this has been the longest week of my life. the weekend started as per normal with the earlybird double which makes me pretty tired by evening time. however, with the tour on, i was obliged to stay up till midnight to watch the finish (and what a good finish it was). jump into bed for 5 hrs sleep, then the earlybird and long hills ride making up 5 hrs of riding. unfortunately no afternoon nanna nap but up late again for the tour. get to sleep in till 7 monday, but already feeling seedy at work due to lack of sleep. late night mon for stage 3 and up again at 5 for the spr tuesday ride. work suffering. up late for stage 4, early for spr ciao ride. no work, but brain suffering. late for stage 5, and slept in instead of looking after the kids as i was supposed to. oops. late again tonight and looking forward to the rest day after stage 9 where i will be in bed at 7pm.
tipping comp – is well underway and we have raised over $450 for the belgium trip. we have organised a few prizes already for the category winners and i need to get a couple more. not sure what prizes will be for which category yet, as i will wait till all prizes are donated. if you know a business that would be interested, or you yourself want to donate something (half dozen bottles of wine, etc) then let me know. so far shaw from netplus microcomputers has donated a samsung dvd and surround speaker package, ross from canning bridge cycles has donated a limar 608 helmet and toby has organised a whole bunch of subway vouchers.
giro donne – while the tour de france is going on, the best women in the world are competing in the women’s giro in italy. it comprises of 9 stages over some pretty big terrain at a fast pace. our very own davina summers is over there right now riding for the women’s uci team, bizkia-durango with a couple of other aussies. her teammate and fellow aussie, shara gillow, managed to win the second stage which put her into the pink leaders jersey. davina has been blogging her races on her website and is trying to keep them updated between hard racing and long transfers between stages. you can follow her progress here.
memberships – our list for the end of june showed that we had cracked the 200 member mark with 204 members. however, there were a handful of those members that were on a recreational licence that expires at the start of july. the race licences run till the end of the calendar year, but the recreational licences are for a rolling year depending on when you joined. check the expiry date on your membership card and renew online here.
ride routes – the tour seems to bring people back to the bike and even though it is winter and about 2 degrees, we still had about 40 riders turn up at 5:30am on tuesday. as there is no rain predicted for a while now, i am expecting good numbers this weekend despite the cold forecast. and that forecast also says easterly winds. both the transitional and main groups can take advantage of it along benara road. a crowd favourite. shaw and ronny are away this week, so we will need some leaders for the trans/m3 group.
saturday 9th july
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 1 – spr saturday 39.04km (benara rd)
fast, main 1, 2 & 3 – spr saturday 50.98km (benara rd)
sunday 10th july
ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am
early lap – spr earlybird ride
all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am
hey Pete i can look after the Transitional group this sat if need be.
Ronnies working so I’m happy to help along too.
Happy to take Main 3 if no on else wants to.
What time do you guys on the saturday early bird reckon that you will be rolling through mosman park? i might join the ride there.
Cheers
Mike
A bit of a late reply obviously, but we generally get to the water tower at the top of Mosman pretty close to 6AM.
Farrar
mike that is short for “sparrar fart”
psyched for trans – beam me up Scotty
just a couple of WTFs? from this mornings ride from the transitional group perspective.
We had a car behind us and the group was singling up when the fast group came up. Following a couple of loud bellows of “car behind” the fast group proceeded to pass the transitionals – in front of the car – and proceed up a slight rise three abreast. The car obviously could not get past them. WTF?
The main group also passed us coming up to a red light. Looked like a rabble coming past and proceeded to engulf the transitional group. Gong of the day goes to the two main riders who came past me on the inside, without any verbal warning that they were there, then proceeded across my path to the outside – good work guys. Another WTF?
Impressed?? nah not really
I’ve never heard of 3 abreast, and unfortunately had it impressed on me as well this w/end The driver was probably saying WTF too!!! Lucky for all of us the car that “could not get past” was happy enough to hang back for the sake of road safety!! Us T riders haven’t all got a lot of experience and it’s times like this you think OMG is this really happening??? Impressed as well, nah ditto.
Thanks Steve Gary Mark and others who look after us T riders!
Steve,
Exactly where did this happen ?
I think we caught the transitional group at the corner of Royal St in East Perth (at the bottom of the hill). Some of the group went through the lights on amber and about half stopped at the red. Not sure which half of the group was to blame here, because from memory the first half didn’t look too bad going past, and the half that stopped were side-by-side with the transitional peeps.
Of course, I could very well have missed something entirely, lacking any oxygen in my bloodstream at all at that stage of the ride.
M23 riders, sorry I had to pull out – I was crook as soon as i turned a pedal. Felt like i had 1 leg, 1 lung and my heart rate was through the roof. Hope you had a good ride.
See what happens when you pull a sickie Russell – the boys go feral !
Hi Andrew,
Jordan is right – the main group overtook at Royal Street and the fast group was on Coode Street.
I’m not going to get an ulcer over it – but it needs to be kept in mind that the transitional group is not comprised of seasoned riders and being overtaken by a group can be intimidating.