We will ride into the sun. Everyone dons a helmet and slips across the road to the start. Shoes click in and out of pedals, lines form, watches and computers are set to zero. The tension quietly builds as final instructions are given. At the signal, we stream onto the road and up the first grade, front-runners setting a fast pace in a tight pack, followed by an unravelling line of recreational riders.
Breaths come hard and fast.
Well-oiled chains buzz around the endless loop of cogs. The serious riders sit in rows of two, three and four, tucked in behind the leaders to cheat the wind. Occasionally a long paceline forms, bikes like links of a chain, wheel to wheel, rocketing forward. Riders fall off the pace, shaken from the back. Small groups form and carry on at an easier pace.