On my recent cruising through Cyber space I came accros these and thought we have lots of bike junkies in SPR who love something different so here it is.
http://kustomcaps.com/about-us.html
Something different and you can have anything within a 30 character space and yes South Perth Rouleurs fits 🙂
Nico
So after seeing a few SPR Ladies nights go by the wayside I fugured its about time we do a Mens version (boys are welcome too 😉 )
No dates but purely a suggestion as I for one seem to know less and less of you Peeps as we grow ever so bigger each and every week.
Not saying get togther and get blotto (but is optional hehe) but we could do anything from Supagolf, Go carts, Ten pin Bowling or Rock climbing (no doubt many more things) followed by some brews and meals or such after.
Just an idea and obviously we would have to get a few togther to organise as we cannot suit everyone but majority would rule in this case. Could consider it Team bonding arvo/night 🙂
So feel free to comment and we will see if we get a few interested to gauge if its wanted or not.
Maybe we could include it for a Farewell to Big PaulO (DID – Dropped in Dalkeith) Please discuss!
Nico
Pinjarra 160km Time Trial, Sounds east right…
Well after leaving the Pregnant Wifey home (due in 4 weeks) as she needed rest I set out alone for Pinjarra and what was my first 160km TT, although I have completed 2 Ironman’s this would be the longest TT race I’ve done in since my last Busso Ironman in 2007.
Once there at the Trotting Track I set the bike up and placed everything out and got myself sorted, grabbed my timing chip and number, quick dash for a nervous number 2 and heard Nick Churchill talking in the Women’s toilets WTF (I will let him explain that one haha) also caught up with John G and was about ready to go. Nick gave my spare bottles to a Marshall who kindly dropped then at the drinks table just after the finish line which was a km up the road so I could ride there.
So after a brisk warm up I was off, awesome conditions cool but not much wind I quickly settled into my targeted heart rate and ave speed. Once turning onto Forrest Hwy I was settled in for the straight 19km stretch to the next turn, was a semi rough surface but not too bad by the halfway I had picked up most of the riders who started in front of me but with allot of rubbish on the bike lane from blown tyres, sticks etc you couldn’t not drift too much away as the last thing I wanted was a puncture! As I haven’t done this course before it was all new each bend, but being a 46km lap I knew it was soon to get boring. Nice rolling hill around the back heading back towards Pinjarra to break up the monotonous flat roads, so I crossed for lap one with just on a 39 ave and was at my target and feeling very settled and having my nutrition all was running smoothly.
Back onto Forrest for Lap 2 and someone had turned the wind machine up! Not happy 19km and what felt like a block head wind all be not extremely strong I knew it was going to wear me out if I pushed too hard. I backed off slightly and got through but then my body decided on a toilet break now as most know once its in your head you need one it’s hard to ignore but I did telling myself it was just from being in the TT Position but on top of the small hill I couldn’t hold off and decided to stop and relieve myself, turns out I really did need to go haha so after what seemed like 5 minutes I was off again as I started to wind up Mr Tom Barrett sped past with very nice speed and position so figured he was in for a blinder if he can keep that up. I followed him back into town about 50 meters behind and through in a shade under 39 ave but happy with a 1hr 12 lap considering the toilet stop. I pulled up at the drinks table and changed 2 bottles out for fresh ones and intent on bring it home for the final lap and half lap.
I lost further ground to Tom as we headed into Forrest hwy but I was noticing he was constantly getting out of his seat and stretching and knew his day was turning ugly with still 65 kms to travel. The wind had picked up more and more so I knew lap 3 would just plain suck! By the end of the 19km stretch Matt Dec had sped past again on a blinding ride in what I guestimated to be close to record time. I caught and passed Tom on the back stretch and with some words of encouragement (both ways) I tried to keep my target pace and heart rate without my mind wondering too far which as people that have ridden any long distance solo rides/Triathlons/Ironman’s will know it can ruin your day/race. I kept reminding myself it was easy been here done that only 160km etc etc but surprisingly my arse was feeling pretty good considering it was only my second ride on my new Adamo Time Trial model saddle (Only rode it the day before for 70kms as a test) so was pretty stoked with finally finding a saddle to fit my Toushy!
So through on the last lap wind was even worse and had my cursing and having to drop my ave right down to ensure I had enough left in the tank for the final 30km. Oh man was I glad to have the 19km stretch done and dusted but it had taken my ave down under where I wanted but hey weather and wind is well out of my hands so plugged on waiting to get into some tail wind. Got back around for the final half lap and I was warned by young Keith Gill is was pretty rough on the middle road we use but finally got there with a short 3km section in the ever increasing wind on Forrest hwy I was extremely glad I didn’t have to ride anymore on for the day! But with the wind being a side/head all along back to the original circuit just South of Pinjarra it was a very hard slog to say the least! I finally made it to the turn and with my ave a shade under 38 I wasn’t happy being below my target 39 so gave it everything for the last 8km back into town and scored with a 38.2 ave (by my Garmin) and around 4hrs 12 for the 161km travelled.
All in all a fantastic days outing if you’re into Time Trails I guess haha.
On returning to the car so Ryan and the boys leaving with a wave and was very happy to get off my bike onto my heated leather car seats to soothe my legs and back which surprisingly felt pretty good not to mention reasonably happy with 6th fastest.
Saw everyone else’s results with some top rides by the rest of the SPR crew down so all in all my tale is complete and now one more long run before my taper for Busso Half IM. Although with number 1 son due any day it may not happen so exciting times for my expanding family over the next 3 weeks and some well earned exercise respite 🙂
Nico
Well I finally made the trip over seas to have a bash at the Time Trial.
First impressions were
* Very well organised Event
* Very Windy Event
* Great Atmosphere
* Great Wether Temperature
So cruising out on the day rather than stay overnight seemed the easiest, caught up with quite a few local races and good to see Lisa and Dianne making the trip too.
Once there and registered Jet Black had sponsored the event so we had 15 odd windtrainers to warm up on sweet 🙂 Looking back doing a course prior would of been benificial to say the least. But once warmed up and had a chat to a few riders I knew that had finished I headed to the new start ramp platform.
I decided to just go flat out from the gun and time will be whatever as being a new course this year and the higher than usual winds it was always going to be tough no matter what strategy used!
As I have been sick lately and a few injury issues I was finally starting to come good and felt good leading into teh first few kms settling in with around a 44 ave, made a few mistakes on some of the blind corners and had a few new misses and over shoots but I hit the timer mid way with above 44 ave and the tail wind kicking in, then the climbs/hills/pimples/power hills (call them what you may) came in and adding in the cross and head winds we swept back into the middle of the island with only 4kms to go one of the hills felt like a 20% 5km climb, I was watching my ave speed drop down so throwing everything into for the last block headwind section I managed to go 27m 46 secs and later finding out I missed the win by a lousy 14secs and second place by 8!
Still very happy to be finaly feeling good so off to the pub to rehydrate (with water first haha) then lunch and Presos which was a great atmospehere and set up.
Had a few beers and caught up with everyone and relaxed before catching the Express back over seas 🙂
Next year is the last year Perth has this event on contract so highly recomend entering either the TT or raod race as great events with great support. Give it a go and more than likely you wont be able to do it again once its finished at Rotto anyway.
My 2 cents worth anyway cheers.
Sorry no pics as yet to post with but no doubt they will be online soon.
Nico
For everyone that uses this section of path near Roe Hwy, note detour.
Hi Guys n Gals,
Just wanted to say a huge thanks for all the well wishes for our wedding on the 30th. We just arrived back from 2 weeks in Phuket so riding fitness may be lacking for a quite a while haha. Just a couple of snaps too 🙂
Couldnt find a bike so rode an Elephant and a cheeky monkey tried stealing and biting my SPR hat.. little bugger…
Just a quick spiel from Matty U (aka Rooster) from their awesome experience in Indo last week. Huge congrads for a surviving the tough test. Good work boys 🙂 Big ring needs to spend less time laying down in bike races me thinks hehe
Nico 🙂
Myself and Steve Hedley have just arrived back in Perth after racing the Tour of Jakarta and the Tour of East Java with the Eddy Hollands Bicycle Service Team.
Our team consisted of 5 riders, a team manager and a mechanic.
With teams from all over the world represented we knew that we were in for some hard racing.
We were met at the airport where our driver picked us up in our team car and our bikes were loaded onto a truck, this would be a common way of travel over the next 10 days.
Once we arrived at our motel in Jakarta we soon realized that there would be no pre race training ride’s as the traffic was way to dangerous.
Jakarta was hot, muggy, smoggy and dirty so we knew that we were going to have a tough day come race day.
Our first race was the tour of Jakarta which was a 170km stage race.
This was not a good one for me as I crashed out at the 30km mark after a rider beside me decided to touch wheels with his mate and at 55km/ph I kinda had nowhere to go, so after about 50 meters of sliding on my head I was knocked out and on the deck.
The inside of an ambulance was not how I had imagined my first pro race would end up.
After a few hours I made it back to the hotel to learn that Steve and the rest of the boy’s got through ok, no result but the first race was out of the way.
A quick phone call to Perth to get a new helmet and kit sent over would also help.
Next came the tour of East Java which was 3 stages consisting of a 110km, 155km and a 100km day.
These distances were not too long but they made up for it with the speed, they just never ever slow down.
The roads made the hell of the north race at Joondalup look like a picnic these roads were very narrow, pot holes everywhere, dirt, railway crossings etc
Chuck in 110 riders with 24 team cars, officials thousands of spectators and random things to crash into like parked trucks, flying water bottles, food, animals etc and you know that you could be in for a bad day.
When the gun goes and bang the speed goes straight to 50km/ph, this is where it would stay for the entire tour
It is hard to fully describe what it is like in the peleton as it is nothing like I have ever done before, maybe it is best described as the freeway bike hike on steroids except you are racing it on a narrow bumpy goat track.
At times just trying to stay upright was a battle as these riders like to jump up the inside of you all the time, especially going into corners, they will just ride past you in the gutter and chop your wheel as this is just there style of racing. It took me a bit to get used to that.
Once I understood how the peleton worked I began to enjoy it, you just needed to be on your toes the entire time.
Keeping hydrated was my biggest challenge as it was so hot the water and Gatorade just goes straight through you, typically I would do 6 – 7 bidons each stage and not need a pee at the end.
I won’t go into each and every stage by detail as it would take long but I was happy with just finishing the tour, for the recode I finished 53rd on GC 2min 30 sec down on the leader.
Steve finished a bit further down on time as he wanted the entire experience and managed to crash 3 times, he did end up finishing the tour and when he was upright he was right up there dishing it out to the pro teams.
Matty Upton
Well I decided to do the 80km version as I have in no way enough km’s in the legs to sustain a TT for 160km.
On arriving I caught up with Stu and Nick who were doing the 40km version.
Basically did my warm up and headed round the corner to the 80km start line. Well rough roads head winds (mostly) for first 20 odd kms, not the best way to start a 80km TT but forged on and until finally getting a good 8km section with a tail wind and slowly climbed my ave up over the 40 mark with an aim of being sub hour for the first lap of the 40km course.
I had plenty of advice prior from people saying not many people had cracked over 40 here for the 40/80 or 160 (course record for 160 was 4hrs 6mins). Turning left into the wind again I found some nice smooth roads for a short while before a full turn into the 5km stretch towards the finish line, talk about a slog with the ever strengthening wind and the rough roads never really relented either but finaly into the last turn on towards the line and crossed with a 58.30 time and 41 ave and kept on rolling into the second lap. I am sure the wind picked up over the next 20kms again and slowly watched my average speed going down to mid 38’s and started to feel not so good, maybe the lack of kms is finally catching up with me….
I finaly reached the tail wind section but just couldnt get into a fast rythm but got the ave back up to a smidge over 40 but knew with teh vicous head wind home I would battle to keep it. Back onto the smooth section without any troubles and no one coming from behind but catching people all the time I finaly found the head wind section for home, now I was starting to hurt when trying to hold my pace high but pushed on with heart rate at 185 all through the head wind to the final corner and the 1km stretch to the line.
Feeling rather depleted I crossed the line with 2hrs 2 with an ave just over 39 and sort of happy considering my kms of late and later found out it was enough for 2nd on the day only to be beaten by 40secs oh well haha. It was a great hitout prior to Busso half especially as long range has the weather windy for us on race day at this stage.
On catching up with Stu later he posted the quickest 40km time and NIck rounded out making it a SPR Gold and silver for the 40km. Awesome good work guys.
Troy Coulthard proved he is on song with a win in the 160km and only a handfull of seconds of the course record, so close but so far but did pick up the gold medal so sure he is happy chappy with that effort!
Nico
Race report by Nico
Well after deciding to take the trip to Kalgoorlie for the race and to catch up with some friends and family I decided to drive up Friday and Jody would fly up after work Friday. We got our gear sorted and went to a local pub Friday for some beer n Pizza to unwind from the day.
On the Saturday just spent the time catching up with some friends and re acquainting myself with some local roads on the bike (lived there for 10 years) and tidied the bike up ready to race on the Sunday. At lunch with Jody’s family low and behold Brother Julian (aka Courtney the Star Triathlete) walks in and was saying he is living up there while finishing off at the School of mines and playing footy for Boulder, Small world.
Saturday night the Kalgoorlie Tri club have a Pasta Carb Loading Party so we walked down to the park where it was at and caught up with quite a few people from Esperance and Kal that I hadn’t seen in while.
On Sunday I made Jody drop me off at the Oasis Pool centre and I gave a hand setting up and got myself ready with all the gear layed out and ready for quick transitions.
Did a small warm up in the pool and found out I was sharing with a WA Tri team junior who swam really well and did she what she lapped me 5 times in 30 laps! Talk about Junior Chicked! But I had a reasonable swim and got out in 25mins and headed to the bike chasing about 5 people who were up to 6 mins ahead.
Bike went OK but I struggled to get into a rhythm with the light but swirly wind and as it was 9 laps for 40kms you never really got out of it. I averaged 40 with transition times and had caught all bar 1 gun swimmer from Esperance but he had only a few hundred metres on me as we headed out of transition on the run.
With my lack of training over the last few months I had decided to just go hard as possible on the bike and come what may on the run and it seemed to be working being sitting in 2nd position with 10 km to run. I closed the gap to about 100meters after 1.5 laps on the 4 lap run course but my legs were starting to cramp and the pace came off and with 2 to go he was back out to 500meters lead and pulling away. I went into cruise mode and survived for 2nd over all with 3rd breathing down my neck but happy to make the podium. Comparing times off my course PB I was something like 7 mins slower with most of that lost on the run but hey a place is a place right. 🙂
Overall another great well run event at the hands of Kal Tri Club and I highly recommend anyone visiting/moving to Kal to look up the Tri/Bike or running clubs as there is some fantastic people up there.Got quite a few comments on the SPR Tri suit although must bag Brother Julian for not having his, think his excuse was my brother has it 🙂
What’s next for me? Well I have a 80km TT next week and another 40TT the week after then onto the Busso Half Ironman with some of the other SPR lads (all in our SPR club suits), Going to hurt but as its my 5th one I am determined to finish but cant see myself signing up for my 3rd full Ironman in December….. never say never though right 😉
Nico
Well what started as a good sized bunch we headed off on our way to freo down Canning.
By the time we were 8kms the group had dropped half the bunch, ran several red lights and everyone was intent on just destroying everyone so in the end there was a small group out front with several smaller groups scambling to catch others.
This Peeved me imensly to say the least. Why you ask?
Well this a fast group, yes it is but group is not singular, the purpose is to ride as as a group at a fast/steady pace to I would think approx halfway (as it used too) so everyone can catch up have a chat, roll through and on teh return its open slather to do your best (which is alot of fun) BUT nothing comes before SAFETY!
Running Red Lights is just plain stupid and not only endangers you but others and if a car did come through he may swerve to miss you but take out the other 10 or more in the group!
I dont care what we all do when riding by yourself but when you are there representing your chosen club you should act appropriatly do you think?
We could of kept a steady 35-40 ave rolling down to Freo regrouping after splits lights (for the ones that did
bother to stop at the red ones). So that we could continue as a GROUP.
If its a solo TT you are after why bother joining the group in the first instance? Now while I know sometimes you cannot slow in times the mojority of
the group can and if we re group after
there is no need for risk taking is there..
You know who the culprits are Im not here to name names but fair dinkum we as a club have a duty of care to our riders and our riders have a duty of care to themselves/others and the club.
I have since found out other clubs IMPOSE fines and are banned from joining club rides until that fine is paid up. Maybe it is something we will have to look at? your thoughts as I for one dont want to think we need things like that being the awesome cycling family we have at SPR.
So in summary I propose that the fast GROUP should be exactly that a group so the slower people can learn and grow during the first half (when we should be re grouping) and when the pace really comes on it naturaly leaves teh strongest to fight it out but allows others to grow with strength (as many many people are doing over teh last few months) to be able to keep up and more which is fantastic to see.
Sorry to be a little downward on our great group/club but I mean really I dont want to pick any of you of the road after a crash Ive lost a few good mates allready and its not a nice feeling telling their family and friends what happened.
Please continue to have fun with us but please be mindfull.
Thanks Peeps.
Brendan (Nico)
Vice President