did the parramatta CC RR at oakville yesterday and what a blast that was. didnt place anywhere but learnt more than i could have ever hoped for!

its a 7 K course wich is pretty much a fairly continuous but not terribly steep climb on one side a nice fast decent the same length ont he other side and a connecting road in the middle, so its kinda like a triangle. has the added bonus of a true uphill finish. add to this a field of 20+ and what a hoot.

remebering this is my 4th ever group ride and 2nd road race it was on from the get go and i pretty much managed to hang on for the 1st lap of 4 before i found myself on the wrong half of a fractured group. bridged from them up to another couple of riders who had jsut fallen off but they were too shattered to work togeather to bridge up so i went it alone again. i knew i was burning my matches but my main goal was to stay with the main group. as i got closer again the main group fragmented again across the line for the 2nd lap and i found myself with a group of 3 other guys. from here i had my 1st true experience of rotating pace lines. lots of fun! needs a bit of work though as i was surging at one end and loosing a bit of ground at the other. all good fun. 3rd lap and myself and a parramatta CC rider seperated from the other 2 up the climb but decided to wait for them at the top. when we got there he asked me if they were back on yet to whcih we both took a look the the middle and came v v v close to going down when we collided. mtb skills came into play there.... only one rider of the 2 gor back on and it was back to pacelining. i took a long 4 min + fast pull but mis timed getting back on the line and hence spent the remainder of my race looking at these 2 guys beinds. from aobut 10 meters back. i caught them again up the climb to the finish but went way too early + i was stuffed from trying to catch them and they passed me within meters of the line as i comprehensivley blew up.

great race, great track and really friendly bunch. even an old dude came up to me after and offered the friendly advice of " your seat is way too low on the bloody thing " which i have now corrected, but he could have told me before hand!

HR meter tells me it was a 52 min race, 176 avg HR, 207 (!! that has to be an error) max

Well done, sounds like the body is capable, just need to learn a little race craft.

Just watching the Sports show on Channel 7. Jason Kaszinski of St.Kilda was being interviewed live and then he starts slurring, then faints (fell backward on camera). They crossed back to Johanna Griggs who was just sitting there with her mouth open. She collected herself and then crossed to a break...

So the saying should be: "you can't work work with animals, children and footballers...

big night out on the town huh?

Thanks, got em from BikePro in Surrey Hills for $180. RRP was $300 so I was happy enough with the deal. Haven't done a long ride in them yet, so I won't really know how a good a deal it was until then I suppose.

Pretty much what his whole team did on Friday night! :D

Bwahahahaha...go Pies!:D :p

Good going in yer RR Commo :)

Got a question fer youse about HR. I did a 20 minute TT a couple of months ago on the trainer to try to find my LT.
I came up with an average of 153bpm - 80% MHR.

I went and did our club hillclimb this arvo - takes about 20 min to climb 4-5% gradient
and came up with an average of 159bpm - 85% MHR.

Now, knowing that I have more trouble getting my HR up on the trainer than the road, which one would reckon is more accurate?

re the biff. I was pretty grumpy, and there was a bit of loud swearing going on, but it ws never going to come to blows - not that kind of a guy. However, a guy that witnessed it grabbed me and sat me down as I think he thought it was going to get a bit rough. He told the driver to go sit in her car for a few minutes :D

Without a road bike I went for a MTB ride over in Rotorua today with the lads. We did 3.5 hrs in the Redwoods - 2C when we headed out and it got up to about 9C max. Brrr! I managed one OTB crossing a log and used a tree to slow down at one point as well. As one of my mates said, if you're going to crash into a tree, pick a soft one :p

Anyone else ready for tonight?

I have my Croatia jersey on. We have Aussie flags that my kids are playing with and both Oz & Cro junior balls going aroun the lounge room.

Be a different story next week though. Tonight we have 2 games to win.

Hope you all had/still have a good weekend.

As an employer, all I can say is don't get too smahed and not turn up to work tomorrow.:D :D

Oh, I also scored a second hand pair of Shimano MTB shoes for a coffee. My mate bought them from the Salvation army store for $5 but they were too small - my size perfectly.

I'd go by the road coz with the indoor heat can distort HR readings. My HR will go up to 120 just sitting in a sauna!!

how did you test your max? The '220 - age' method isn't suitable for a racing cyclist; it's just a safe method for fat old blokes joining a gym after not exercising for 40 years. It takes a while to get to know exactly the relationship between your HR and the different situations on the bike.

153 to 159 sounds very, very low for a time-trial type workout, but you never know, you could have a very low max. Regardless, it has nothing to do with power output. Most people's max is over 189, and most racing riders' maximium sustainable HR for time-trials would be more like 92% to 96%, when they're in shape. Armstrong's max is 201, and his time trial HR was 188 to 192. Triathletes often ride at lower HRs than this coz they have to conserve for the run.

Whats happening?









































;)

you heard all the dumb bogans on sport radio talkback trying to say "Croatia"? They say "Creatia" or "Coratia" :p

I got my max from a 'too early' sprint at Dunlop Rd - 190bpm.
Maybe that's why I'm **** at TT's. :D
I was surprised today at 159 cos the few times I actually looked at my HRM, it was in the mid 160's.
I averaged 94% MHR in a crit against A graders fer 30 minutes, but that just felt like an insane effort, and nothing I've come close to since.
I'm not exactly in fantastic shape at the moment what with having so many colds/flu over the last few months, but I thought my legs were coming back... and I wanted to see if I'd chuck again.

I think Cadel's about to win the final TT in the TdeSuisse! Just wooped Cancellara by a minute. And it looks like Ullrich cracked when a storm hit

woops got that wrong. Jan nailed it. Beat cadel by 23s. Second's alright though, after third yesterday. Cadel should be on track for a great July.
And Jan got Gil by more than the 50s he needed so he wins GC again. Well done. Hell he looked ragged wrestling it up a hill at maybe 60rpm. Obviously still fast enough though. Excellent portents for the TdF.
Bring it on.

Had the folks over this weekend, so no sportage for me. Was there any cycling on SBS yesterday? How did we go against the brazilians last night? Did we get waxed or wot?

*edit* Ah, thats why things are quiet about that. Oopsies. Ah well........let's just blame the fact that we had to wear navy ay? :)

woz BRA 1-0 AUS early in second half, then ended up BRA 2-0 AUS after a late goal by one of their subs (named FRED!!!?!? WTF?) who wandered onto a goalpost rebound for a classic toe-poke.

Aussies were throwing everyone forward which meant they totally opened up whenever Brazil countered. IMHO they were lucky not to end up 6 nil down. By the same token there were plenty of good attempts on goal from the Aussies that just didn't quite come off.

MotoGP....Is Marco OK??

I've just crawled out of bed. That was quite a sporting evening.. on a couch.
Our boys did great, I reckon. That game was pretty darn even right up to the 80th min when we threw eight or more blokes forward. We had just as many chances early on, but just a tad underwhelming with the finishing. Our strikes didn't look as dangerous. Still, we weren't shamed against the world champs. There's still some legs in the campaign yet.

Who saw that first corner motogp shemozzle? Holy cow.

i have the MotoGP on tape at home so ill have a look later tonight.... as for soccer, yer i still jsut fail to care! bombers 11th straight loss, that hurts :(

Marco = dislocated collar bone, mild concussion, multiple cuts and abrasions + bruising

Caparossi = badly bruised

Gibernau = minor fracture in left collar bone, larger plate going in place of existing plate. apparantly the ambulance he was in had an acca 50 meters from the hospital as well!

Dislocated collarbone and a neck injury apparently

Fellas, my new 'grocery getter' -

http://61.197.151.26/20060619148617/...1176888420.jpg

thylo, i think everyones too scared to post after that ummm thing....