A future post will describe the five-speed one-speed Emperor in more detail - this entry will confine itself to its first outing in earnest, on a Freo run with a small clutch of Coglioni.

No doubt I will bring forth rain with this observation*, but August seems to have settled into a pattern of brilliant pre-spring weather, with crisp mornings leading into blue-skied days where the gathering warmth of the sun is palpable. Sunday was such a day and I could not ask for finer weather in which to take the Emperor out for its first formal run, following a couple of commutes. I was later to learn that it was a brisk 2.5 degrees, so it could have been warmer, but I was happily ensconced in my toasty winter knicks and apart from some chills around the armpits when my warmers exposed me, I was none the wiser.

The ride up the coast and into town was steady and I was able to enjoy the pleasure of single-speeding at whatever pace my mood and the 70-inch gear could agree on. Passing through Subi I expected to catch or be caught by Babel, as he had threatened to make this his post-baby debut and join me on the Langster. I did not see him on the way, however, nor was he at the bridge where I found Digger and The Doctor waiting. Ted and Roland arrive shortly, but no sign of Babel. Well, no surprise or shame there as young Nicholas was still a few days shy of his scheduled birth date, and poor Babel lacks Blinder’s post-propagation experience when it comes to getting back on the bike. No sign of Sick Note either, who had also threatened to ride, but even less surprise there as this writer has not seen him on a bike in a many a day.

So we set off as four and though the initial pace was gentle enough Digger shot off at the far end of the bridge and a solid chase was made, immediately putting me at the higher end of what seemed reasonable cadence with the gear I’d selected. Fortunately his spurt was short-lived and a more sensible pace was adopted as far as Canning Bridge. Going round the Raffles The Doctor and Roland got off the front so I offered my wheel to Ted and Digger. They seemed more interested in chit-chat so I pushed on without them and made the crossing easily enough. Arriving at the first pinch The Doctor and Roland appeared keen to push the pace so I dug in to avoid losing ground. Instead it was Roland who went off the back and I pushed on with The Doctor now setting a brisk pace.

At the second pinch I got a good run-up, over-compensating for the gear and found myself cresting ahead of my comrade. We regrouped and pressed on, now with the wind behind us along the river the pace was getting brisk. Fortunately the Emperor is unencumbered by a speed estimator so I was not able to frighten myself with mental cadence calculations. Suffice to say that it was only grit and good manners that periodically got me to the front to take a turn. Along Burke Drive I fancied The Doctor must be looking hard at the lumps in my pockets, wondering which one might be a spanner with which he could reach down and change me up a gear.

Forty kilometres an hour on a 70-inch gear is a cadence of 120, so you will understand dear reader that I was relieved to reach the turn-off to the Stock Road “climb”. It was a short-lived relief however as the steep first section was too much for me to maintain a rhythm and gravity mercilessly ground my cadence down to a wrestle while The Doctor spun up the hill ahead of me. Fortunately things changed when I got around the bend and the gradient eased: my speed increased to a point where rhythm returned and I could see that The Doctor was no longer receding. Nevertheless he had a good gap and an attempt to close him down across the top of the hill failed. I did catch up a little when he was held up by traffic, and eventually latched on to his wheel again on the final run in to Freo.

The Emperor had performed regally. Perhaps a sprocket less would have done me well on the flats without too much extra pain on the climb. Best of all the funky plastic Unicanitor saddle had proved to be perfectly comfortable. The coffee tasted better that day for having been earned a little harder and I was sure I could already feel the benefits of a single-speed session in my legs.

*I started writing this post on Monday 18th - it rained on Tuesday morning when I was safely working at home. My apologies to anyone out riding that day.