Ride Routes 17th – 23rd July

A loyal club member and regular rider, Shirley Vine stepped into the role of club treasurer last year.

Here, she answers some questions about herself.

Name: Shirley Vine
Position: Club Treasurer

1. What bike do you ride?

I ride a purple Giant Liv with matching purple bar tape. When my friend purchased a bike shop, I wanted to be her first customer and she gave me a terrific deal as it was a demo bike.

2. What brought you to cycling and to SPR? 

I’ve been cycling my whole life. My three brothers and I always had bikes. We even brought our ‘tracker’ bikes with us when we emigrated from England in 1973. I have always ridden to school, ridden to work and competed in triathlons for many years. I was a long distance runner prior to taking up triathlons. After completing the Ironman, I joined SPR. My husband kept encouraging me to join as he signed up straight away when we moved to Perth. 

I started in Development and was only a Saturday morning rider for ages. After my first Monday ladies recovery ride, I was motivated to start riding more regularly to improve my cycling skills.

Now I am a main 2 rider and try hard in main 1.4 when not ride leading. SPR has become my cycling family.

3. How long have you been with the club? 

I joined SPR around 2013.

4. What is your most memorable experience on the bike? 

I’ve got so many it’s hard to narrow it down. I love being a ride leader, have competed in lots of races and events, criteriums, road races, gran fondos, Three Dams, Five dams, events in Brisbane, Darwin and am signed up for my 2nd Tour of Margaret River this year. I have no short twitch fibres in my muscles so prefer long distance events. I am learning how to ride faster and after feasting on this year’s Tour de France am more motivated than ever.

If I have to pick one memorable experience, I’d like to look back on my first criterium, an SPR event at Technology Park. I was beside myself with fear and trepidation. Cathi Dixon was the nominated mentor and I was dropped at the start line because I couldn’t clip in quickly enough. In my mind I was telling myself not to worry I would catch them, they would see and I got lapped twice haha. Cathi was teaching me what to do at each corner and because I was dropped I had her all to myself at the back. How funny it was. If you just keep turning up you improve and get stronger from every ride. I have overcome so much fear, I can even ride in the dark and can’t count the fun and enjoyment I have experienced finishing so many races and events, let alone the wonderful friends I have made.

5. Why did you choose to be on the SPR committee and what do you hope to achieve as part of your role? 

I have worked as a volunteer in many and varied organisations including on the committees for years and years. I was the treasurer at the Belmont RSL prior to joining the SPR committee where I learned the MYOB system of finance operations. I loved it. So I thought I would learn the Xero system by volunteering for SPR as its treasurer.

My aspirations were to improve my finance skills. I really like it and enjoy being part of running our organisation.

6. Can you tell me a bit about your life off the bike? 

Off the bike I am many things. I am married to Iain, (husband of the year). We are currently on our second honeymoon in quarantine. We have a son, Finley, his lovely wife Kimi and our 2 grandies Luna & Roland.

I work as the property department manager and in-house counsel for Retirees WA and oversee the management of 18 retirement villages stretching from Geraldton to Busselton. I am the Vice Chair on the East Perth Community Group and a volunteer rep with Lifeline. The community visitor scheme works to eradicate loneliness in the community. I was visiting Ruby, a 90 year old lady who had no family and she requested a visitor who likes to play scrabble and keep score. I was visiting her weekly for a couple of years, but she recently passed away so I am having back to back scrabble tournaments with Iain ha ha. Guess who wins?

SPR Women’s Health Talk & Afternoon Tea – Female cyclists can often encounter health issues that require careful monitoring or maintenance. Come join Dr Rachel McCormick and PhD Scholar Serene Lee to discuss these issues and how they can be managed to lessen the impact they can have on your cycling and health.

The club will be putting on afternoon tea!

Now fully subscribed – thanks everyone for supporting the club – but for more information see the full post here.

SPR Tour de France Dinner – The SPR Committee is pleased to announce that we are this year again holding our Tour de France dinner. This year at Chez Pierre.

Sorry, sold out. And with the recent lockdown, this has been re-scheduled to . Thursday 5th August (after the Tour has finished but the best we could do!). Enjoy the night!

From the Ride Coordinator – There is a saying “A week is a long time in politics”. In football terms it’s “lets take it a week at a time”. In this pandemic environment it looks as though lots can change rapidly between weekend rides so let’s just “live in the moment” and appreciate that this weekend we are able to ride in groups and share a coffee at the end. When you overlay the fact that the rubbish weather we have been experiencing may just stay away long enough to enjoy our main ride, then let’s hope we see many people out for the ride.

As for the route, well the light winds predicted mean we can pretty much choose any route and it won’t be wind affected too much so we will head south again this weekend on one of our more popular summer rides – South St.

Hoping we see you out there because you never know what will happen in a weeks time.

Saturday 17th July

Sunday 18th July

Monday 19th July

Tuesday 20th July

  • Ride starts under the Narrows (cityside) at 5:30am
  • Ride starts Frasers ave at 5:45am
    • Development group – interval training kings park

Wednesday 21st July

Thursday 22nd July

Friday 23rd July