Davo used to coach me years ago.

'We don't talk down here, we talk up here' (while holding hand close to floor, then raising to head height) was always a personal favourite of mine. :)

Jeez you blokes go on with some crap, eh?

Of course. There are standards to maintain.

Well, this is The Aussie Thread. Happy holidays to you, cobber. :beer:

Why ty. And a chortling August Bank Holiday Island to you to Expat! :beer: :beer:

yeah....that Ed bloke is a gun.

just go straight to Lance, Ivan needs some help. :p

remember the days when lights were so big that ther was NO FARKN WAY they were gunna be put on your bike? :)
Hitchy's still like that with his Look :p

you'd die if you saw mine. I've had a couple of rear lights stuff up when they fill up with water on wet days, so I have (on my BMC) my tail light permanently wrapped in plastic! I even had it on when I raced the other night :p


There's a funny Rob Crowe article somewhere on the net about all the different Freds that do the Beach Rd group rides, but I can't find it. Among heaps of other stuff, he talks about "mirror mountain" in Brighton, which is just a slight rise next to a building with reflective windows, where everybody checks themselves out......anyway, you had the be there :)

hehehe I know where that is... you have to be real careful not to get cleaned up by dudes moving off their line while they gaze at their OCP form. :)

Lights these days are pretty good sizewise. And they look better than a smashed bike coz a motorist didn't see you. besides, most of them are pretty easily removed for daytime riding, and just whack em on when you know you'll need them - Which could be mid-afternoon today, considering how friggin smoky it is outside :eek:

Shout from the back of the bunch..."Hey ***tard...you look fine. Watch the road!!"



Cracks me up everytime.

I wave to the people in the mirror who are looking at themselves, or ham it up by flexing a bi or patting my fat guts

http://galaktikal.homestead.com/files/ban.jpg

I'm half the rider I was. Funnily enough, I'm nearly twice the man......Kilo wise.:D The two points may be somewhat related.

Nah, still plenty of fatties in cricket. I used to like Derek Kickett in footy. How a bloke with that gut could play so well?

Country footy - Shane Loveless was 150kg +

Last time he played down here was for Heyfield in the nth Gippy. Dunno what they paid him but he kicked over 100. Standard in the West Gippsland/Latrobe not as good as in the past. All the young blokes go to Melbourne for work or uni now.

Saw Loveless kick 10 in a LVFL grand final in the late 80's for Sale against Morwell. Big mofo. Used to be a state champ in cycling BTW as a kid.

Some good footy players from out of Gippsland. Quinlan, Templeton, Royal, Dear.

what's the deal with you dudes starting to keep my sort of hours??!:p
go to bed!! Are you guys on holidays? I'm going to walk me dog while listeing to
my tape of Sports Tonight. I'm such a geek!!

last time I raced i went to the trouble of taking off my lights and pump, and carefully stashing them near the start line, then I get in the race and I'm sitting behind some dude with bloody lights on his bike!!! So, I thought, fark it!! :p i thought in the old days we weren't allowed to leave pumps on our bikes, but I dunno

A, B and C grade races are usually 1hr + 3 laps, but Thursay's race (A-grade Vets) was pretty much bang on 1 hr. Maybe it was cut a bit short because rain was coming; I dunno, I wasn't listening at the start. :) Anyway, routinely, club criteriums are no longer than 75mins.

Warm-ups are a big problem for me; if I don't have a thorough one, and the pace is really hot at the start, I feel like complete crap for the first 30 mins. At Sandown, most guys just ride around the track at half pace for a bit, but many don't do any warm-up. I ride to the course for my warm-up, and try to do a couple of short, hard efforts to get my lungs 'lubricated' :p

If you don't like the sound of the massive Carnegie bunches (I bloody don't), St Kilda and Hawthorn are heaps smaller. Apparently, A-grade at Hawthorn often have less than 20 each week

From my limited experience in recent years with criteriums, you're lucky if the pace is moderate for anything more than the first 2km!! I reckon some dudes like to blast the cobwebs out of their legs early by shooting off the front on their own for a bit, then everyone thinks "hmmm, maybe we better chase him down just in case", then it's ON!!



you look pretty fit in them pics, so just get out there and rip it up! If I was 82kg I'd be just about getting an open Vic license!! :p

Inzamam anyone?

Yep, but it was in the younger age groups, U14 and U16. Not sure if he raced as a junior.

check out Shane Lee on that awful Ch 9 handyman show Satdee arvo....massive.

Him and Richard Chee-Quee must've been hitting yum chas all over Sydney for years!!

Richard Chee-Quee.....that's a name I haven't heard for a long time.

Never met a Szechuan banquet he didn't like....

While you are continuing your "preparation" during the year, remember two important things that you will need to be ready for when racing crits....1) Surges in pace - when attacks go, and also out of corners - they can sap your energy pretty quick if you're not used to them.....2) Bunch riding skills - hard to gain these apart from riding in a bunch.