All posts by elPrez

spr drink bottles and kit

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as some of you may have been aware, we have the latest shipment of spr drink bottles.  it has been over a year since we first did an order for bottles and so there will be lots of people out there that have since joined the group.  also, a year of abuse may find that some of the current bottles are in need of replacement. 

650ml, 800ml and ryan
650ml, 800ml and ryan

so, we have received and order and have purchased 100 of the standard 650ml bottles and 50 of the bigger 800ml bottles.  it will be a first in first served basis but i will take orders via email and distribute this saturday at the coffeeshop.

the cost is $10 for the 650ml and $12 for the 800ml.

i have included a photo of ryan standing next to the bottles in his white speedos so you can get an idea of scale.

the latest run of kit has also arrived so if you have not yet collected, this too will also be available at the coffeeshop on saturday.

perth integrated health clinics cycling festival

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report by peter. 

IMG_6987we had agreed quite a while ago to put up a tent at the festival of cycling that was part of the tour de perth.  when the idea was originally floated i was a bit unsure of what to expect and what we should do to make ourselves stand out.  my initial thought was that all the wa clubs would be there so what could we do to show that our club was different.  in the end, there wasn’t a big club presence which is kind of disappointing yet good for us as we managed to capture a lot more attention.

we rocked up early, well actually, chris rocked up early and called me while i was still brushing my teeth.  punctuality and kids do not go hand in hand.  as i had the tent and most things, there was not much he could do until i turned up anyway.  by the time i arrived, lorriane had parked her car over the spot that we would set up out tent so that no-one else could set up camp there.  we unloaded everything and started to work out where everything should go.  we are not well practiced at this as it is usually just a place to sit after a race.  we now had merchandise that needed to be on display and the how and why’s of good marketing practice came into play.

we pretty much got everything where we wanted it and by then darryl and scott had also joined us so we had many hands on deck to help out.

chris was attempting to show me how to get the power/weight ratio test set up but the cycle-ops head unit was proving more difficult that we had hoped.  to show the average power meant a complicated 27 button push operation that was well beyond me as an engineer.  a quick call to melvyn (who luckily was around the corner on his bike) and we soon had his new ANT+ powertap running through lorraines garmin.  neatly set up it showed current power, average power and time all on the one screen.  made things a lot simpler.

in the meantime, darryl, scott and lorriane seemed to flag down every single person that wandered past and told them all about spr and what a great group we are.  handed out flyers and offered them brownies.  we had quite a lot of interested people wandering past and even if they didn’t stop in for a chat, saw that we had a lot of people just hanging out in the tent.  once the first race was over the crowds came down off the course and i think we sold quite a few more drinks at that time.  if anything it was just our hook to get them close enough for our marketing people (darryl, scott and lorraine) to talk to them about spr.

it took a while but we finally got a few people to have a go at the power/weight ratio test.  first cab off the rank was our test pilot “the stig” who posted a decent 8.92W/kg.  the test was basically get on the bike and smash out 20 sec as hard as you can to give and average power.  this is then divided by your weight to give a power to weight ratio.  this test cannot really be compared to anything except the results of others doing the same test.  so it all came down to how well you went against “the stig”.

women’s results

lennie
 6.18
belinda 5.60
kate 4.51
jody 4.33

men’s results

jarrad
 10.36
ryan 10.16
toby 9.23
phil 8.95
the stig 8.92
brettski 8.50
scott 7.55
rupert 7.46
bernie 7.43
craig 7.19
chris 6.45
gary 6.28

a good mix of spr regulars with some passersby just wanting to know how they faired.  lennie and jarrad get themselves an spr prize pack of bottle, hat and t-shirt. 

at the end of the day, we managed to sell some drinks and some spr drink bottles.  distribute some kit, hand out some flyers and give away some brownies.  getting our name out there is the most important thing and selling us more as a support group for people with a cycling affliction rather than just a club is what make us stand out.  a huge thanks to lorraine, darryl and scott for all their help manning the tent.  chris, lisa, melvyn, kimbo and ryan for providing equipment and support, and all the others that made us look like a good community group to be apart of.

oh, and there was a race on as well.  we had brendan, matty and nicole in spr kit but also had steve, jack, davina, bec, anna, lisa and jill all out competing.  all the riders that i have talked to have said what a great level of support they felt as they went around the different circuits.  so also a big thanks to those that just turned out to support our riders on the day.

nicole on the climb
nicole on the climb
matty leading the chase group
matty leading the chase group
the new skinsuit heading out on it's maiden voyage
the new skinsuit heading out on it's maiden voyage

saturday 14th nov – ridgehill rd (fast group)

ride report by peter.

 

what a busy weekend.  after watching the crits on friday night at northbridge, it was a bit of a struggle to get to the start on time for saturday morning.  but then again, me running late would not be a new concept for any of the regular attendees.  the weather was generally fine, but slightly overcast with some menacing looking clouds hovering overhead.  it didn’t look like it would bring rain, but we would have to wait and see.

pretty good turn out for the morning and i would say that there would have been around 50 riders.  the predicted wind would normally see us return via mounts bay road, but with road closures due to the tour de perth, we headed east instead.  this meant that the return journey could be a lot harder that usual.

the group headed out along great eastern hwy and towards guilford.  i got a chance to catch up with gregor who had just got back from the usa.  lots to tell as i had been cyber-stalking him via facebook to see all the interesting places he had been mountain biking over there.  the main group split off at kalamunda road and would loop around avoiding ridgehill rd to return to guilford.  the fast group continued on a bit further before cutting across past rosehill golf course and onto helena valley road.  it was there that we pretty much came to a standstill for a good 5 minutes while we waited for some roadworks.  russell had warned us of the hardpack gravel but it was actually a pretty good surface and no worse than some of the sealed roads that we have been on.

once we got moving, the pace started to pick up a bit with judd on the front pushing along.  i was sitting at the back with ryan discussing what the tactics would be once we hit the hill.  the group was still quite large so we needed to get closer to the front before the hill started.  some of the boys started to wind up well before we turned onto ridgehill road and the group began to splinter a bit.  this made moving up a bit more difficult as you had to deal with not only the change in pace but also the riders that were now coming backwards towards you.

once we hit the roundabout, ryan was a lot closer to the front and managed to get around with some clear air.  by the time i started the climb there were still about 10 – 15 riders in front of me and they started spreading out as people settled into their climbing rhythm.  i had spent the first three days of the week up on site and didn’t manage to get out on the bike on the remaining two days either.  the last time i was on the bike was the golden spokes race the previous sunday.  my legs were either going to be fresh or stale and this climb would be the deciding fator.

i managed to find a gap and seemingly effortlessly came around the group and caught ryan.  i instantly came around him and put a gap into the field.  damn my legs felt good.  i continued to dance up the first of the three steps of the climb and made it to the first plateau with no worries.  ryan caught up with me and pushed on up the second step.  i sat on his wheel and followed his lead.  whoa.  those fresh legs suddenly didn’t feel so good.  suddenly i felt as though i had burnt all my matches and was sucking in air just to hold ryan’s wheel.  i made it up the second step on his wheel, but had to back off as i felt the bile rise and the hotness of reaching well into the red zone.  crap, crap, crap.  i eased off and tried to get my heart rate back down from the 190 bpm i had maxed out at.  the rest of the chase group was slowing pegging me back and soon i briefly had some company.  about six or so riders past me by the time we reached the crest and started the descent.

i had significantly recovered by now to begin chasing so that i didn’t get left behind.  there were a number of riders in the same boat and we had a decent size bunch by the time we reached kalamunda road.  ryan had managed to get across the intersection with a couple of other riders but by the time we hit roe hwy lights we managed to amalgamate into a decent group of around 12.

there were some roll throughs that i didn’t participate in as the group headed through high wycombe.  the pace was high enough to make just sitting in an effort for me now.  the stop start of the multiple intersections that we had to negotiate made keeping the group fluid quite hard.  we finally reached guilford and turned for home.

i was sitting on the back when we hit the main intersection in bassendean when the lights changed.  there was a bit of indecision at the lights, but the group kept it’s pace on and slipped through.  that is everyone except stu, schneider and myself.  while we were waiting we were joined by mike who is quite new to the group.

stu was not in the mood for chasing so fell off the back while the three of us did turns at the front.  the wind was not as bad as predicted so i was hoping like hell that the lights would slow down the front pack.  as we turned past bassendean station, we could just see the group ahead of us while they clicked in after being held up by the lights.  the combined firepower of around 10 riders meant that they stayed ahead of us and pulled away into the distance.

just at the tonkin hwy overpass, we managed to have them in sight again, but the lights didn’t play into our favour and they were off again.  we continued to roll through and got across the rolling hills of maylands but never saw the group again.  stu managed to catch us at the lights so we all continued onto the coffee shop.

apparently there was a disqualification in the final sprint as ryan managed to sneak through a intersection ahead of the group, so jarrad claimed line honours ahead of the rest of the field.

i was off home straight away as i was taking the kids to watch the tour de perth stage around kings park.  a bit of bad luck by brendan and steve meant that they had a harder time than they needed to in quite a relentless stage.  matty continued to fly the spr colours right to the end and gave us a focal point for the spr base camp that we set up halfway up the final climb.

the women’s race saw ruth corset breakaway early but all the spr regular girls hung with the main field right to the end.

spr & teschner

TESCHNER SL9we recently signed a memorandum of understanding with teschner bikes to provide support for us to run a men’s and women’s elite race team for 2010.  it involves teschner providing 2 top end frames to our club to sell to raise funds to kit out the new teams. 

to provide a greater awareness of the brand within our group, we would like to sell them to current spr riders rather than just on ebay.  their current flagship frame is the SL9 and will be arriving mid december.  currently retailing for around $3,700 we would hope to provide this to a buyer from within the group for a discounted price.  also, if there are more than 2 people that want frames, we can organise a club purchase and hopefully get a better discount. 

if anyone out there is interested, send me an email and i will give you a bit more information.

ride routes 14th & 15th nov

a big weekend of bike riding happening starting friday night.  the tour de perth kicks off in northbridge with a criterium at 6:30pm and as shown before on a previous post, there will be a number of spr regulars racing.  there will even be a few spr jerseys on the circuit to so come along and cheer them on.

just after the saturday morning ride, take a spin over to kings park as the first real stage of the tour will do a number of circuits including mounts bay road.  the finish line is atop of the climb up spring and malcolm st so you will get a great view along there.

sunday is all around perry lake reserve, with the next stage in the morning around a circuit and a time trial in the afternoon.  both routes take in rebold hill and will be quite testing.  this is the time that the spr riders will need to hear your support.  at the same time there will be the festival of cycling in which we will have a tent.  there will be the latest batch of spr drink bottles on sale as well as a powertest to determine your power/weight ratio.  this will also be the day which i will be distributing the latest spr kit if you have ordered any. so come on down and support your club and the riders in the tour.  if you want to hang out at the tent and help out you are more then welcome to as well.

the saturday ride will take on ridgehill rd.  well actually the route has been changed now, so the fast group do ridgehill road and the main group skirt around it all together.  both groups head out towards guilford but the main group turn onto kalmunda road and then back along helena valley road and guilford road.  the fast group take the good old way past the rosehill gofl course then out along helena valley road to ridgehill.  home via kalamunda road and guilford road.  with only 4 1/2 kms difference between the two routes there is a good chance that there will be a catch.

south perth rouleurs saturday ride 10 (ridge hill rd)

sunday will see a four climb wonder with the kahuna, peet, observatory and finally up to kalamunda for coffee.

south perth rouleurs sunday ride 03 (kahuna & peet & patterson)

ride routes 7th & 8th november

there is a couple of big weekends of racing lined up one after the other.  this week we have the track grand prix on sat night followed by the golden spokes road race on sunday.  the following weekend there is the tour de perth with some of our regular riders like brendan, steve, nicole, lisa, davina and bec all fronting up for this three stage event in the heart of perth.  this corresponds to a “festival of cycling” held at perry lakes while the tour is going on around it on sunday.  we will be manning a stall, so come along, watch the racing and check out the festival.  the weekend after is the state criterium champs at armadale on saturday and the great perthbike ride on sunday (for those of you that want to test your mettle against misplaced road signs and traffic cones).

however, closer to home (being south perth) we will be heading north on saturday morning.  scabs beach road with the group not splitting till we pass osborne park.  we will be traversing the city centre first, but we should stick together till the split.  the main group will take the usual way to scarborough while the fast group will head up ewen street.  both groups head down west coast hwy, but the fast group take a detour up the boulevard and back out oceanic.  home through dalkeith.

south perth rouleurs saturday ride 05 (scarborough beach rd)

sundaywill see quite a few of us racing down at champion lakes for the golden spokes event.  for those that still want a hills ride, you will be looping around kalamunda and the observatory.  the test will be passing the coffee shop to head up kalamunda rd first.  the benefit will be that you can do your timed climb of mundaring weir rd as the third climb not the last climb.

south perth rouleurs sunday ride 06 (welshpool & observatory & kalamunda rd)

spr kit order

Jersey 2009bguys and girls.  the current kit order has been put in and a deposit has been placed as of a week and a half ago.  so far less than half of the people that have ordered have paid for their kit and it should hopefully arrive in about 2 1/2 weeks time.  if you didn’t receive and email from me letting you know how much to deposit and where, then send me an email and i will let you know.  however, the balance of the kit order needs to be paid before the kit is shipped so if you haven’t paid by the time it arrives, then won’t be receiving your kit.

peter

saturday 31st oct – leach vs south

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ride report by peter.

 

you know it doesn’t really look like that many people when we are all waiting around the car park, but once we get going, it is amazing how much room we take up on the road.  i estimated about 50 riders were out this morning and we even got split at the first set of lights leaving the car park.  the group was heading down canning hwy and we were to split just after north lake rd with the main group continuing on and the fast group taking burke drive.  the main group would pretty much reach freo before returning via leach hwy while the fast group would take the stock rd hill and then across to south street.  the map did actually say that we continue on to nicholson road but i got confused and told everyone at the start that we would turn at banister.  sorry my bad.

well before we got there, the group was split at pretty much half of every set of lights that we could hit.  there was a bit of catch up but we eventually got there.  as per last time, the split was going to cause havoc with the traffic.  with the group needing to take up both lanes for a very, very short amount of time, there was always going to be someone that was going to have to slow down for that 15 or so seconds.  sure enough, we got some abuse hurled at us as the cars sped past.

i would say it was close to a 30/20 spilt in favour of the fast group today.  i had noticed the wind had picked up a bit as we were riding along canning and i was wondering how that would affect the group.  inevitably, it had a dramatic affect on many a rider. 

the group seemed to meander a bit along burke drive with no-one really wanting to push the pace.  i was hanging off the back with declan discussing why he was with the fast group this morning.  “method to the madness” was his initial comment, but it turns out that he is training for the canberra ½ ironman which has quite a hilly bike leg, so he was wanting to do the stock rd hill too. 

well we hit the bottom of the hill and everyone took off like a rocket.  i used to do repeats of this hill as training, so i knew what to expect and set a steady pace for the first bit.  as we turned the corner and the hill continued, those that had burnt all their matches on the early slope, were slowly drifting back.  some of the fast boys managed to go hard on both the initial pinch and the rest of the climb so i didn’t make up more than half the field. 

i think the hill made the initial selection and some people never found their way back on by the time we crossed canning hwy.  along stock road there were a couple of small hills that made life tough for some riders and the wind made it hard to get back on.  by the time we turned onto south street, i think we may have lost a couple more.

there are many rolling hills along this section of south street and it is an opportunity for a strong rider to make an impact on the group.  steve has been slowly recovering from back surgery earlier on in the year and still feels that he is trying to find form.  well he took off on the first hill and the group reacted and started to splinter apart.  riders were falling off the back and those that had trouble on stock road were never going to catch up now.  i was wheel hopping from rider to rider trying to claw my way back to the front group.  once equilibrium set in, it was clear what the front of the ride now consisted of.  firstly there was steve fifty or more metres off the front.  then there was a group of about five or so riders containing ryan, brendan and others all swapping off turns trying to catch up.  trailing not far, but far enough to be hurting were a few others like judd, john and myself.  we were swapping turns ourselves trying to bridge the gap.  after us, there was a  lot of empty road and i had no idea where the rest of the group was.  later i found out that they got pretty much every traffic light along that stretch and were never going to bridge back even if we slowed down.

anyway, the front groups all smashed themselves for a good 5 kms before a set of lights at murdoch drv finally brought steve to a halt.  the rest of us caught up, but our group now numbered just ten and by the time the lights released us, there were still no others on the horizon. 

john commented that i really dug deep to help keep us in touch and i replied that my “spew-meter” was pretty much in the red.  he said that he was sure that there will be more opportunities to spew later.  the group took off the we started to roll through again and we picked up matty somewhere along this stretch.  with the wind coming across us, we rolled to the right and made it all the way to banister road with no incident.  the group started to change lanes to continue on but i called for them to turn left and we did banister instead.  it wasn’t until i looked at the garmin that it said “off course” that i realised the we were indeed, off course.  however, since i had said that we were doing banister from the start, it wasn’t so much off course, but a different course.

so with a slight tailwind, the pace picked up to well over 50km/hr and i opted to sit on the back rather than getting in the way at the front.  there were a couple of attacks and a sprint towards the end of banister but i wasn’t seeing much past judd’s bum in front of me and the sweat streaming down my glasses.

nicholson was pretty much the same and the group continued hard through cannington.  there were no attacks but the pace didn’t relent and i was glad that i was being a selfish passenger as i would have been out the back after a couple of roll throughs.  just as we came through east vic park ryan made a move just before the lights at the kent st intersection.  this is the usual launching pad as there is a slight ride after it.  unfortunately the lights changed and four of us were left on the wrong side of amber so watched the group sprint up the road.  we had them in sight at the narrows, but the lights conspired against us so we never came close enough to contest the sprint.

i wasn’t stopping for coffee as kate had some dental surgery yesterday so was not feeling 100%.  the rest of the fast group and the main group came in slowly after that, but everyone was pretty buggered.

track grand prix next saturday night, the golden spokes race on sunday with the tour de perth the following weekend so we are in for a couple of busy weekends.  make sure you pencil in sunday the 15th to come and support the club at the festival of cycling during the tour de perth.  we will post more info soon, but there will be lots of cycling related stuff going on at perry lakes reserve while the tour de perth race is going on.

ride routes 31st oct & 1st nov

it’s november this weekend.  what happened to october???  it seems like only about 4 weeks ago that i was asking what happened to september.  christmas is coming soon and our christmas breakfast has been brought forward a week to the 12th dec.  make sure you mark it in your calendars as the final bash for the year.

as posted previously, the following weekend looks to be really busy.  the track gp on saturday and the golden spokes race on the sunday.  as i mentioned, if you can help out as a volunteer at the golden spokes, it would be appreciated.  just let me know asap and we can arrange a parking pass to get you car onto the island.

also, over the next week cadel evans will be in town and there will be stacks of book signings.  dymocks in garden city have one next friday at 1pm and there are a bunch of others. 

south perth rouleurs saturday ride 17 (leach vs south)

with some strong winds predicted again for saturday, i have decided to keep away from the escarpment which blew the crap out of us last week.  not saying that this week will be any better as i cannot control the weather…yet.  we will split after applecross and the main group will do leach, while the fast group will do south street.  last time we met up at the intersection at nicholson rd.  see how we go this week.

south perth rouleurs sunday ride 02 (darlington & mundaring weir)

there is a masters race this weekend at chidlow for anyone that qualifies (over 35) but if not we will be doing a nice lap of darlington and mundaring weir.  4 climbs and only 85kms should mean that everyone is nice and strong for the timed climb up to kalamunda.

upcoming race – golden spokes 8th nov

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golden spokeswith only a few races left on the calendar, there is limited opportunity to get that racing fix before christmas time.  the golden spokes event will be a fast flat race held around the champion lakes rowing course down towards armadale.

there are three main events  – open men’s, open women’s and support men’s.  unlike last year, mike will not have to suffer the indignity of having young melissa drop him on the final run towards the line.  a day licence can be purchased if you do not have a full racing licence and want to give it a crack.

registrations close next tuesday but you can register online here.

it is an early start, with the open men hitting the circuit at 7:30.  the track grand prix is the night before, so maybe a strong coffee is on the cards first thing in the morning.

more info can be found here.

this event will be run by the southern districts cycle club and they have asked me if there are any volunteers that can help out on the day.  we are looking for about 4 people and the tasks will not be too onerous.  it means that you will have to get there a bit early, but the benefit is that you can park on the island near registration, while everyone else will have to park a good 1/2 km away.  this is a good opportunity for us as a club to learn how to run an event so that we can look at running some in the future.  please let me know via the comments if you are available to help.  you don’t have to be racing and you can even be a partner of a rider.  they just need some extra hands.