Crikey!!! :eek: :D

The Peak District, the Pennines, Yorkshire Moors, Salisbury Plains, the Chilterns, Cotswolds, the list goes on ;). Not many mountains but lots of steep hills and unless you're in the norfolk/suffolk area you'd be hard pressed to be much more than an hours drive from suitable terrain. Even the fairly flat south has miles and miles of coastal paths. I can't argue with the pasty bit though :D.

... except the ones that burnt down their houeses

you could always buy a chemical fire extingusher. But you would probably still want to move after you put the fire out.

Hang on, Kabush had a big stack at Lysterfield? What? Bwahahaha!

Track ain't that hard, AND the guy is riding an FS!

And as for the Poms, mate, England is a harsh place to ride. Brecon Beacons, parts of Wales...so steep you can't even WALK up. You don't need massive mountains to be a good cycling nation. Hello? Australia? :rolleyes:

I want to credit card mountain bike tour the Pennine Way. Ride yourself silly during the day, Stay in an 16th century pub and drink Stones' Bitter all night.

Perrrrrfection!

Have fun!

its all relative, only takes a minor mistake to end up OTB. example, the weekend, just dropped concentration for a second and ended up otb. from what the pros were saying, Lysterfield is quite un - techy, but that means the faster you go the cleaner you have to get it to make it fast which is the big challenge. ive never ridden there so i really dont know, mot race courses in and sydney are quite technical.

Can't say I've ever had Stones on tap but the canned stuff used to be cheap. Once you get into Yorkshire though the real beer starts. Hmm Theakstons. I'm not sure if you're allowed to bike the Pennine Way though there is a largely parallel Pennine Cycleway that goes from Derby to Berwick. You've given me an idea of what to do the next time I visit home.

You'll be fine in C Group, but you'll know you're alive halfway up the second climb.

On your first ride just pace yourself. The group always waits for the 'fallen'. By the time you've done it 2 or 3 times you'll start to get the hunger to be more competitive on the climbs. And that's what the rides are about: measuring your improvement against your fellow riders.

The ride is only 2 hours and averages a tad under 30kmh for C Group. 30-35kmh is quite easy in the group, the hard parts are the numerous climbs and rises. All good fun

speaking of those guys (Peleton sports), anyone have an e-mail contact for the web leader or someone who can put up the info about our 2006 road calendar. The new website thing they have going on is hard to use.

well im averaging around 30 kph on the M2 at the moment, not that thats really hilly, but i figure i can probably manage more than that in a group.

i guess im mostly nervy about riding on somones wheel when ive had no expereince at it. is the best thing to do there to stay up the back of the group?

whats the story with the ground up at lysterfield? a lot of the pics look like its crushed rock / gravel that doesnt look natural?

mail@turramurracyclery.com.au is a good start, im not sure of any addresses that go to the race comittee guys.

Bit crusty in the office today.....Kanye West last night.

Probably the best gig I've seen. The guy is a serious talent.

from what ive seen in interviews, you dont even have to ask him and hell tell you all about how good he is!

Crushed granite. What we've yet to realise here in Australia because we're so backward, is that if you get a stack of people riding a completely 'natural' track, it's actually not sustainable. Very quickly you start to run into run-off and errosion problems, and as we don't have the infrastructure nor the volunteer base (when was the last time any of us did any trail maintenance?), very soon (or not, as the case my be) you have an environmental disaster area.

I wish the gromits and freeride idiots woke up and realised that. It's a real bone-of-contention with me.

Anyway, the Lysterfield track is designed to be sustainable. It has swales, run-off trenches, and crushed granite in the high wear areas. It's not a pristine virgin singletrack adventure, but it's still a fun track in some nice bush that's definitely worth riding. Its only a part of a wider trail network too, which is another bonus.

3 million bucks well spent, I reckon.

Oh yes.....rates himself fairly highly.

+1

Excellent postage.

WTF is a swale ?

Either someone from Swaziland :D


or part of Kent in England.

That sounds made up, or is it the aussie shortend way of saying it?

Everything 'round here is either solid or crushed granite... my fence posts are dyna-bolted into it :D

Yup, I've been sneaking across the road fer a squizz since they started building it and have to agree 100%. There were a lot of people *****ing about some of the old trails being closed off etc but FFS, look what we've got now.

It's natural selection in action - the ones that are left have got the technology nailed!!!

or "bonus contention", as Alan Martello says :)

how does Festival Hall look these days?

have they done it up?