All posts by peter

ride routes 19th & 20th feb

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quite a bit going on in the background lately.  our club bank account was at the highest ever….but then we paid cannibal and it went back down pretty quickly.  however, the kit is well past the printing stage and is being sewn as we speak.  hopefully it all comes together on the 12th march.  we will have to organise a photo shoot for the new club kit once it arrives.  we did it a few years ago when we had the original livingston optical kit made up.  with the city in the background, it made a good shot.

before spr existed.

renae’s race – this weekend both spr and rccc are helping southern districts cycle club to run renae’s race.  as this is held on the tech park circuit we are now pretty experienced on getting this to run smoothly.  sdcc will be in charge of the registration and running of the event, we just need some manpower for traffic management and refreshments.  please come down to support this event by racing and help the club out by giving a bit of your time.  more info here.

pemberton – set for the march long weekend, this is not too far away, but needs a bit of organisation if you are intending to head on down.  south west are running the event so you know that it will be well organised and well run.  there is already a blog post here so let others know if you are heading down so you can fly the spr colours together.  maybe you to can become one of kimbo’s “special friends”.

kit, agm, breakfast – working on all of them.  aiming to have it all on the 12th mar.  more info to come.

ride routes – i saw on facebook that one of our members was running repeats up ewen st.  i had totally forgotten about ewen st so i re-routed the normal scarborough beach road ride to include it.  if you haven’t done it before, it is less undulating than staying on scarbs road, mainly because it just keep going straight up instead.  bring your climbing legs.

saturday 19th february

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

early lap – spr earlybird ride

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)

transitional 1 & 2 –spr saturday 41.18km (reverse river ride)

fast, main 1 & 2 – spr saturday 50.23km (ewen st)

sunday 20th february

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

early lap – spr earlybird ride

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

short – spr sunday 61.14km (welshpool & weir rd)

long – spr sunday 90.23km (welshpool & observatory & kalamunda rd)

agm, kit distribution and maybe even a breakfast

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guys, this is a first heads-up to let you know that on saturday march 12th we will hold our agm in conjunction with the distribution of the new kit.

venue and time to be finalised, but more than likely to be directly after the ride so probably 9:00am.

the agenda for the agm will also be posted later, but all committee positions are up for renewal and therefore nominations can be made.  if you want to be involved with how we run the club, then this is your opportunity.

if we get organised enough, we may have a club breakfast at the same time.

we will keep you posted.

cycling trip to france

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a couple of years ago, christophe took a group of riders over to france for a week of riding some of the little climbs that they have over there.  this was probably pre-spr days so many of you would not have been around then. 

well he is looking at organising a trip again this year to provence and the cote d’azur in september.  see the attached flyer here, but essentially all the rides are controlled by three experienced tour leaders and will be followed by a service vehicle.  christophe is a native frenchman so you don’t even have to be able to speak a word of french.  this is limited to 20 people only, so if you are interested, get in contact with him soon.  he will be handing out flyers this saturday at the ride.

ride routes 12th & 13th feb

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there has been some interesting comments on facebook and other places recently about the type and quality of racing that is going on in perth and it kind of got me thinking.  what are we really trying to offer and who are we trying to cater for.

generally the racing is determined by the quality and number of “a” grade riders you have attending.  if more “a” grade riders turn up them the rest think that it must be worth racing, so they turn up.  this is a great concept, but then there is the cyclo-sportif type model.  no racing, and aimed at the participation level of the sport.  this is where the numbers are so they get much better attendance.

so what does the spr membership really want???

at the end of last year we had close to 200 members and over half of these were recreational members.  this means that they didn’t race, but got a licence for a bit of coverage and to belong to the club.  however, since we have been putting on the crit series with the rccc, i have noticed a number of riders converting their licence over to a racing licence.  this is great and exactly the pathway that we wanted to provide for people.  however, not everyone wants to race.

bwa have put out details of their 3 and 5 dams ride plus their upcoming cyclo-sportif series.  these types of participation events are very popular and provide a challenge to the racing and non-racing riders alike.  we held out inaugural 200km challenge last year and we will hold it again this year (perhaps call it “the iconic 200km challenge”).  i have been in contact with some other clubs about running our own version of a cyclo-style race open to club members only.

as you can see, we are trying to provide opportunities for people apart from the normal weekend ride.  but what do you want???  let us all know by adding to the comments.

forum – we are finalising the online forum.  this will allow people to post up classifieds, ask questions about training, racing or even what type of stuff to buy.  we will keep you posted.

spr kit – the kit order has been finalised and it is already printed and getting sewn.  too late now if you didn’t get around to order, or want to change sizes.  when we open the forums on this website, we will have an area where people can put up posts about swapping sizes.  the final order was for the equivalent of a $55,000 order.  this is over 3 times larger than our previous biggest.  after this has cleared, we will look at another order of accessories.

upcoming events – perth crits this weekend, if you want to volunteer see here.  there are a few spr people racing, just not in club colours.  don’t let that deter you from cheering them on.  renae’s race on the 20th on the tech park circuit.  this is the premier race for women in perth so come along to support it, or even better come a race it.

ride routes – earlybird ride available on both days now.  only two of us turned up last sunday.  one did the hills ride afterwards and the other went home to kelmscott to stop his house burning down.  hopefully less eventful this weekend.  they are predicting strong easterly winds again this weekend so i have planned to give the groups a nice tailwind home.  however, to get a tailwind home, you need to have a headwind at the start.  for the fast/main ride there is an awfully long stretch where the wind will be a howling crosswind.  last time we did it, it really sucked.  sunday will have the same ride route as last week.  there was no long ride route due to the wind, so we all did the short course.  this week, maybe the short course mix it up a bit and do kalamunda hill first, then gooseberry.

saturday 12th february

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

early lap – spr earlybird ride

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)

transitional 1 & 2 –spr saturday 41.73km (canning vale reverse)

fast, main 1 & 2 – spr saturday 54.03km (maddington & welshpool)

sunday 13th february

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

early lap – spr earlybird ride

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

short – spr sunday 63.49km (gooseberry & kalamuda).

long – spr sunday 100.45km (darlington & mundaring)

wanted to borrow

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i am looking for a 58cm bike to borrow for a week when a work colleague comes over from america.  he will be bringing his own pedals, shoes, helmet etc, but didn’t want the hassle of bringing the bike as well.  i can vouch for him, or should i say, he earns enough to cover any accidental damage.

he is here next week, so if anyone has a spare bike they can loan for a week, let me know via email.

peter.

(yes, i know we need to set up a chat/bulletin board/classifieds section)

call for volunteers

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as you know we often call for volunteers to help out at the crits that we run at tech park.  well we are again calling for volunteers, but this is for a slightly different reason.

trievents are running a 4 race crit series this weekend (smokefree perth criteriums) starting saturday and finishing tuesday evening.  they are looking for volunteers to help run the event.  it may be something as simple as manning a pedestrian crossway so you can safely let people cross the road while the race is on.

anyway, the reason we are asking for volunteers for an event that we aren’t even running, is that they will pay the club $30 for each person at each race.  this way, your volunteer effort will actually help the club out financially.  the beauty is that you pretty much get to watch the race anyway, so if you were planning on heading down to watch, sign up and help out the club too.

the race details are as follows –

saturday the 12th, city of perth. volunteers from 1300 to 1600.

sunday the 13th, town of victoria park. volunteers from 1500 to 1800.

monday the 14th, town of vincent. volunteers from 1745 to 2045.

tuesday the 15th, city of fremantle. volunteers from 1700 to 2000.

the perth, vic park and vincent (leederville) courses are the same as prevous years, with a new course in freo on tuesday.

if you are available, contact sam moore at trievents (0415 471 719), let him know what race you can help out at and which club you belong to.

kelmscott fires

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many of you would know mat fletcher, the tall, lanky guy that rides with us quite a bit.  well his house is in kelmscott and was well within the evacuated zone yesterday.  i did the earlybird ride with him at 5:30am sunday morning and by the afternoon, his neighbourhood was on fire.  however, even though he was very, very close to the start of the fire, his house seemingly has been spared.  neighbours all around have lost everything, but mat’s house is still standing.  he is about 200m away from the main bridge up brookton hwy which is no longer standing.  we obviously won’t be planning any ride routes up brookton hwy for a while.

earlybird rides

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the earlybird rides that we have put on lately have been pretty successful.  this morning there were about 15 or more riders that met at 5:30am to cut a lap of the river before the usual saturday ride.  now, some people use this as extra kms and some use it to get a ride in if they cannot make the usual 7:00am ride.  also the 5:30am tuesday and thursday rides are as popular as ever, with the tuesday ride often needing to be split in half to minimise the size on the road.

anyway, we will now put on a few more earlybird rides to cater for the need.  firstly, there will now be a monday and friday 5:30am ride starting from under the narrows and taking the usual tuesday ride route.  this is a standard tuesday pace ride with regroups as per usual.  secondly, we will also put on a sunday morning 5:30am ride from under the narrows.  this will follow the same route as the saturday earlybird ride as it will need to finish at coode st.  now you don’t have to use it as a “pre-ride” before the hills, but you can if you are after extra kms.

in all cases, if no-one else turns up, then you would have been riding by yourself anyway.  if others turn up then you will have someone to talk to.  the first few weeks of the tuesday ride, i was the only one to turn up, now we get about 60 riders.  from little things, big headaches grow.

i look forward to seeing you bright and early.  (you need lights to get to the start now).

ride routes 5th & 6th feb

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so last week on the blog i predicted that the cyclone would swing around and take a dump on perth.  well it did swing around, and it was quite amusing to see perth “brace” itself for a cyclone, however, we didn’t really get that much rain.  just a lot of humidity.  well they are predicting a windy weekend and this is usually the worst conditions for cycle groups as everyone is trying to get a draft.  just be aware of where you are positioning your bike as this is how the fast group came to grief a few weeks back.  crosswinds, riding hard and inattention.  be alert.

crit series – race 04 was another great success even with the threat of a cyclone.  the biggest field for us with 127 riders and both “a” and “b” grade containing 41 riders.  thanks to everyone that helped out on the day.  we are hoping to run one final race, but the date will need to change, so we will let you know.

spr kit order – yeah, it’s still open, but hopefully not for long.  the online shop will disappear from the website once it is closed, so we will continue to take orders till then.  the logo’s have been sorted out and i am just waiting on a “proof” to arrive before we sign off on the new kit.  it should be arriving in an express post bag tomorrow.  i will post the final design on the website soon.  you seriously don’t want to know how big this order is.  we are looking at about 3 times bigger than any previous order, so i will need some help in getting it sorted once it arrives.  there will be a call for volunteers.

ride routes – there has been a request for benara rd this weekend and the winds are favourable so that’s what we will do.  i have made a small change to the route of this one, based on russell’s main 2 version of this ride.  this is for the bit through midland, so have a look at the ride route.  sunday short course doesn’t have a map at the moment.  essentially it will follow the long course till it gets to kalamunda rd, then do gooseberry followed by kalamunda hill.  hopefully, i get the time to map it before sunday.

saturday 5th february

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

early lap – spr earlybird ride

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)

transitional 1 & 2 –spr saturday 41.18km (reverse river ride)

fast, main 1 & 2 – spr saturday 50.98km (benara rd)

sunday 6th february

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

short – spr sunday 63.49km (gooseberry & kalamuda).

long – spr sunday 100.45km (darlington & mundaring)