only 1 team got any points in this race and it propelled team captain stinkypants and the nappies of doom into equal first place with team bigchainring.
unlike the three week tours, these classics are harder to pick than a broken nose. no-one picked the winner so the stage winnings will jackpot until someone picks it. and remember, you cannot pick the same rider twice.
to those that didn’t get their tip in, don’t worry as there is still time to make up ground. first place is only one tip away. next race is the tour of flanders this sunday. i will update the startlist as soon as it comes to hand.
the online new memberships section of the cycling australia website is still down as it has been since the start of february. there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel despite the harassment and requests from a number of different people. anyway, i have found a work around which means that you will not need to write a cheque and can use your credit card.
step 1. download the paper version of the membership form here.
step 2. fill in all the relevant details. make sure that you put south perth cycle club (not spr or south perth rouleurs). also make sure you put a active email address as this is where the receipt is sent to.
step 3. fax the form (1st page only) to cycling wa – 08 9228 8533
step 4. call them up (08 9328 3422) and explain what you are doing and give them your credit card number.
step 5. wait by the mailbox for your new cycling australia membership card.
step 6. use you membership card to access our member benefits (ok, it is just the helmet deal at the moment, but i am working on some other things). it can also be used to enter races if you get a racing licence.
i am really sorry that it has taken this long, but hopefully this sorts it out for a few people.
NOTE:
i have just been informed of another way to become a member as one of our new members managed to do it.
basically call up cycling australia (02 9339 5800) and have them set you up as a member. you can then use the member renewal part online to pay your membership rather than the new member sign up.
either way, the result should be the same, but through cycling australia, the funds go directly to the licence provider.
where to start. what an absolute mad weekend last weekend was. so busy in fact that i didn’t even get to ride my bike. the breakfast was a big success. close to double the numbers that we usually get which is good to see the group is growing, but we may need a bigger venue next time. the agm elected the new committee with six new members and five re-elected. thanks to those that were part of it in our inaugural year and thanks to those who have stepped forward for this year.
the freeway bikehike was the next event on the following day and thanks to lisa and daniel for heading up to joondalup on saturday to help me setup the tent and chris,meg and jurriaan for packing up on sunday. we were up their for two reasons. firstly to provide a meeting point for any rouleurs that were doing the event and secondly to try to promote the club to the general public. the amount of spr’s that did the event surprised me a bit and at one stage there was a sea of green under the tent. the interest from the general public was a bit varied. we did a bike weigh to try to get a few people to come and see us and that got a few extra people to come and grab a flyer. we may see the results of that this weekend.
i will be bringing the rest of the kit to the coffee shop this saturday. if anyone has kit to collect, then meet me after the ride. the extra kit has arrived so everything should be in order. if anyone is unhappy with the zip on the new jersey, please let me know so we can get them fixed. this seems to apply to those that have a bit of spare room in their jersey. see the previous post here.
on sunday we have a special guest riding with us. phil anderson is over here promoting the new oppy bikes and is coming out on our hills ride. there is a bit more info here as well as on his website. since our rides are open to the public, there may be a few more people coming out with us on sunday. if any of your mates are coming or if you are reading this because you intend to come out with us, please be aware that this is still an spr club training ride. therefore you must have a look at the ride etiquette section of our website to make sure you know what we expect. even if the group gets big, we intend to maintain order within the ride and we will not tolerate any anti-social or dangerous behaviour. no-one wants to be brought down just because you want to show everyone what a hero you are. we are trying to stay on quiet roads to minimise any disruption to traffic but we will have to see how we go on the day.
the spring classics tipping comp enters it’s second race this sunday. as there has only been one race so far there is still an opportunity to enter as you can easily make up ground on the leaders. more info can be found here.
here are the ride routes. make sure you know where your group is going and do not rely on the group leader to do everything.
saturday 27th mar- all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am
as part of the promotion of the malvern star range of oppy bikes, phil anderson will be joining us for a hills ride this sunday 28th march.
for those that are new to cycling, phil represented the generation of cycling pioneers that made in-roads for other aussies to race in europe. he became the first non-european to wear the yellow jersey in the tour de france and went on to wear it 11 times. up until cadel’s recent success at the tour, phil was the highest place aussie with a fifth overall in both 1982 and 1985. he also went on to win the white jersey of the best young rider in 1982.
as part of the promotion of the oppy bikes, there will be 6 bikes (2 small, 2 medium, 2 large) available for any club member (must have a cycling australia licence for insurance reasons) to test ride on the day. send me an email and i will let the malvern star guys know what size you need. all you need to do is turn up a little earlier so that they can swap your pedals over and they will look after your bike while you are away.
i will probably map out a new course for this day just to make sure that we get a good run even if we have a large turn out. this may be a good chance for you to test yourself against a former tour de france climber and it also may be a good chance for that hill climb time to be demolished.
i have received a few complaints about the new full length zip in the jersey. it seems that a few people find that the bigger zip does not give as much and will buckle when it bunches up, especially when you are leaning forward. the bigger zip is so that the jersey can easily be done up while riding as the thinner version on the normal jersey makes it hard to perform a one-handed operation. i think that this issue will mostly be those people that find their jersey a bit loose so the material has somewhere to go. mine does this a bit but not as bad as daniel’s in the picture.
if you do have this issue, send me an email so i can get a feeling for the size of the problem before i contact cannibal. don’t wear your jersey too much in the meantime.
any other issues please also let me know.
if the size of any of the items you ordered is a bit wrong (too big or small) then add your contact details to the comments below and what garment you have and what you are looking for. hopefully we can get a few swaps happening.
the rest of the kit should be here this week so we will do another distribution at the coffee shop on saturday after the ride.
i thought i better write something up about the breakfast and agm as i didn’t get to participate in the rides.
well, the day actually started quite a few weeks ago when lorraine said that she had to work on the day of the breakfast. after a bit of discussion, kate agreed to step in as head chef as long as she got a few helpers. we also discussed a menu change as we wanted to avoid the three days of baking that lorriane usually does and try to get everything cooked on the day. we therefore went with toasted sandwiches, bacon and egg muffins, fruit salad and a few other random nibbles. being a club, we managed to get a cash & carry card so that we could buy things a bit cheaper at the warehouse. this mostly helped in things like cups and plates, but buying ham in bulk certainly helped too.
setup started the night before with furniture being moved and toasted sandwiches prepared. the latest estimate was for 75 confirmed people, so we needed to cater for around 90. this was going to be the biggest turn out that have ever had so the nerves were beginning to set in as to whether we had enough food for everyone.
the morning started with me heading down to the coode st carpark to kick the groups off. the routes had been remapped to make sure that they made it to my place rather than the coffee shop. the intermediate group looked big and with a number of people doing the freeway ride the next day, i suspected that some of the advanced group may have dropped down to save their legs. there are some issues that have been raised with this group so we will be doing something about it starting this coming saturday. anyway, the groups got away just fine so i headed back to the pressure cooker.
the first lot of helpers arrived at 7:30 and soon kate had leanne, wendy, jeanette and kimbo in the kitchen cooking up a storm. i was on yard duty and stayed well away from the kitchen but busied myself getting ready to safely store about 90 bikes.
i then got the call from daniel to say that there had been a stack in the intermediate group. kimbo had just finished cooking the last of the bacon so i sent him off on a mercy dash to collect tim. now tim has been out in the hills with us a few times but has been away for a while. we bumped into him last weekend and i mentioned that there was a breakfast on and he should come along. not the best introduction to a spr saturday ride. he did mention to me later that he was very impressed by the way that the group handled the situation, making sure he was ok and people staying with him until kimbo arrived. luckily we don’t get too much practice, but it was good to see the group looking after each other.
next thing we know the door bell is being rung and the advanced group is on the doorstep. they began to fill up the garage with bikes and it was clear that we would need more room so i got them to run them up past the house. i got kimbo to take the money and get people to sign in for the agm while i got the next few groups organised as to where to put the bikes.
this would have to be the first time the breakfast has been dry at my place. we managed to beat the rain in by a few days as the storms are about to hit perth as i write this now. the nice weather did allow us to push people outside and we set up the club sunshade to accommodate the group. there were comments that we will need to get a bigger house with a bigger garage. there are plans for that, but they just aren’t in perth.
the girls in the kitchen did an awesome job of keeping the hordes fed and watered and a massive thanks to all of them for their efforts. leanne actually took rubbish home with her so that it wouldn’t fill our bin up. awesome effort.
once everyone had time to settle, i gave a bit of a spiel and we did the raffle draw. the group has been growing well and we are now one of the biggest clubs in perth. i would like to crack the 100 members mark and i think that we can probably do that if cycling australia actually fixed their online application system. totally frustrating, but i am working on a way to get around it and still avoid the paper system. anyway, i can’t remember all the prize winners, but i do recall that shane got the booby prize with a pair of rio tinto speedos. nice. probably the most deserving winner for the day was tim who after his accident got to ride away on a park tools pizza cutter shaped like a bike. yas from the bike clinic also donated a bbq tool set made out of bike tools, so thanks to him for providing them.
we rolled straight onto the agm which was going to be as informal as possible. the finances were presented and the club is in a fairly healthy position but only in the fact that we don’t have a lot of expenses at the moment.
the club committee gets re-elected each year and we had a few members stand down from last year. i would just like to thank brendan, stuart, ryan, noel, judd and chris for their effort last year in getting the club up and running. there were no real fights for positions so it made the voting relatively easy for those attending. apart from toby sending me a joke text (quickly retracted) saying that he wanted to be president, it ends up with my again.
this year the committee is as follows.
president – peter
vice president – juilian (regular)
secretary – paul o
treasurer – daniel
committee members – lorriane, lisa, mike b, scott, toby, darryl & heiko.
thanks to those that have stepped up to be involved this year and i hope that we can continue to keep the club moving forward.
we then had a few extra things to attend to and jonny headed off to the garage to organise the bike weigh-in, while i started the kit distribution and lisa collected money for the tipping comp. jonny has the bike weight leaderboard page under control so i can’t wait to see how some of the new bike’s faired.
all up a good breakfast and if the numbers keep up like this we will need to look at hiring a venue instead. thanks to all that helped out and to toby who helped source a few items. thanks also to those that have now joined the committee for the coming year.
well the milano-sanremo has been done and won and oscar freire came through with the goods. there were a few people that didn’t get their tip in time, but don’t worry about that as there are another 6 races to go in this comp. if you still want to enter, you can do that also as only 11 out of the 28 entries have gained points so far, you won’t be that far behind.
the next race is the gent-wevelgem on sunday so to get your tip in, add to the comments section of the race page here. i will update the startlist as it comes to hand. remember, you can’t tip the same rider that you have already used. so i am guessing that the 4 teams that tipped boonen for the sanremo, don’t think he has a chance of winning roubaix this year.
looks like the thursday ride got itself onto you tube. a guy with a helmet cam tracked us down and took online casino some footage. i guess it will keep us on our toes as you never know who is watching. see the footage here.
so this weekend is the autumn breakfast at my place and just for a change they are forecasting nice weather. due to the number of rsvp’s we have had, we will still split into four groups as it look like it will be a big group. i need to remap all the routes so that they finish at the breakfast but have been a bit under the pump, so will update as i go.
due to work commitments, lorraine is unable to cater for this event so kate has stepped in to fill her big shoes. as per other breakfasts, the cost is $10 and we will provide coffee, hot choc, hot food, cold food and raffle prizes. there will also be a bike weigh-in so you can see how much you are carting around and try to justify that upgrade.
running off the back of the breakfast will be the club agm. if you are a member you are able to come and participate as we will be voting on the committee positions. there are still some spots available, so if you want to be more active in the club, send me an email to nominate for a position. if you are not a member you are still welcome to hang around to see what goes on.
the majority of the spr kit has arrived and has been packaged up ready for distribution. unfortunately there were issues with a few garments so we currently don’t have the following. xxl jerseys, s bibs, summer arms, undergarments. these are expected to arrive on monday, so you have the option to wait till then or collect what is available and get the other bits later. there is no problem with the garments, just these were late back from the sewing people and missed the first 2 shipments. we also have drink bottles still available so if you want a bottle, they will be available at the breakfast for $10.
sunday is also the freeway bikehike in which a few of you will be participating in. we will have a tent set up at joondalup so once you arrive, keep a lookout for us (see map) and you can come and grab a coke. we are using this as an opportunity to try to attract a few more members. many people have never ridden in a group before the freeway ride so we can show them what we get to do every weekend. if you have any mates doing the ride, tell them to find our tent and come and say hello.
the online memberships is having a lot of trouble at the moment. you can renew from last year, but currently you cannot join as a new member. the best thing to do is call cycling australia directly, ask for memberships and give them your details over the phone along with your credit card. their number is – 02 9339 5800 or email – info@cycling.org.au
as most of you have heard, we have managed to organise a helmet deal with TBE for any member. i am in the process of trying to extend that and will set up a members benefits page where it will explain what discounts you can get just for being a member of spr. stay tuned.
i have had a few enquiries about juniors recently and whether our club has a program for them. currently we don’t so i have looked into it. there are a few coaches that i am talking to that can provide services to any juniors that join the club. if you have any kids from under 13 through to under 17 that may be interested, let me know so we can try to tailor a program to suit. again stay tuned as this will be coming soon.
finally, we are also running a spring classics tipping comp. this involves 7 races from this weekend through to the end of april and includes such monuments of the sport as paris-roubaix. if you think you know your pro-riders and who is suited to these hardman races, have a look at the tipping page and follow the instructions to join in. cost is $10 and the money goes towards the prize pool, so the more entered, the more money there is to win.
on to the rides…
saturday 20th mar- all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am
sorry, i need to remap these rides so they finish at the breakfast rather than at bells. check back often to find the update.
as the european season enters spring, there are a number of one day races that make up what are called “the classics”. there are seven races around europe and starts this weekend with milano-sanremo. similar to how we ran the tour de france tipping comp over the past few years, we will be running a spring classics tipping comp which can be found here.
all you have to do to register is send an email with your team name and cough up $10 cash only. the money goes towards the the prize pool so the more people that enter, the more money there is to win. the rules are also on the tipping home page, but you basically choose one rider per race and cannot choose the same guy twice. tips must be in by 6pm on the day of the race. as these races are spread over a number of weeks, you have lots of time to get your tip right.
we had quite a few people enter the tour tipping last year and it made it more exiting to find out where your guy finished even if they didn’t win. after this, we will be running a tipping comp for the three major tours as the year progresses.
so, have a look at the tipping pages and get your team name into me before 6pm saturday 20th.
