. I called out to the others and Gary stopped immediately. John went `smack’ right into the back of him then flew over his handlebars and into the grass at the side. Fortunately the only damage was a scrapped knee, and John was very brave about continuing to ride with it. The rest of the ride was smooth and pleasant. Gary added some great stories to the conversation as he has lived around Williamstown all his life and told of riding his father’s horses down to the beach as a boy. He was able to describe all the changes that have occurred along the foreshore during his lifetime. Graeme took us down to see the `lava blister’ at Point Gellibrand, something I’d never seen before. As we came into Williamstown proper, Gary took us to this fascinating place… The local morgue, built in 1859 from bluestone hewn by convict labour. Graeme was keen to get inside!
From the morgue we hurried on to Commonwealth Park, where we found the markets in full swing and the boys had fun deciding what produce to buy, while I found some Christmas presents to put into my panniers.
We met up with Dianne Sommerville and Gary’s wife Judy at the park and enjoyed the sunshine and people watching before finally heading back home. The wind was kind to us on the way back, more southerly than westerly so once again we scooted along at a decent pace. I enjoyed myself thoroughly with `the boys’, they are great company and I’m envious of those who are able to ride with the Pelican Peddlers on weekdays.
