All posts by jens

bike stickers

New Year, new bike stickers

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For everybody that had missed out on the last order of bike and helmet stickers, or the lucky ones that got a new bike or helmet since last time, we are doing another run of stickers.

bike_sticker_heiko-300x225I have had the stickers on my bike for the last 4 years and they are still pretty good – no signs of detachment from the frame or anything.

We have negotiated a deal with VCgraphix and providing we get the numbers, we can get 6 stickers with your country flag on either a white or black background for $6.  You can also get half/ half (3 stickers on white and 3 stickers on black background).

We would encourage you to go for your full name and not just your first initial and your surname.  The reason the club is subsidising this is to encourage members to get to know each other.  You can choose between CAPITAL and lower case letters for your names.  When you are completing your order, please remember that we will send the order with exactly the spelling you provide (international special characters are also possible if you should need them).

If you should have any questions regarding the layout of the stickers, please let the social committee know. Get your order in here to let other members of the club know who you are.  Orders will close on February 7, 2016.  Please remember that this is a subsidised offer for club members only.  We will be checking club memberships against the orders and refund anybody who is not a club member.  However, we will allow members to include other family members in their purchase.

SPR Annual Award Nominations

Each year SPR recognise some of the cyclists and participants who help to make the club a success and inspire others with their cycling achievements.  Please take a few minutes to make some nominations for the different awards via this survey.  Your feedback is important to the club.

Presentations of the awards will be at the Christmas breakfast on Saturday,  December 19, 2015.  There will also be a prize awarded at the breakfast for the best dressed rider/bike on the Christmas ride.

your SPR Social Committee

Tim's Ride – Saturday, November 14

Tim’s Ride is in memory of Tim Anderson killed cycling along Curtin Ave in 2012.  It also aims to bring together all parts of the cycling community to improve cycling safety with an emphasis on visibility and interaction with vehicles.  The cost is $50 and profits/ donations go towards Tim’s Scholarship to assist a young person associated with casino online the organisation with their tertiary education.

The ride will start and finish at Harvey Field.   There will be a sausage sizzle after the ride at Harvey Field.  Assembly time is 4pm.

More details at http://www.timsride.com.au/ride_information.html

SPR Social Committee

Whom did I ride with the other day? Name stickers for bike and helmet

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With now over 400 members it is somewhat difficult to know whom you have been riding with the other week. A sticker on your bike and on your helmet will help during a quick chat on the bike or at the coffee shop and it sometimes just helps you remember what the name of the “guy with the Bianchi” exactly was.bike_sticker_heiko

I have been having my stickers on the bike for the last 4 years and they are still pretty good – no signs of detachment from the frame or anything.
We have negotiated a deal with VCgraphix and providing we get the numbers we can get 6 stickers with your country flag on either a white or black background for $4. You can also get half/ half (3 stickers on white and 3 stickers on black background).

We would encourage you to go for your full name and not just your first initial and your surname. You can choose between CAPITAL and small letters for your names. When you are completing your order, please remember that we will send the order with exactly the spelling you provide (international special characters are also possible if you should need them).

If you should have any questions regarding the layout of the stickers, please let the social committee know. Get your order in here and let other members of the club know who you are. Orders will close on July 13, 2014.

UWCT Perth 2013 pictures

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To get you all into the UCI spirit for the coming weekend, here are a few pictures of last year’s race around perry lakes.

Good luck to everyone who will be racing this year, we will be having the tent with drinks and plenty of moral support out at the course again.  See you all on Saturday.

Pickering Brook Race 3 update

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I will try to set up the tent along the stretch of road from the school towards patterson road.  hopefully we can get a spot somewhere.  The tent will be there from 9-ish onwards.  The women’s TT start around quarter to 10 with the boys following just after ten.  Road races start around 12.

You can find your start time for the ITT here and the road race start list here.

see you all there… have a good night’s rest…

Pickering Brook #3

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The last race of the Pickering Brook series is on next Sunday.  This race is a good opportunity to have a go at racing. You will know the course as you would have been riding on the course on one of the hills rides anyway and the start is just about 30 minutes out of Perth.  A first-timer racing report from the last Pickering Brook #2 can be found here.

The registration is still open until this Tuesday (20th) midnight.  Day licenses can be purchased at registration.  Have a look at the flyer with all the information.

Due to the State Junior Road Championships in the morning the race now only starts at 10am, so you can have a sleep-in and race 🙂

Please put your name in the comments if you are racing so that we know how big the sea of green will be.

See you at the race

Pickering Brook road race #2 – race report

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So there are only 46 days to go until the last race of the Pickering Brook series for this season.

Craig put his experience of his first race 2 weeks ago together below, so if you like what you are reading and want to experience it yourself mark the 25th of August in your calendars for the next event.  SPR should be there with a fairly big crowd and we are planning to take the tent out to the hills too…  So get your training in, your kilometers up, and sign up for your (first) race

 Pickering Brook Rnd#2 C Grade Race Report – First Time Racer Craig Denham

I finally committed to signing up for a proper cycling race after first starting group cycling some 13 years ago as a 16 year old. Having spoken to Pete about this for about 2 years, it seemed like the timing and race format for the Pickering Brook series would be ideal. So I signed up for C grade, ramped up my training a bit, bought a trainer and did some interval sessions, even traded in my grizzly bear look I’ve agonised over for some time. I was ready, but for what?…..

Come race day I must admit I was quite nervous – I’ve always rated myself as a reasonable cyclist but how would I stack up in a race? To make matters worse my folks decided they wanted to watch – great, what if I come last?  Race format for Pickering Brook consists of a 1 lap time trial (7.5km) followed by the road race (5 laps for C grade). Started the time trial fully pumped up to push as hard as I can for the full lap – dear god it was painful. I’m no expert on doing time trials and I now get the impression it’s important to warm up properly and then not go too hard at the start – I did neither. Mr Bonner and the long hills group passed me going in the opposite direction which provided a nice bit of encouragement, but the lap felt horrible and I set a time of 12:32 – good enough for 11th. Not a bad result. Must admit, it was impressive to watch the likes of J Bolton absolutely smashing it on the home straight, respect.

So onto the road race. Decided to start off towards the rear of the bunch and then if I felt good, work my way forward. Laps 1+2 passed, the legs felt good so I decided to try to move forward from lap 3. Found myself on the front of the group for a fair bit of the last couple laps. I was really keen to hold a position near the front for the last lap as Amanda suggested it was important given the hotdog turn leading up to the final sprint. On the final lap, I held second wheel coming down the main straight leading into an uphill section prior to the hotdog and the guy in front decided to sit up – great, I was faced with leading the group a long, long way out from the sprint – race over. Then Alistair rides past and tells me to grab his wheel – my saviour! Alistair gives me a great tow up the hill towards the hotdog and really stretches out the group. He then pulls off so I’m on my own for the run down the hill then onto the up-hill sprint. This highlighted my complete lack of race craft; leading out the group with about 1km to go, I knew I was going to get swamped at the sprint, should I go flat out downhill and try to hold on to the finish, or go easier downhill and try for the sprint? I went easier downhill, then as the sprint started uphill got passed by what felt like the entire bunch, but I managed to claw back a few places and crossed the line in 5th place.

Conclusions: not going to lie, the ITT was hard work and I personally didn’t get much enjoyment out of it. The race however was great fun; I really enjoyed the tactics and will be signing up for Round 3. I’m really keen to nominate for domestique/lead-out duties for the next round. Alistair – I think you’d do a great job as nominated sprinter. I think if the SPR C graders work together we can come away with a win.

For those members of the club who haven’t tried racing, I strongly recommend you have a go. It’s great fun and really adds another dimension onto your cycling.

Thanks very much to Pete & Amanda for your advice and encouragement – much appreciated.

Ride Safe,

Craig

 

How steep was that – Sunday, February 21

Short ride report

By jens

It is amazing how dark it is already now in the morning … and i was equally amazed how nippy it was on Sunday morning as well. There were 3 groups of riders that started together with the mountain goats this morning. We started off with Mark D and Melvyn at the front at an (as expected) high speed. As we reached Burswood Michael B came around to slow the lads down a little bit as some of the transitionals/ intermediates probably had problems holding on to the group. We reached Ridgehill Road which is just a Bonus Climb, so there are no points on top of that. We regrouped on the crest and the groups split up for their dedicated routes.

Our first climb was Kalamunda Road which is quite a good hill, because it gradually climbs into Kalamunda. The headwind was quite strong, so sticking to the wheel in front of you would be essential if you wanted to grab some points up on top. Brodie made the first move, but couldn’t withstand the wind, the hill and the “growling dogs” for long, so Matthew broke the wind for myself and a couple of other riders behind us. Soon Michael made his move and no one really could react. Michael was first at the bus stop in Kalamunda, Jerry came in after him, after a nice attack just after the roundabout. I wanted to jump on his wheel but could not close the approximately 50 m gap. Stuart, who made quite a lot of work up the hill was fourth with Matthew on his wheel.

Some headed off to coffee and the others carried on down Mundaring Weir Road towards the climb to the observatory. We regrouped at the start/ end of Aldersyde road and there was a big dispute on how we want to finish the ride altogether. We decided on deciding that once we are on top of the Choockenberg (don’t know if that is spelled correctly). The chase towards the observatory started right away and soon there was a group of 5 to 7 riders together and everyone tried to get into the slip stream of each other. Michael made his usual move to the front and Stuart and i couldn’t react to that so Michael had a 100m gap pretty quickly. Alastair could react and went with the “mountainiest goat” of us for a little while. I tried to attack Stuart on the last few meters, but he upped the pace just i was next to him, he must have felt that i really hadn’t too much more to give. He could come around Alastair at the end. I came in fourth with Matthew maybe 50 meters back.

I think no one was looking forward the next hill who has ridden it before. The Choockenberg was on the route again! Most of us took it easy towards Pickering Brook and then Through Bickley Valley back on to Lawnbrook. I knew that i couldn’t grab any points on that steep f@*ker so i found myself in the group together with Mark D and Jerry. Mark still had time and air to check his Garmin on our way up Kiwana Road (the actual hill). He kept commenting on the gradient of the ascent. 20 % … alright i have ridden that before its not too bad….22%… oh well, its getting steep now….i can’t change to a lighter gear, but why does it feel like….24% … oh thanks Mark…. that is why… Those 24 felt like it was going on for ages…. “23, its flatting out now”… still doesn’t feel like its flatting out to me. I can almost see the crest now…. Why am i actually doing this again??? Done, over the top, far away from any points. The more lucky ones ended in this order: Michael B, Matthew, Stuart (tell me how you do that with those 42 teethes at the front), Brother Jules (how steep was that), Danny B.

After that challenge everybody probably thought that it can’t get any worse, so no one chickened out on the last hill and went down Lawnbrook (Dr. Mark, it might have been you who convinced the rest of the group). We went down Lawnbrook again and headed towards Mundaring Weir Road. This time tho, we wouldn’t take the timed climb towards Kalamunda, but jumped onto Aldersyde Road again which took us a little bit further down the hill before the climb starts. At the start I was trying to gap the group, and i stayed away for a little while before Michael B came around. There was still a gap towards Jerry who had again a good 50 to 100 m distance to the group. My challenge now was to stay away from him and maybe minimize distance (oh no, remember heiko, its Michael B there at the front) minimize the damage between him and me. Stuart went up the timed climb with a new PB of 7:38 and came back down again as i came into the last steeper section just before the KOM line. Jerry was out of sight so i was pretty happy about my 7 points on top. The order on top: Michael, Heiko, Jerry, Matthew, Brother Julian.

After coffee Stuart took us down the scenic route again, which we should really take one day as a climb up towards Kalamunda (we need to turn off at Melaleuca Road from Welshpool Road). We kept the pace up along Welshpool Road which led to a few problems at the end of the group. There were just a few of us for the last sprint on Berwick Street. I cant even remember who was at the front holding the speed up, as i was just concentrating on Jerry who was constantly sitting on my wheel. We were already down the small hill and i didn’t see anyone coming around, so i started my move but Jerry was right on my tail and came slowly around taking the MAccas sprint by just a few cm’s.

Take care everyone and maybe see you in Pemberton…Jens