All posts by peter

2010 Perth International Track Cycling Grand Prix

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This Saturday the Track GP will be on at the SpeedDome in Midland.  For everyone that has attended the last couple of years, they can all attest to what a great night it is.  For those that haven’t, come along to see some high class track racing.  Tickets are available from ticketmaster and are priced from $24 – $45 depending on where you sit. 

 

2010 Perth International Track Cycling Grand Prix

World champions of track cycling will line up in a star studded international field at the 2010 Perth International Track Cycling Grand Prix in November.

Leading the charge for Australia will be Anna Meares, Kaarlee McCulloch, Cameron & Travis Meyer, Josie Tomic, Luke Durbridge, Melissa Hoskins, Sarah Kent, Shane Perkins and Scott Sunderlandalongside world ranked riders from across the globe all chasing UCI (Union Cyclist International) points in an extravaganza of speed and lycra.

Ticketmaster is giving members the opportunity to purchase tickets before they go on sale to the general public!

Remember to enter the code word TRACK when purchasing tickets online throughout the presale period.

garmin edge 800

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garmin edge 800 initial road test – out of the box.

box turned up today, my little garmin had found it’s way to my house.  i will give a road test as i use it more, but here are the first impressions.  it basically looks like the love-child of an edge 500 and an edge 705.  size is somewhere in between, but styled like the 500 (got mum’s looks).  there is a wizard to set up the initial info, like units and your personal data.  then you just stand outside till it finds some satellites.  all done and ready to go. 

oh, did i mention that it is all a touch screen interface???  well besides a power, lap and start button, it is all touch.  the touch seems different to an iphone as it seems a little softer.  nothing wrong, just different.  once in the map screen, you can just slide it along like a smartphone, which is pretty cool.

if you have used an edge before then the rest of the setup is pretty straight forward.  bike names, sizes, sensors etc are all pretty standard.  the big upgrade is that you now have 3 personalised screen for holding the basic data and each of them can show 10 different pieces of info.  complete overload, but as an engineer, i need to see data.

maps as usual were the crappiest thing that you could even call a map.  there is a shape that you could roughly call australia, and a marker for perth, but don’t expect much more than that.  what gets me is that you can buy a cheap gps for you car and pay less that $200 for it and it will have a complete map set loaded in.  for these devices, that you pay a lot more for, the maps are an extra $195.  could you imagine if they charged extra for the maps in car gps devices.  no-one would buy them.  however, this is where the internet is your friend.  now, i am not talking about illegal downloads.  there is a website which has open source maps.  this is where people go out with their gps’ and map areas to upload to the site.  after a while you have an almost complete map of the area.  this also works for the edge 705, so if you want a map, you can download them here.

so i am pretty much ready to go.  will let you know how it goes once i hit the road.

new spr kit – sponsors and feedback

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attached is the latest mock-up for the spr kit.  we are still chasing a couple of sponsors for the bum and sides and as with the rest of the sponsorship, this is a 2 year deal with a specified amount per year.  once we have secured these 2 spots, we can get a run of kit going. 

the sponsorship money will go towards subsidising new kit for those that already have it.  this is to get the new logo’s out there and reduce the amount of different kit on the streets.  this means that if you already have a jersey (or more than one) then you can get 1 at a reduced price.  for any knicks, jacket, vest, skinsuit, trisuit that you have, you are then elegible to get a new one at a reduced price.  basically everything except the arms, knees and undershirts.

there are lots of people that have joined us since our last run that are also after kit and they will be able to get the new design at the regular price.

so, there are a few things i am after (add to the comments or email).

  • any potential sponsors out there that want to be involved.  however, they cannot clash with what we already have (i.e. no bike shops, or coffee shops).  for more details people can email me here.
  • feedback as to whether we make the kit available for members only.
  • feedback on the design as, after all you are the ones that will be wearing it.  see the video below before making any comments. 

ride routes 13th & 14th nov

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so much work, so little time.  work/life balance also gets skewed as there is also the bike/family balance that also need to be dealt with on the life side.  then there is the training/work balance that needs to be metered so that you don’t fall asleep at work (i yawn a lot all day).  so really its the work/training/family/sleep balance that seems to dominate my life.  trying to catch up on training induced lack of sleep is also hard when someone (looking at you daniel) starts crying at 4am so you don’t really get back to sleep by the time the alarm goes off at 5am….anyway.  i am tired.

movember – there are 5 of us looking like sleazy used car salesmen at the moment.  donate to the cause or you will make me depressed.

memberships – as you may have seen on an earlier post, we have started an earlybird drive to get people to either join or renew their licence.  prizes to be won so do it now.  thanks to shaw at netplus microcomputers.

upcoming events – state crit titles are on in armadale this weekend.  great perth bike ride on the 21st.  challenge for some to complete, challenge for others to dodge the carnage.  our friends at the rccc are running some crits on the same day alongside the event, so those who want to race rather than mix it with the general public can also do so.  christmas breakfast on the 4th dec. not that close to christmas, but just trying to capture everyone while they are still here.  we will need 3 volunteers to help out on the day.

crits – the rccc (which is another club, by the way) and spr are combining together to run a crit series over summer.  we will be needing volunteers for these events and part of being a member is to also give back to the club.  this means you may be randomly selected to help out at some of these events.

ride routes – listed below.  thanks to mark h for volunteering last week.  add to the comments if you wish to volunteer to help lead a ride.  this does exempt you from the random volunteering at events like the crits and breakfasts.  also, read toby’s post about group control.  the ride leaders are there for the safety of the group as a whole.  listen to them.  or even better, volunteer to lead a group so you too can feel the frustration of trying to keep everyone happy.

saturday 13th november – all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

juniors – spr saturday 22.11km juniors (mt pleasant)

development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)

transitional 1 & 2 – spr saturday 40.86km (rebold hill)

fast, main 1 & 2 – spr saturday 50.04km (hale & ridge hill)

sunday 14th november – all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

short – spr sunday 70.93km (kahuna)

long – spr sunday 92.56km (carradine & peet)

early bird memberships

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well you all know the benefits of becoming a member of spr.  insurance coverage, great benefits at certain shops, be seen as one of the “cool kids”.  as we are coming to the end of the year, all the current memberships will run out.  if you join or renew after the 1st october, then you have a licence for the rest of 2010 plus all of 2011.  as some incentive to get people to renew before the end of year we are running an earlybird draw. 

shaw from netplus computers has donated a prize pack consisting of –

this little package lets you watch/listen to digital media through your home amp or tv.

so, all you have to do is follow this link here to our membership page and for as little as $86 (recreational licence) you can be in the draw.  all the memberships are done online through cycling australia and a notification email is sent through to the club.  as long as your notification get through to us before 1 jan, then you are in the draw.  if you have already joined/renewed since the 1st october, then you are automatically in the draw.

good luck. (thanks to south west club for the idea)

swcc news

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south west cycle club suffered a loss yesterday with one of their riders being killed while riding home from work.  darren strudwick was a well liked and respected member of their club and our condolences go to his family, friends and club. 

we have a good relationship with the south west club as we share very similar views on how a club should be run and what our goals are.  we hope that they can get through this tough time and rally together to support each other. 

we have been very lucky in the last 6 years that i have been here, that we haven’t had to deal with anything this serious.  however, it is a reminder of just how fragile we are out there on the roads and we must not put ourselves at a higher risk than we need to.  keeping the group together is a good way to maintain our presence on the road as individual riders risk having cars try to squeeze past.  if you are riding solo to work, etc, then make sure you make yourself known (i.e. all black at night is just asking for trouble), don’t do anything silly and use the bike path during peak hour if you can.

take care out there.

ride routes 6th & 7th nov

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november kicked off with a bang.  torrential rain in melbourne and 36 degrees here.  there was a race that stopped a nation and the betting agencies were run off their feet.  it made me wonder if cycling was more heavily bet on, would it increase it’s popularity.  keiren racing in japan is a big business and it basically attracts crowds like a horse race.  betting is all part of the event and the riders are treated like stars.  in europe, they run 6 day events at the track and there is live bands and hours of entertainment.  here, track racing is relegated to the suburbs and road racing is sent well out of town.  i don’t think we can ever be as popular as footy and cricket, but a higher profile for some of our events wouldn’t hurt.  the track gpis coming up soon and if you haven’t been to one before, it is well worth the admission.  a whole bunch of international riders come along and you will see racing at a whole different level.

movember –there are four of us currently growing the bad porn star mo for an spr team for movember.  here is a link to the movember page where you can donate to the cause.  if you don’t donate, i will leave the mo on for another month.

tuesday training ride –well the mob has spoken.  a split is needed, but we will need to play it by ear for a few weeks till we get it right.  this coming week we will use the odds and evens approach.  either house numbers or birthdays.  i will make it up on the day.  normal tuesday group rules will still apply, so keep it together and regroup when needed.

ride routes –so after the feedback from the blog, we have trans 1 & 2 doing the same distance again.  this is what the group wants so i am all for making the group happy.  fast/main will be doing the river route in preparation for those that are doing the great perth bike ride in a few weeks.  mike has put a call out for juniors this weekend, so see how we go for numbers.  he is a teacher and so has all the working withchildren checks and is an athletics coach, but i think you need to still supervise your kids initially until you are both satisfied that they can cope in the group.  i also don’t want to burden mike as he is theonly qualified person to be able to do it week after week.  we will see how it goes.  also, if you are keen to help out leading a group, add your name to the comments.  leon and jordan did it last week and it was really appreciated.

saturday 6th november – all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

juniors – spr saturday 22.11km juniors (mt pleasant)

development group – spr saturday 35.48km (novice shelley)

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

fast, main 1 & 2 – spr saturday 50.97km (river ride)

sunday 7th november – all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

short – spr sunday 61.14km (welshpool & weir rd)  following long course out to the hills

long – spr sunday 101.86km (welshpool & mundaring & kalamunda)

movember – spr mo-team

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so movember has started and i have a poor attempt at a mo happening.  since i only started shaving daily at the age of 35, it will probably take me all month to get any real coverage.  the spr movember site can be found here and we need you to donate to the cause.

the team currently consists of myself, julian, andrew, carlos and nigel. 

we will keep you posted and continue to hassle you to donate.

atta – champion lakes 31st oct

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so, while the sunday hills bunch were waiting for me to turn up, i was having a leisurely start to the morning after a late one at brendon and jody’s wedding.  this really meant starting 1/2 hour later as i was still on the road by 7:30.  my road, however, was a bike path as i made my way down to armadale to get to champion lakes.  as the race was only 20kms. i didn’t want to drive down so decided to ride down and back to 1. warm up the legs and 2. get extra km’s in on the way home.

with the backpack on containing extra water and a sperm helmet, i headed off to jump on the bike path.  this was pretty busy so used it as my warm up drafting, chasing and overtaking other riders.  eventually got to armadale road where i got off and into a block headwind.  crap.  was hoping my 9:19 start time meant that the wind had died down a bit.  not so and it was a hard slog to get to lake drive.  finally got to the start after my 1 1/4 hour warm up (with efforts) so thought that i should be right.

jono, ash and nick were there having competed earlier in the day.  this was my first atta as the other time trials i had been in were part of the state champ titles and were run through cycling wa.  registration is pretty easy.  find a race you like from their website, put your name down at least a couple of weeks before, turn up on the day, pay you $10 and get a number and transponder.  since this was my first atta, i thought you should read nick’s experience a few years ago.  expect some similarities.

the earlier times were up and there weren’t many pb’s on the board.  jono had ripped up a 29:52 (ave 40.2 kph), nick a 30:32 (ave 39.3 kph) and ashley posted a 31:40 (ave 37.9 kph).  now the thing with ashley is that he doesn’t have all the fancy gear.  no tt bike, skinsuit or sperm helmet so i had all this advantage over him.

i lined up behind jeff from cyclebuzz after we watched someone dramatically dismount (read: crash) when finishing their final lap.  there is this grassed area to the left that you are supposed to take to avoid the starting riders or continuing riders.  the exit off the path is a little bumpy so i thought i better be careful there.  already thinking about the finish was probably not the best place to be when i hadn’t even started yet.

the wind seemed to actually pick up a bit and jeff and i commented that it must just be a gust.  watching his disc wheel get pushed around wasn’t really that inspiring and i didn’t really think that it was just a gust.  jeff was off and i moved forward ready to go a minute later.  the 5km course meant that there were multiple riders on the course at any one time and so before i took off, a number came past the start line.  so now i had riders that were on their third or final lap in front of me and jeff somewhere up ahead.  ten seconds to go, a quick look behind to make sure i wasn’t going to get taken out by an overtaking rocket, and i was off. 

i had never riden the course before but had been warned that the east side contained a number of twists and bends.  one in particular needed a handful of brake to stop you being ejected into the lake.  there was already a skid mark there from earlier in the day.  the western side of the course was dead straight and even had the meter-age along the side for the rowing course.  the two ends were short enough to not really matter.

i successfully negotiated the twists and turns and managed to not end up in the lake.  davina had also warned me about a number of manhole covers after the tight corner and these made you select your line early to avoid an uneven ride.  turned the corner at the end and got hit by the cross wind coming off the water.  this end that was too short to matter was mattering.  even worse was when you past by the structure which blocked the wind for a second so you got hit with it again.  on the back straight and i could see all the way along and a number of riders ahead.  the wind was pretty much just straight in your face and i started to feel it in my legs.  damn, this was only the first lap.  i had to make a concerted effort to keep my head looking up to prevent my sperm helmet from becoming an air brake and my chiro told me off a few days later.  i managed to overtake a rider or two who were on their final laps, but it did make me feel like i was going faster.  right turn at the end of the straight and onto the other end that was too short to matter.  damn, there is a hill in it.  well not really a hill, but the path rises up to join the bridge from the island.  just enough to make you either push harder, or get out of the saddle to maintain speed.  i stayed seated as it is all about being aero.  onto the tailwind section and the speed increase was a welcome relief.  as i was still on the first lap, i was still learning the circuit.  a couple more twisty sections and i was back at the startline.  07 min 55 sec.

the next lap was a bit better as i started to learn the circuit.  knew where to brake and when not too and started trying to find the best line through some of the corners.  the wind wasn’t letting up and i was also drinking quite a bit of water.  07 min 49 sec.

third lap and things were starting to hurt.  things like legs mostly.  the wind made it a struggle on the back straight but i thought i got through the technical section well.  i had to just keep on pushing and realised i was hanging out for the last lap.  07 min 50 sec.

so the riders on the course were also changing by this time.  the earlier ones had finished and were replaced by the later starters.  i was passed by a couple of strong boys with their carbon discs whoosh whooshing as they flew past.  i didn’t care, i just wanted to finish now.  made it onto the back straight for the last time and was determined to give it a good hit out.  unfortunately this was about the time i had my little vomit burp.  ok, back off for a sec so that i don’t actually spew.  i had hit red line and there is always that period of time where you can either explode or recover.  i was hoping for recovery.  i didn’t have a heart rate monitor or bike computer on so had no idea of what speed i was averaging or even worse, how much i was slowing down now.  i think i mentally gave up about then and just drifted along for a bit before i got my head back in the game.  there was less than half a lap to go and there would be lots of time to spew after i finished.  i picked my pace up again and finally got to the end.  08 min 08 sec.

damn it, i had dropped 18 sec from just losing interest on teh last lap.  oh, the small spew probably didn’t help either.  so for those that can’t do the maths in their head, my final time was 31 min 42 sec (ave 37.9 kph).  so with all the fancy tt gear, i was still beated by 2 sec by ashley.  i was also junior chicked by jess allen who came in 35 sec ahead. 

so i handed my numbers back in and got ready for the ride home.  bit of food and drink before jumping in with a group which came back through thornlie rather than the freeway.

so, after all that it was actually a good event and like most things you get out what you put in.  i haven’t been doing that much tt work lately so i didn’t really go in with any expectations.  the organisation is excellent though and it does give you a good gauge of how you compare to other riders you know.  currently, i am a fair way behind but looking to improve so will be doing a few more in the future.

tuesday group ride

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we have a problem with the tuesday group ride.  it is actually one of the best problems to have.  we are too popular.  i counted close to 60 riders in the group today and that means we take up a lot of space on the road.  there were no reports of bad or dangerous riding and even though the pace was on along burke drive, there were only a handful of riders off the back. 

so, what are our options.  well, i think we need to split the group.  this mostly for safety reasons and not necessarily saying that we are a danger to each other.  the bigger group means that we take up more road which means impatient drivers will take stupid risks to save being delayed by 30 secs.  most of the busy roads we ride on are double lane and the others are fairly quiet, but this doesn’t stop idiots from trying to squeeze past the group. 

the other problem was highlighted this morning.  the group will not fit through the light changes.  this meant that a whole lot of riders went through a red light.  not a little bit of red, but a whole lot of red with plenty of time to stop.  this is a big no-no and may see you punished by going under a truck.

no how are we going to split the group???  this is where i need feedback so add to the comments below. 

do we split into –

  •  fast, main, transitional based on the saturday morning hierarchy
  • two groups of fast and main (thursday style)
  • arbitrarily split in half
  • get people to self seed (faster guys line up closer to the bridge and slower closer to the path crossing) then split
  • random number selection – odds and evens based on your birthday
  • shaved and hairy legs
  • those that have read lord of the rings and those that haven’t
  • bikes that fit the “euro rules” and those that aren’t so pretentious.

anyway, you see where it is heading.  give me a hand here.  regardless of which way we split, the rules for the ride are still the same.  ride together and regroup at the normal spots.