PADPAL Ride 24th Apr 2025

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6 hardy souls braved the double whammy of double D’s AND inclement weather and apart from a very serious heart starter half way down the hill to the Peats Ferry bridge a good time was had by all.

As Ride Leader I thought I would see how many things I could do wrong and my score got pretty high. Think no briefing, no TEC (although I think Tony was a close 2nd on that at the back, thanks Tony), no corner marking, leaving the pack behind (either that or they were giving me too much rope😜) and I led the entire pack into a speed trap whilst doing a tad more than the posted limit👍🏻🤣. 

I didn’t even manage to avoid all the very frequent showers although here I came a close second with only one brief downpour actually catching up with us and a couple of sprinkles whilst riding on very wet roads showing we had just dodged a bullet! I had even done a chain swap on my bike the previous week and not tested it, belatedly discovering I’d managed to fit the gear pedal one cog tooth too low so I couldn’t get my toe under the pedal to change up. We had a brief try with Paul’s mole grips and Pete’s adjustable spanner to fix that but no I just spent the entire day missing gear changes😂

Our route for the day was up the old road to Jerry’s and although there was a push to go via Sommersby I balked at the thought of all that extra 60k/h road covered in crap from the rain so went via Peats Ridge instead. Jerry’s was open and very quiet so we had our choice of tables. Then it was back to Bloodtree Rd to head for Spencer for Lunch. I originally intended to lunch at Wisemans but all but one of the group didn’t want to go back to Sydney via the Old Northern Rd so we stopped at Spencer and after lunch went back the way we’d come, sans one rider, down the old road to the Pie for coffee. On the return trip roles were reversed with Tony out front and me at the back so the stress of leading during double D’s was shared, thanks again Tony 👍🏻.

After solving the problems of the world we all left for home in warm sunshine and I for one shucked all the wet weather gear on the final leg.

All in all a nice day out, not the fastest by any means but satisfying nonetheless. Thanks all for the company, until the next time.

Andy

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