A fun day in Collie is on offer for those willing to have a crack at racing… whatever the grade!
A good SPR turn out is likely and we will have an SPR base camp set up on the day.
Sunday May 3rd at the respectable hour of 11.30 am!
Online nominations close on Monday 27 April
Indicate if you are coming in the comments and an SPR
race pack will be forwarded to you with all the info you need for the day
a nice jaunt close to the city on saturday with the pack splitting after about 16kms. hopefully this is enough to keep them separated, but if you are going to be in the main group, have a look at the map as i have plotted another shortcut through dalkeith to make it harder for the fast group to catch up. hopefully we will see snuggles out on the bike again.
sunday will be hills, hills and hills. included is another chance to make up your best time on the hill climb to kalamunda.
stay safe.
As my new SPR kit arrived today, I had to take it out on a tour. Customs charged me another 17.50% of the stuff’s value as it came in via Hamburg!
We still had snow over here good two weeks before and I thought I won’t be on the bike until I am back in Perth, but finally it got warm just a week before Easter. That also means cycling in shorts and without any stupid arm warmers or thick over-shoes and a beanie under the helmet. I also took the bike off the trainer now as it is much noicer to get verbal abuses by the car drivers than from the neighbours…
My roommate joined me for the ride out. He just has a touring bike, but cycles pretty well, but I couldn’t get him convinced to come to Perth instead of hiring over at the East coast from September on.
We took a slow and cruisy start through town before we turned off towards Chemnitz and then further on passing by hamlets and villages in the Northern ore mountains. There are too many cars on the side roads, so that we the streets for ourselves most of the times. Two descents and little bonus hills (I reckon peter would call them bonus hills) later we arrived at the German or at least the Freiberg version of the f_ckenberg. The inclination is about 20% (that’s what the sign says) and it might be 500 m in length. No huge competition due to the lack of KOM points. J We chose the short way back on the main street, which was actually longer than expected, but the riding was pretty exhausting as cyclists are not the most respected users of the streets this year, at least it seems like that. A short stop at the library of our university finished the ride – of course to show off with the new SPR kit!
I hope the description gave you a good picture of the tour… 😉 Take care!
Congratulations on your fine punting skills Mr Vice President. A batch of brownies will be on
it’s way to you soon!
Don’t overdo
it though… the results could be disastrous!!!
| NAME | RIDER 01 | GAP | RIDER 02 | GAP | RIDER 03 | GAP | TOTAL GAP |
| Nico | Pozzato | 00:47 | Boonen | 00:00 | Haussler | 03:13 | 04:00 |
| Paul – DID | Boonen | 00:00 | Haussler | 03:13 | Antonio Flecha | 02:14 | 05:27 |
| Errol Flynn | Pozzato | 00:47 | Boonen | 00:00 | Cancellara | 06:48 | 07:35 |
| Moggyman | Boonen | 00:00 | Antonio Flecha | 02:14 | Hincapie | 06:32 | 08:46 |
| Chuck | Cancellara | 06:48 | Hoste | 01:17 | Antonio Flecha | 02:14 | 10:19 |
| Declan | Hincapie | 06:32 | Pozzato | 00:47 | Haussler | 03:13 | 10:32 |
| Drronny | Haussler | 03:13 | Cancellara | 06:48 | Hushovd | 01:17 | 11:18 |
| Jonny Keyes | Hincapie | 06:32 | Pozzato | 00:47 | Hammond | 06:15 | 13:34 |
| Le Kuan | Haussler | 03:13 | Boonen | 00:00 | Devolder | 11:11 | 14:24 |
| Jerard | Devolder | 11:11 | Haussler | 03:13 | Pozzato | 00:47 | 15:11 |
| Rambo | Boonen | 00:00 | Devolder | 11:11 | Breschel | 05:29 | 16:40 |
| Ben | Boonen | 00:00 | Hincapie | 06:32 | Maaskant | 17:36 | 24:08 |
| Kimbo | Maaskant | 17:36 | Boonen | 00:00 | Hincapie | 06:32 | 24:08 |
| Peter Mah | Hoste | 01:17 | Devolder | 11:11 | Maaskant | 17:36 | 30:04 |
The fickle finger of fate had decided I would not go on the ride today – as my alarm had been conveniently left off.
It goes without saying that I was grateful in joining the great masses in a state of slumber on our literally God-given-public-long-weekend-holiday.
I woke again at about 8am (an unGodly hour by our standards) to face a dillema. How do I face everyone having not ridden this morning? Scarborough Beach Rd is usually a fast ride, and as it includes a longish hill, and a stretch of exposed highway, normally not one I enjoy particularly. If we had the statistical record keeping that the boys on the cricket channel have, I’m sure it rains 67.3% of the time, and I get dropped 98% of the time (both of which happened on the way to the last SPR breakfast not held at home base A.K.A. the clubhouse, A.K.A. Pete’s home. In fact I was happy not to go as I had a 58% chance of being caught at the lights on ScrBchRd (could be shortened to SBR) where you are going at 75kph after climbing the hill, and 87% chance of being yelled at by a cashed (not so under these strained financial times) up Bogan from Trigg in a Malloo ute.
Anyway I had decided to try out my new toy, and to surprise the group with some action shots. As fortune would have it I live just a stone’s throw from the route of the ride. I know how those lucky devils must feel in France come July. A short stroll would put me in perfect vantage to catch everyone as they rode past. As we live in Australia, this precludes the shirts off, spraypaint the road and running with antlers on a gridiron helmet antics. Shame, as I had just got the devil costume back from the drycleaners – they ask no questions…
A few peaceful minutes passed as I waited at the park on Victoria Ave for the SPR peloton to ride past. I took the oportunity to take a few test shots at some birds’ backsides as the flew / jogged past. I didn’t know that enjoying nature could be so revitalising!
About 10 other cycle groups had ridden past and I had almost given up hope when I saw the SPR formation crest the hill. Resplendent in team colours it was surely an impressive sight. I barely had time to click off a few frames when it was all over. My aspiration to become a sporting photographer was looking like by hopes of becoming a half decent cyclist. Alas it in actuality is much harder than it seems. Those shots you see in magazines or on the web must either:
1) Be staged
2) Be the result of extraordinary luck
3) Represent 0.0000001% of all usable shots – the rest being boring / out of focus / got the wrong cyclist / blurry etc..
4) Be the result of imense talent (which obviously must take some work to get)
Anyway:
As I reviewed my pictures I contemplated – what other extravagant equipment could help redress my lack of talent (see the parallells with cycling?), and if my wife would go for getting a motorbike license so I could perch on the pillion in front of the group (so much easier than actually riding on the front of the group). My musings were cut short by a phonecall from Christophe which started with the usual “Bonjour Melvyn, how are you today?”. The next “What are you doing this morning? There has been a bad crash”. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight – that was not really what I wanted to hear. Needless to say I drove over as soon as I could to find thankfully only superficial scratches on the bikes………………. and more importantly seemingly minor injuries on the riders. The events around the crash will be discussed again and again I’m sure. They include a gumnut, about 5 bikes, and a small quantity of blood. Luckily the do not involve anything like plaster / slings – or worse – an emergency call to PBK on Easter weekend. It must be said that it sounds like the events were unavoidable misfortune.
I will make a plea (to be serious, at the peril of sounding like a nanna), to all cyclists, as the most vulnerable of road users, that as we enjoy the privilege and cameraderie of competing in our sport, that we don’t lose sight of what is really important especially during these holiday times – staying safe.
Oh, and looking stylish whilst doing that.
Le Kuan
ride report by peter.
a brief summary of the ride up until the interesting bit:
ok here is what i can gather what has happened.
we were starting to wind it up to go up the small rise along this stretch so the pace was not immense, but high enough so that people were starting to push. the road was straight and relatively clear of obstacles, bar a gum-nut (or a honkey-nut as the sandgropers call them). john’s front wheel hit the nut and flicked the handle bars around causing him to topple straight onto his right side. with the pace on, the following riders had no where to go.
now i think that chris hit straight into the back of johns head, ripping his helment off and sending chris over the handlebars. ryan was taken out by johns bike and came down hard on most of his left side. jerry then also ran into the back of john and i think may have collected his unprotected head with his chain ring. brett pulled evasive action to avoid hitting ryan and john’s bike by jumping the kerb, while russell also went to the kerb and stopped when his groin hit the head stem.
so, i was far enough back to not have to brake hard and i ride up to john who is still in the foetal position. i saw him get collected by jerry and was a little surprised that his helmet was off. after hearing that chris had seen fit to remove that for him with his bike, it kind of made sense. there was blood coming off the back of his head and starting to pool on the road. riders immediately dismounted and began to pick the pieces and people off the road. luckily there was no traffic around us at the time or it could have made it worse.
we got john off the road and in less than 30 sec, he was asking about his bike. trying to tell him to not worry about the bike as there was blood coming out of his head. jerry was in a pretty bad way as well and had coped a fair blow to his nose. chris reckoned that he was ok and i didn’t even realise that he had gone down at first. ryan had a nice chainring imprint on his back where a bike had landed on him. most of the guys had fair chunks of skin off and a lot of claret was going to waste.
as we congregated on someone’s front grass, some of the neighbours came out to see what was going on. it turns out that dr mark knew one of the ladies and she was a nurse. a few old towels were brought out to stem the flow and we thank them for their assistance. john had called his wife to come and pick him up and unfortunately i did not get to hear that conversation, although i have a fair idea what it would sound like. jerry, however, would not ring his wife and went the second option of ringing melvyn as he only lives around the corner. he was out taking pictures of the group so was not far away when it happened. just the wrong spot for a true money making action shot. anyway, if jerry’s son james is reading this, tell your mum that the accident was a lot worse than your dad probably said it was. there was blood everywhere.
we sent the majority of the group on towards the coffeeshop so that there was not such a large group of people standing around not knowing what to do, while about ten of us stayed with the injured.
so melvyn came to pick up jerry and he also took john and his family back to his place for some running medical repairs. after doing the same for lorraine a few weeks ago, it seems that he may need to set up a 4077 MASH headquarters in his garage. however, we thank him for looking after the guys when they needed it. chris and ryan were ok to ride back to the coffeeshop, although i suspect that chris was a bit worse off than he claimed to be.
so, some of you may ask why should we report on something like this as it may make our club seem “unsafe” or “dangerous”. well the fact of the matter is that what we do has an element of risk about it and sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do there is something as small as a gumnut that can take you down. the important thing for our group is how well we deal with it and how well we look after the other riders. our group has been involved in a few crashes recently in some of the races that we have been doing and that is always a risk. in our training rides we try to minimise the risk and splitting the group is one way of doing that. we didn’t split on this ride, but the gumnut didn’t discriminate either. knowing who you are riding with and making allowances for others behaviour is also a way that we can keep things safe. you don’t always get this at races as you may only see the same people once every few months. however, there are certain behaviours that we shouldn’t tolerate, so if you think that someone is putting you at risk, then have a word to them, or let me know and i can try to rectify it. keeping the ride as safe as possible is our number one priority and i think that this is shown by the attitude of the group when it comes to avoiding running lights and knowing when to push the pace up.
anyway, i hope that the injuries heal quickly and that there is little damage to those expensive machines that they were on. i think that the incident showed how well the family pulls together and i thank those involved for their efforts. stay safe.
The 2009 Paris-Roubaix will be televised this Sunday night, April 12th on SBS at 10.10pm
Next to the Tour de France Paris Roubaix is the race all riders would love to win.
The 260 kilometre race is the most prestigious single-day professional bicycle road race on the calendar, held in northern France and starting in Compiègne, the race finishes in Roubaix, near the Belgian
border.
Must see viewing for all cycling fans. So, get a nanna nap in first or set your DVD recorder… but don’t miss it!
Who do you think will take it out this year???
Put
your pick for the top 3 places in the comment section below.
Whoever chooses the 3 riders with the lowest total aggregate time will win a batch of famous SPR BROWNIES!!!
a long weekend used to mean an extra few days of riding for me. now it means extra time to do stuff around the house (that does not involve bikes in any way shape or form). so, if you have just got up on friday morning and are wondering if there is a ride on, the answer is yes, so hurry up and get down to the start.
saturday we will have a crack at an old favourite of scarborough beach rd. we will split but do practically the same circuit. once we hit the usual fast section of scarbs rd, the fast group will smash it and the main group can form up and start their roll throughs. anyone dropped by the fast group can then rejoin the main group for the remainder of the ride. there is a few extra k’s thrown in to the fast groups route, so not sure how it will end up.
sunday is the tour of the forgotten climbs. last time i did this one i sliced my tyre open coming through vic park and had to abort. hopefully i can be there for the famous “chookenberg” climb which will make you wish you were on a mountain bike.
monday being a public chocolateday, i mean, holiday will have another lap of the river. same time, same place, come and burn off all the egg based fun you indulged in over the weekend.
Just a quick note (from Steve) to say thanks for people dropping in and calling for best wishes with his recent back surgery (shaved disc in his spine basicaly, wont even try to say more)
But in true SPR style manages a smile and dons the hat fresh out of surgery!
After visiting him in hospital I am happy to stay he is doing great and should be back to hurting us on the bike in no time. (But I am glad to be able to put the hurt on him until he gets back to ful speed hehe).
See you on the road soon mate.
Brendan
