In which the Titanic starts to leak

Our latest ride turned out to be quite a hoot. We had the pleasure of welcoming a new rider into our secret society and the weather dawned bright and sunny. Dennis, Duncan and Bob met at Wandin at 12.40 pm to find Bob cursing his misfortune in having a flat tyre.

When he proceeded to replace the tube, he discovered that his cheap inner tubes had let him down yet again. By this time Duncan and Dennis were itching to start so we laughed at Bob’s misfortune and launched into the ride, leaving Bob pumping furiously trying to force some air into his perforated rubber. (I think we will call his bike “Titanic” from now on.) Of course, real riders never get punctures.

After a few km of pumping into the wind Dennis realised that Duncan is a real wolf in sheep’s clothing – the guy’s a pedalling dynamo! By this time Bob had patched together the remnants of his pride and got his Titanic back on the trail.

Mal met us at Killara station. He had obviously been watching too much of the Tour de France because he came already wearing the Yellow Jersey! So the four of us pushed up through Woori Yallock – but where was John? Obviously stuck on the mobile phone to his broker, or working furiously to perfect train whistle Mk 2.

During the crossing of the bridge at Launching Place Mal launched into an aggressive passing maneouvre, forcing Bob to crash and bringing the whole peleton down. Mal went sailing over the handrail and was lucky not to fall in the river. After disentangling the bikes and having a brief fistfight, we determined that no permanent damage was done and proceeded to look for John.

John eventually met us at Yarra Junction while Bob and Mal did a quick circuit of Mt Donna Buang. The peleton regrouped and we proceeded to Warburton without further incident.

By the time we arrived at Warburton we were all hungry so we piled into the coffee shop and eyed off all the food. It was at this time we discovered the secret of Bob’s prowess, he had been popping little red pills all day. The photo clearly shows him with one of the offending illegal substances on his tongue. The poor old guy was literally “caught in the act”.

The only doubt was over whether the pill was some sort of steroid or viagra. In fact it became obvious later in the day that it must have been viagara because Bob could not put his arms down while riding. We tried to tell him that he should only take one tablet at a time – not eat them like M & M s.

We eventually all got back to our respective vehicles feeling a little tired, but thoroughly looking forward to the next ride.