G'day 531,

yeah & reynolds 531 is now 853...sad isn't it....lol...try here http://www.bikepro.com.au/road/road_parts.html

can't vouch for how good the Selcofs are....email carl, he'll give you an honest appraisal.

cheers,

Hitchy

Thanks, Hitchyoh.

That's right. In about 1992 I bought my Cinelli bars and stem for $110!! I still use them on one one my bikes.

I saw some non-anatomical ITM Pro 260s for about $140, which is about the absolute maximum I would spend on a short tube of aluminium.

Why is it that a good percentage of pros use non-anatomical bars, but you can hardly find any in the shops? :mad:

I'm still envious of that EOS 7,815,154 that you got for a song. I've probably seen you "cuttin' it up" on Beach Road with all the other Beach Road Bullies.

531...you are a man I respeck! I had to wait ages for a pair of ITM 260s classic bend in 46cm (ITM measure o-to-o + wide shoulders) for the Scapin...and then mate them to a Millenium stem. I hate anatomic bars....ggrrrr. I hear ITM make classic curve bars custom for Brad McGee.

I'll have to post some bike pics and yes....Beach Rd is about all I can manage these days!!

g'day,

speaking of beach rd.....the 'coaching nazi' has the 'hell Ride' on the agenda this weekend. Anyone up for it?. He's keen to drive me especially hard cos I got 'shelled' yesterday at the state titles at Dookie & had to ride the last 50km by myself......even the corner marshalls had gone home by the time i got there...lol...as punishment for this racing 'indiscretion'.....out front driving the 'hell ride' for hitchy this week!.....I quite often ask myself why?....but hey...why not!,

cheers,

Hitchy

Hell Ride + breakfast on Lygon + Mt Dandy = good traning day.
Puts a bit of goodness into the legs for Glenvale Cres on Sunday morning.

John Kennedy had some 40cm ones (or 42s maybe) sitting in his shop for ages; they still might be there.

I hate ergo bars too. I can't believe the hype. Probably just because I've had traditional bars for so long.

G'day Ed,

the 'nazi' has me down to be doing this Glenvale cres gig on 3/10. he reckons its the quickest crit around, (as in most competitive)...he's looking for the speed factor in the legs the week b4 Warnie....so whats it like?......a bloody 'cut lunch & a compass' from Sunbury!

cheers,

hitchy

About 12 years ago I did a very tight "shopping strip" criterium with very sharp corners, in Croydon or Bayswater, or somewhere, and I had no idea. There was stone paving and everything. So, I got dropped after about three laps (back at VFL park the first 10kms used to be a "warm-up" by comparison), then I tried to figure out a way of sneaking back to the start line to return my number without anyone seeing me :D

That used to be the main motivation; put in, or else you'll be dropped, and all those people at the start/finish line will no about it. At least if the Hell Ride spits you out the back, you can sneak down a side street. :)

G'day,

don't i know it!...At dookie yesterday, as usual, they swapped my licence for a number & frame No before the race...which meant't i had to swap back afterwards. Anyway, I'm walking back to the marshalling table clutching the number & this lady yells out, "wait a minute, here he comes...about time"!......like I didn't know i was last!...on the plus side though, everyone else that got shelled were DNF's & had already handed theres in...I was silly enough to stay out there & finish the race,

cheers,

Hitchy

Yes...a long way from my current digs. In a previous life it was a lazy 30 minute roll on Sunday morning.

Course: classic rectangle, long front and back straights with a short drag to corner 1 after the start/finish, then slight downhill to corner two you'll hit at full tilt. Wide open roads, greatly affected by crosswinds, esp. the back straight.
If you're lucky enough to be in the front group on the bell, hit 'em with one corner to go if you are feeling good, unless you have a Graeme Brown-style kick. Sprint is long and exposed.

Training bunch normally heads down Springvale Rd to Edithvale afterwards....(A-grade finish around midday).

175km day in the bank.

[QUOTE=531Aussie]About 12 years ago I did a very tight "shopping strip" criterium with very sharp corners, in Croydon or Bayswater, or somewhere, and I had no idea. There was stone paving and everything.QUOTE]


This race sounds familiar......circa 1994-95. More details?

Yeeeeouch!

[QUOTE=ed073]Bad maths....1992?

[QUOTE=ed073]Nah, can't remember much, but it definitely wasn't that late -- it might've even been as early as 1990.

I remember them starting like rockets, and the corners were really tight and the streets were very narrow. I'm pretty crap at corners, and I'm even "crapper" at accelerating out of them, so I got dropped pretty quick.

that takes me back....my first club race was a Blackburn Cycling Club criterium in Barry St Bayswater as a juvenile in 1988. Had to get my mum to dirve me there....too far to ride!!!

Memories....

I went to Murrumbeena High, so we all grew up near the Carnegie Velodrome. Naturally my first race was at the track in about 1987 -- I didn't even know what a criterium was until about 3 months later because nobody bothered to tell me about Dunlop Road or VFL park!

the old Dunlop Rd course owns Glenvale Cres. Averaged 50kmh one day there....

WOW! I think the fastest race I did was about 45kmh at VFL Park in B grade.

One day at Dunlop Road we had one of those hot notherly cyclones blowing, and every time we had the tail wind we were doing at least 55 kmh. Then one guy stacked at this speed, landing flat on his face, and was apparently unconcious for a while. The ambulance was there for ages while we were still racing, so each lap we saw this guy flat on his back with his face covered in blood. After this I took about a month off.

Another day I was at the front of the bunch and took off with my head down and my ass up. I looked around to see absolutely no one and thought I'd blown them away, so I kept hammering. Turns out I went up the wrong street, so I turned around and spent the next five laps chasing the bunch (it was "only" B grade ;) ). When I caught the back of the group, Tony Birkett told me off, claiming I could've caused the hole pack to crash :D

Lol!!

Did you ever race there in the early 90s with big John Kennedy on his Softride, disc wheel in back, deep rim HED in the front? He was so huge (and ripped....veins on top of veins) that when he wound it up, that beam on the Softride would just bounce like a spring....

He had one of those Marx Bros horns on the h/bars and he'd give it the occaisonal squeeze for comic relief.....

Just read on Cyclingnews.com that Aaron Kemps has got a start for Quick Step in the Tour of Britain as a stagiare.

Great work Az!

Oi,

this is the 'aussie thread'....not the 'Sth eastern suburbs old boys review'......Now about the time when I was racing at melton........................


hitchy

lol!!!

Bit much, isn't it :D

After quiting for a while, I did a season in 1992 but never saw John at the track.
You can see him coming down Beach Road from about 4km away because his shoulders are 3m wide.

I never saw the Softride, but I've heard the great story about the Zipp bike and his world record. If you're ever in his shop, try to get him talking about the Zipp. It's pretty amusing how keen they were for him to use their bike, and how crap the bike was for sprinting, etc, etc.