this has been the longest week of my life and it still hasn’t finished.  still managing to slip a few rides in, but i have no idea how.  work is just insane at the moment and it doesn’t look like it will ease up.  christmas is just 9 weeks away so next thing you know you will be worrying about what to buy me.  anyway, that is easy.  get yourself an spr membership and that will make me happy.  if you do get one now, it covers you for the whole of next year as well.  awesome value as you effectively get 14 months worth.  for a recreational licence at $86, that equates to $1.43 per week.  not bad considering this will allow you to get any of the member benefits that we have available.

golden spokes – registration is still open till midnight tonight.  there are 3 grades of racing and 4 distances of a participation event.  all you need is a recreational licence and you can get a day licence to race.  the participation events only need a rec licence.  there is also a teams participation event where you get to “race” cyclo-style against other teams.  spr will be hosting this event so there will be stacks of our members down there.  if you haven’t signed up yet, then this is a good opportunity to have a go.

ride routes – we have a couple of issues that need addressing in both the main and transitional groups.  basically they are both getting too large to handle.  the main group last week was massive as there were only 5 people in main 2.  with the team time trial on as well, there were less people riding in the fast group and this bolstered the main group as well.  now the transitional group is also suffering from too many riders.  the pack was split last week, but the main problem with the transitional group is the spread of abilities makes it hard to keep everyone together.  the way that the novice and transitional groups should work is that riders need to progress through into the faster groups.  the transitional group should not be getting any faster as these people should be moving into main 2.  with only 5 riders in main 2, the pace was not on and any of the faster transitional riders would have been capable of holding on.

so what are we going to do???

the ideal size group for the main group is 25 riders.  this is big enough to roll through, and big enough to let you hide if you are suffering, and small enough to not get continually split at the lights.  for the transitional group, the ideal size is about 12.  as these riders are learning about group riding, a bigger group can be a bit daunting.  so, what we need to do before the ride starts is break into groups in the car park.  this will take a bit of organising, so please bear with us while we get it sorted and listen to instructions.  it is not the intention to split the main group into abilities, but rather have the stronger riders look after the weaker ones.  think of this as a slightly bigger cyclo-sportif.  the transitional group will need to split based on ability and we will look into having a trans 1 and trans 2 group.

here is our ride etiquette guide.  you all should be familiar with it BEFORE you come out with us.  this includes riders that have been in the group a long time.  the first points are important in the way that we operate our training rides and how people should behave.  your safety and the safety of the people riding with you should be your first priority.

saturday 23rd october – all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

juniors – spr saturday 22.11km juniors (mt pleasant)

development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)

transitional – spr saturday 41.73km (canning vale reverse)

fast, main 1 & 2 – spr saturday 51.36km (sth lake)

sunday 24th october – all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

short – spr sunday 61.14km (welshpool & weir rd)

long – spr sunday 90.23km (welshpool & observatory & kalamunda rd)