Sunday ride - Riding with Legends

Last Sunday's ride was to be the last Sunday ride for the group for 2011 and we were joined by World Record Holder for cycling around Australia Dave Alley along with another Australian legend Michael Groom.

Its not every day that you have a world record holder and the first Australian to climb the world's 5 tallest mountains ride with your riding group but that's exactly what we had last Sunday.

To top it off we had the largest turn out for the year with 21 riders joining in for the 80k Scarborough ride.

Everyone enjoyed riding in the large group and the ANZAC Av section was simply awesome with the group reaching speeds nearing 50kph with an average speed for the 3.5km section being almost 47kph.....how much fun was that!!!

With about a kilometre to go to the sprint finish Rowan turned up the heat and dragged the peleton along at 50kph but soon the sprinters let rip with first Craig then Gav and Jase giving chase. Rowan had cranked it up so much that the sprinters almost didn't catch the leaders with Shane almost upsetting the sprinters plans. In the end Craig had just too much and took what was an awesome sprint.

Things settled down a bit after that as we hit the headwind as we turned south.

As we headed through Woody Point we were reminded that this was the starting and finishing point for Dave's unbelievable race around Australia. It was great chatting with Dave as we rode along and got to hear about his amazing 37 days.

The Ted Smout or new Hornibrook bridge is always a great chance to get the paceline going and go we did with a solid 36kph average for the 2.6km trip across the bridge.

With such a big group full of contenders the Sandgate sprint was highly anticipated and it didn't disappoint. Tactics soon came into play and Jase unhappy with the slow pace took the lead with the Smiddy boys getting organised for the sprint. Rowan led the charge with Craig and others right with him. Jase Gav and Brad couldn't respond and the Smiddy boys led it home.

At the finish the biggest ever group assembled for coffee at Conti Cafe who did well to pack us all in.

It was a great way to finish the last ride for 2011. Made extra special by Dave and Michael's presence.

Yo can check out the ride data here... http://app.strava.com/rides/2747076

Here's Dave and Michael enjoying a coffee with Team POWERADE.....