so the 2013 tour route was unveiled this week and all the big names are commenting on this 100th edition. the interesting talk is to whether wiggo will defend as he is saying that there may not be enough tt in it for his liking. froome says he is ready to lead sky, so maybe we see the superteam implode before a pedal is turned in anger. i can only hope so as this years tour was dead boring…maybe it needs more drugs. and speaking of that, what is it with all the spanish guys supporting lance. indurain, valverde and contador have all come out and crapped on about the lack of evidence. sounds like there could have been some spanish steak to go along with the texas steak at the last bbq. regardless of the drug scandal, i do remember enjoying watching the tours that armstrong won. they were more exciting, even if they were all juiced up. at least the drug testing put some limitations on how juiced up they could be so it kind of levelled the playing field amongst the cheats. i hope for a clean tour this year, but at the end of the day, i just want to be entertained. a clean schleck, contador, evans and wiggo all in peak form may be fun to watch. i hope so, anyway.
gloves & booties – the gloves have arrived and so we will be doing a distribution at the coffee shop after the saturday ride. any of the gloves, booties, t-shirts or bottles ordered can be collected on the day.
dirty sunday – our mountain bike come and try day will be held this sunday. if you have a mountain bike and want to give the dirt a try check out the previous post here and add your name to the comments.
kings of wanneroo – we are holding a race with the RCCC at barbagello raceway on the 3rd and 4th of november. held as part of the motobike “kings of wanneroo” we will have age grouped masters races on the saturday and graded open races on sunday. more info can be found here. we would like everyone to promote this event as much as possible. actually we would like as many of you as possible to come and race as well. hands up all those that have ridden a push bike on the waneroo track??? this is an opportunity not to be missed and you need to make sure it gets widely known. go to the link above and download the pdf and email it to all the cyclists you know.
track riding – we also have a come and try day for the track coming up in late november. check out the previous post here and register if you want to give it a go. the cost covers hiring a bike as well as hiring the venue and a couple of coaches to make sure you are doing it right. track riding can be lots of fun once you get over the initial fright of how steep the banking is. lots of our top level aussie cyclists started out on the velodrome and all say that it helped their technique.
atta time trials – you may have also seen a rather obscure post about time trialling. not all time trialers end up like nick, so don’t let that put you off. there are, however, lots of club members that give the atta’s a go and the events are very easy going and friendly. all abilities have a go at these events as they are as much about a personal achievement than beating others. if you think that road racing is not really for you, but would like to test yourself, then time trialling could be your thing. you don’t even need a special tt bike as there are many that are riding normal bikes (or even a penny farthing).
ride routes – nothing too strenuous on the ride routes this week. just get out and ride and look after one another.
saturday 27th october
ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am
early lap – spr earlybird ride
all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am
development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)
transitional – spr saturday 42.94km (freo & cott)
fast & main groups – spr saturday 50.04km (hale & ridge hill)
sunday 28th october
ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am
early lap – spr earlybird ride
all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am
lennie hill road…yuk
Why do people not like Lennie’s hill?
2nd that – flippin’ hill was evil. Save these daft hilly routes for Sundays and make every Saturday a Benara Rd day ;0)
To be honest, I’m not much of a fan of going that direction over Lennie Hill. I’d much prefer to go over Lennie in the opposite direction to today’s route. But one lump on an otherwise flat course isn’t too much to handle, especially with the nice tailwind ride home afterwards!!
happy for the chaps to take on Lennie in either way, as long as they ride her slowly & gently and not in a rushed fast n’ furious manner ;0)
I had to check to see which site I was On!
In reference to the photo.
I think jersey’s with the full zipper are the way to go when your hot.
And she does look hot!
Preso Pete – great rant (as usual)
I agree – tour was more entertaining when Lance was there! 🙂
Hi All,
I just wanted to say how dissapointed I was in todays group that flew through a round-a-bout in front of a poor motorcyclist who had to break to let most of the group through. It was really dangerous and not cool to put someone else in situation where they had to suddenly break going through a bend.. that guy could have come off.
What I noticed was a lack of calling. The front of the group hit the round about and called “all clear”. There were no more calls after that. By the time I hit the round about, I noticed the motorcycle and jammed on the brakes – not a good thing as the rider behind me would have reacted in the same fashion and someone at the tail would have potentially come off.
The group then split enough for the motorcycle to pass through.
Not the best riding form, but a good example of what happens at round abouts.
Good points, Roz and Craig. I rode the short hills route this morning and there was a bit of the same lack of communication going on. Nothing to do with putting anyone in danger, but there was often a split in the group at lights, or starting up again from lights or a re-group. No-one in the front or middle seemed that interested that part of our group was 50m or more off the back and struggling to get back on. There weren’t any calls to ease up when the splits occurred.
Given the mixed clientele of the short hills ride, there also needs to be a few more designated regroup points i.e. at the top of any undulating section, so that we can all enjoy everyone’s company for a bit longer.
This means that someone has to call out (i.e. enforce) where the next regroup will be so that everyone knows – as Pete, Julian or Matt usually do. The guys at the front need to lead the way by stopping and encouraging others to wait briefly.
Went for nice ride up Canning Mills Rd today with the SPR Sunday hills group. Nothing much remarkable about that. Its good hill. Except that there were people coming down the thing. On skateboards. Faaaar out. Search Youtube for video like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3vADlRMkbA), and search later for us on their video as we cross
That’s all very nice and exciting, but can they go back up again?
If they did that, and wore lycra in both directions, then I’d be more impressed.