Another month already?!?! We’re quickly speeding through 2022 and here in the deep south of the planet, sliding into the true winter months. The 1st of May just happened to be a Sunday, so I got out and knocked over the month’s Resolution Ride metric century nice and early. Gotta love that!

With the wild winter wind predicted to ramp up early in the morning, it was another day to roll out on my trusty Trek 5200 shod with shallower 35mm wheels.

It was a usual “solo + SunDaze bunch” affair, an early solo 40km to shake out the legs, followed by an extended club ride around the back of Richmond via the “Tea Trees” to the Richmond Bakery café stop.

The road up Back Tea Tree is always tough one. Majority uphill. Majority headwind. Always a grind. It never seems to get any easier! Thankfully today we had a solid group with a few of us taking turns on the front to share the load into the headwind. We also had a little extra break time at the intersection as Michael suffered a puncture. I was glad of the breather after working hard into the wind.

From there it was a blast down and onto Middle Tea Tree Road, signalling the final stretch towards the café. Our front group of 5 riders cracked the whip, rolling some good turns. As we got closer to Richmond I wound up the pace (fair game in the race to coffee). A couple of solid turns and we were down to three riders, then two. I took the front with a final strong pull all the way into town, crossing into Richmond first.

Rolling to a stop at the café I had over 80km on the Garmin already, so I knew even if I took the most direct route back it’d be close to 100km for the day. After a mediocre coffee and equally unremarkable carrot cake (Richmond Bakery, I do not recommend), I saddled up again for the solo ride home. I’d planned it out so I’d be riding straight into the now-very-strong headwind, before swinging around to enjoy the tailwind assisted speed back to the car.

Approaching the car I looked down and saw 108 on the Garmin, I’d pushed hard today and the legs were feeling the work. Even so, I decided to tack on a quick “round the block” spin to nudge it over 110km and finish strong for the morning. A perfect start to the month of May!

Distance: 110.7 km / 68.8 miles
Total elevation gain: 975 m / 3200 feet
Average speed: 29.1 kph / 18.1 mph