Gentleman Tom picked myself and the Rubble up from Ealing at 7.30 and drove to the Surrey Rumble start in Cobham. We signed on and I left in the 9.05 wave, a couple of waves down on cliveo and another Rollapaluza rider Jamie. On the first climb I noticed a Cecil Walker road bike. “So, you’re from Melbourne then?” I queried the rider. “Could be” was the reply.

It turns out that Mike (rider of the Cecil Walker custom steel bike) used to race for Blackburn CC in Melbourne – my old club! He’d stopped racing for them before I started but he still knew some of the same people there. Small world eh?

He warned me about a sharp descent and it was well timed as I watched a bloke go down in front of me when a car veered over to avoid some pedestrians. We stopped to make sure he was okay (he was) and carried on.

So, we rode most of the course together talking random stuff about bikes and the Oz/Uk thing all the while my Powertap’s freehub made horrible screeching noises as the bearings slowly ate themselves. I was worried that the hub would seize at any time and leave me in the middle of nowhere with a long walk home. It didn’t thankfully but it looks like I’ll be coughing up 60 quid for a replacement. Stupid Powertap cheese freehubs.

I caught cliveo riding alone but he passed me again in a big bunch when I stopped for a long erm nature break. I rode with his bunch until the first checkpoint, where my card was stickered and we rolled out quickly. I think I left Clive somewhere here. Mike and I passed a tired rider on one of the climbs and then heard a crunch as he hit the deck. It appears he was knackered (riding head down) and just rolled into a roadside ditch! Again, we checked he was okay and we all continued on.

I met Scherrit from the Bike Whisperer at Checkpoint 2 and said g’day before disappearing, leaving Mike behind it seemed.

He was back again after dragging a bunch up to me. Impressive, since I’d been riding quite hard solo for a while, trying to catch a couple of pairs down the road. We did some big turns here (proper 40kph+ stuff) while the others sat on. Bloody triathletes! Even though we’d missed a turn (I was right about that arrow damn it!) and gone around a round-a-bout a few times we’d got back on track and it was now close to home. Mike was slowing on the hills while tri guy went up the road. I had to beat him so I left the Cecil Walker to its own devices and tore off to the wheel of tri guy.. and sat on. He moved over, so did I. He moved back, so did I. He accelerated, so did I. With the speed up we were doing well until another arrow. I thought I saw one and slowed, looked behind me to see two guys turn down the side lane, looked back to see tri guy 100m down the road and then did a U-turn to head home. It was only a mile or so from here and Cillit Bang, I was home. 4:25 for the 125k. Grabbed some cakes and coffee and had a chat to Corrine from the Bike Whisperer. Clive arrived after a while and then Tom, Ricky and Ved, who’d all left in the last wave, arrived. Poor Wayne had to pack because of his back injuries. Other than BDW’s injury, for the rest of us it was a really good day. The course wasn’t insane, so people could ride together, the weather was dry and not too cold, I didn’t really get lost at all and the Surrey Rumble organisers just generally did really well.