sadsacnews2014: SADSAC: Longford

Maybe due to the over optimistic weather forecast fifteen riders made the effort to present at the Longford Hall for the run to the ocean. Along with our regular Sadsac and Tramps riders Dale and Rob were there, although this time with their own bikes. We were also treated to our newest members in the form of Kathy and Rob McKimm. Hopefully these are just the first of the riders that Liz has talked into joining our ranks. While uncertain if Rob holds an honorary position with the Sale Saturday ladies ride he has been on a couple of rides with the club in recent times so knew what he was in for. The wet conditions in the lead up to the start had me worried that some of our fair weather riders might pull out but they held their nerve.
The ride itself started with the major effort for the day with the run up the South Gippsland highway. Once clear of the first few kilometres the terrain flattens out and the rest of the run to Stradbroke was much easier.
The turn towards the east did produce a persistent headwind which did spread the group out somewhat. It was along this leg that our first event happened with Dale managing to puncture. As she did not have a spare tube Rob used his 23 mm spare in the somewhat larger tyre. I commented at the time that this was a brave move. The ride progressed well until I was forced to intervene when ride leader Dave tried to cut about 15 km off the route. The members that were still on summer time did not think kindly of my delaying lunch by this action. The outbound leg was always the longer and we finally made Seaspray at around 1 pm.
Due to the steady cool breeze we set up by the shop and fortunately the showers that had caught us on the way out had finished. Some took advantage of our location to warm themselves up with some chips.
As we were about to leave Ken decided his tyre was going down so another replacement was needed. The repair team managed to catch the rest of the group on the climb out of town but Rob and Dale, who had swapped bikes, stopped at the top for some seat height adjustments. As they headed off to pursue the group Rob's previous brave move backfired and the repaired tyre failed. As he was about to put the bike on the trailer I checked and we had a suitable spare tube. So it was the third tyre repair for the day and another chase to regroup at Stradbroke Road. The rest of the ride went swimmingly until on the detour of 3GI hill Dale took a fall as she stopped at the highway intersection. Apart from a twisted brake handle, bike and rider were fit to continue. At the end of the day we had covered some 78 km. Despite this the two new electric bikes, perhaps not their riders, had enough charge to do it again. All things considered a great day out.