In Which Four New Riders Earn their Jerseys!

Sometimes it is illuminating to look back into our official archives to relive the stories of rides past. At other times it is just plain depressing. Before outlining today’s ride I thought I would delve into our history and see what happened on this day in bygone years.

2003 – The Ghostriders were still relatively unknown on the trail but we did manage to raise a peloton of 7 riders on one of our Twilight Rides. It was most interesting to note that John Seamons actually rode all the way from Mt Evelyn to Warburton (but he didn’t ride back again). I guess he must have done himself some sort of injury because he has NEVER repeated this feat.

2004 – On this occasion the peloton had actually shrunk to 4 riders.

2005 – Back up to 7 riders with Gary Hall making his first appearance..

2006 – Down again to 4 riders who battled pouring rain. I had more sense and stayed home in the dry on that day.

Looking at these records I guess you could be excused for thinking that we had not made much progress in 4 years, however all that changed when we gathered outside the Milgrove Coffee Shop to take a head count. You can imagine our surprise when the final total added up to 26 riders. If we had have counted young Declan we would have actually made 27.

As well as the huge peloton, it was exciting to note that no less than 4 riders had earned their yellow jerseys on the same day. Congratulations to Helen, Kevin, Paul & Michael. I would love to list their surnames as well, but due to old age and ineptitude I don’t know them yet !

The only problem with such a large group is that we are rapidly outgrowing the coffee shop. It is quite difficult to find a place to sit and enjoy a coffee, but no-one wants to give up the good service this shop has provided us over the past 12 months. If only they had a better outdoor seating area it would be perfect.

If this rate of growth continues, could we foresee the day when we might actually have 50 riders on the Warburton Trail ? Now that would really be something.

Editors Note
I later heard that some of the riders who missed the day time peloton went out on the trail to do a night ride on Thursday night. Maybe we will soon be starting a day peloton and a night peloton ! If we added the two groups together I suppose that means we had a new record.