A very short Longest Day

The fortnight before a Longest Day is half the fun and most of the admin. There was a second Longest Day already sitting on the calendar a fortnight later, which turned every conversation into the same question - do both, or pick one? There’s only so much you can get away with riding weekdays and working, and nobody wanted to be the first to say it out loud.

Jeff was the first name off the list, out early. Swerlo and Frank, both stalwarts, were in without needing to be asked, the sort of yes that arrives before you’ve finished explaining the route. Jo was keen and genuinely excited about the run down to Berry. Simon was in but planning to turn early, and honest about it from the start, which is more than could be said for the rest of us. And Kev committed on the condition that he’d be turning at Wollongong - which I chose to treat as an opening position rather than a decision, giving myself ninety kilometres to talk him out of it.

Frank had his own reasons for wanting every kilometre. He has Jeff in his sights in the MC x Vuelta competition, and a day like this puts more distance and elevation on the board in one go than a fortnight of ordinary riding. There’s nothing like a leaderboard to make a long way south look appealing.

Then the forecast landed, and it was glorious. The chat picked up. This was going to be one of the good ones.

Jo went first, called away to deliver babies before we’d even rolled out - the kind of excuse you can’t argue with. Frank arrived carrying a week-long cold and a pair of legs made entirely of rubber. He came anyway, which tells you something about him, but the coast road has no sympathy for a chest infection and he called it at Loftus. Gav turned at Helensburgh precisely as planned, which by that stage of the morning felt like a small triumph of intent over circumstance.

What was left of us was going well. Simon was riding as far as breakfast and no further, and was perfectly content about it. Kev was slowly and visibly coming round to the idea that a whole morning riding to Berry might be a perfect plan after all - you could see the resistance draining out of him somewhere along the coast. And Elliot was carbed up and delighted with the entire world, sitting on the front and pulling everyone through, grinning the whole way and sending encouragement back down the line to Kev whenever it looked like he might waver. It was, briefly, exactly the day we’d planned.

Then, just after Scarborough, my freehub started to play up.

We carried on to Coledale to stop and think. Swerlo smelt adventure the moment we pulled over and set about discovering the closest local bike shop - it’s been a while since our last proper adventure and he wasn’t going to let a good one go begging. The options weren’t promising. Coffee and hope? Train to Wollongong? Train home? The closest shop was in Wollongong, and nothing about whether they would fit me in on the spot…

“How about we push on to Berry?” Swerlo offered. Once. Then again, in case it hadn’t landed the first time.

In the end I put myself on the train at Coledale back to Sydney and sent the rest of them on to breakfast in Wollongong to make their own decisions from there. It was the sensible call and I disliked it immediately.

I understand Swerlo’s appetite for it completely. You take the day off work, the conditions are perfect, the road south is right there - you just gotta ride. Sitting on that train watching the coast slide past in the wrong direction, with a heap of disappointment, the only thing I wanted was for them to ride on.

They didn’t. Breakfast in Wollongong was good, by all accounts, but the station was right there, and Kev - who an hour earlier had been so close to talked round - locked onto the idea of calling it. Kev and Elliot then arrived at the view that my mechanical had been a limitation on their riding, which was a generous reading of a situation they’d left behind at Coledale. Swerlo spent the whole of breakfast making the case for Berry and got precisely nowhere. Simon, meanwhile, was delighted to be home even earlier than planned.

There’s a lesson in all of it, and it’s mine to take. Regular servicing is the difference between a small niggle caught on the bench and a mechanical that ends five people’s day instead of one.

But there’s another way to look at it. Perfect weather, quiet roads, good company and a solid morning in the legs. Not our finest day out - but a decent warm-up for the next one in a fortnight.

Berry isn’t going anywhere.

And if your bike is due, book it into the workshop before the next Longest Day.