Holy crap that Sunbury ride sounds kick arse! I love the Woodend/Macedon area - beautiful part of the world - and 90kms @ 25km/h is doable even by my crappy standards. I might try and tee that up for next weekend, coz this weekend I can only go out on Saturday.

HDTVKSS - Yep, that's an article on me from last year I think. I'm the guy at the top on the full susser. Thylacine frames start from about A$1995 depending on model, so next time you're feeling rich, who ya gunna call?

G'day,

Bike shop gear?....nah, I'm lucky enough to have a personal sponsor, (The Adventure Travel Company, Sth Melbourne...looking to take in Le tour in 2005?..contact David Ollie), or we just wear the club gear, or whatever happens to be clean!...nothing flash about these guys!....thats why we can't go to beach Rd, If your knicks don't match your jersey or your socks....the fashion police give ya a ticket & colour charts....its a bit of 'queer eye for the cycling guy'! .......& me with luminous yellow shoes, (hey, they were cheap alright!)

cheers,

hitchy

Hitchy, you're trying to compare Sundbury/Woodend to the AWESOME Beach Road, especially as you 'only' average 25kph. My granny averages that!!

When I'm not riding the 'hills' in my garage on my indoor mag trainer, I'm belting along Beach road @ 35 - 40 kph.

G'day wattsy,

Lol...you betta get your granny to give me some lessons then......anyway, it must be really hard riding hills in your garage with the heater on!...lol. I can see you know.....fluffy pink slippers, blanket wrapped around you, beanie on....panting away up 'Alpe D'magtrainer'...lol......speaking of Beach Rd, who's up for the 'Hell Ride' saturday morning. The coaching nazi has it on my program again!....will be riding from Pt. melbourne to warm up & then into it at 7.00.....c'mon wattsy, out from under the doona!....531 is no help, he's just getting home from the pub at that hour!,

cheers,

Hitchy

LOL Hitchy,

Hell Ride...Hell NO!! I've ridden it a few times and don't feel comfortable with this pack. It's a little too agressive to other road users for my liking. Having said that I will be riding with the 'Brumbies' group on Sunday Morning. I pick them up at the Black Rock clock tower at 7.40am and ride to Frankston,up the hill and back to Sandy. All up about 65k's at usually a healthy pace of 31 - 33 kph.

BTW, you forgot to mention the TV with the remote valcroed onto the handlebars to change channels...

Sponsor?!?!? Wow, you must be a semi neo quasi part-time pro!!

Ok then, LOOK OUT (I hope Wattsy's not one of these guys )......
Talk about Beach Road poseurs (that's French, for "poseurs"), I deliberately wear non-matching gear, and try hard to wear my 1980s Gatorade top as much as possible.

But what really gets me is these guys who ride around wearing "shop gear", pretending to have a sponsorship, and pretending to be riding in teams.
I'm sure some of them have real sponsorships, some of them have quasi sponsorships (where they get 5% off tyres, but still pay full price for the clothes), but most of them, I'm sure, have NOTHIN', and cruise around thinkin' they're Baden bloody Cooke.

So, who's gear is the worst. I think the Fitzroy Cycles gear is a bit drab, but the Pro Motion gear is too shiny. I like the Richmond Cyclery gear

Like I said, the speed of Beach Road is too hard to resist.

I only live 9km from the beach, so I can knock off 50 or 60km in better than even time, and be back in time to watch The Simpsons

Bugger me!! A training ride that leaves from Sunbury!!???
I've lived there 5 years and seen about 3 cyclists. (Not counting guys older than me in Korn T-shirts and No Fear caps riding 20 inch BMXs)

might have to latch onto this....

Hope I'm not the only still up watchin' the time trial

Hi everyone,

I'll be in Sydney at the end of next week - my first time to Australia.

It looks like Centennial Park is a good place to rent bikes and ride. Any other suggestions? Any recommendations on where to stay/where to eat/what to do?

Thanks!

I'm in Melbourne, so I'm not a great help, but from what I know Centennial Park is the hot spot.

I just wanna know why you're coming in winter? It'll be a be cool for a Nothern Californian

United is having a crazy sale on airfare ($600 r/t including taxes and fees), and the 10-day weather forecast is showing mid-70s.

7 days and counting...!!

Actually, it probably will be mid 70s, it might even crack 80 if you're lucky, while we're lucky to get mid 50s .

There's a little bit of rain around:
https://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR032.loop.shtml

G'day Ed,

You'll be more than welcome If you want to come down. Leaves 'Pedallers West' (Horne st & gap rd) at 8 am every Sunday. About 90 km easy pace, (most of the guys are using it as a 'recovery session from racing on Sat),cafe stop about half way....I'll probably be there this week...look forward to seeing you maybe,

cheers,

Hitchy

Hi allison,

like 531, I'm in melbourne, (800km Sth), so I can't help you much with ridin' info about 'sin city'. Hope you have a blast while you're here though,

cheers,

Hitchy

thanks Hitchmeister....weather is looking a bit dodgy this weekend (BOM map, 531Aussie??) but i'll defnintely make an appearance in the coming weeks.


Around the Bay in a Day is looming and once again all the part-timers in the office have ganged up on me to provide traning advice. Better be fit enough to get through it or I won't be able to show my face in the tea-room!!

is there a winter in sydney? i think we had 1 or 2 " wintery " days but it seems like the endless spring at the moment!

piss off!

Yeah, how 'bout last Saturday?!?! 7 or 8 degrees for most of the afternoon, and wet

Coldest August day in something like 27 years

Evil Belgian weather.

G'day,

7 or 8 deg.! .......I wish!, we raced in the hills outside Broadford on Sat. arvo. The outside temperature guage on the car said 2 deg when we arrived.....& things got worse!.....I actually burnt myselff in the shower afterwards. I was so cold, I couldn't feel how hot the water was on my skin.....it looks like sunburn on my back!....ahh Melbourne winters, ya gotta luv 'em!. Still could be worse....(I'm just not sure how!),

cheers,

Hitchy

well i dunno i walked round at lunch today in the saun at what was it bout 20 - 25 od degrees, didnt seem to wintery to me!!

Help a brother out fellas. Getting into road riding after MTBing for year. Also got two mates getting into it as well. We've got an eye on doing the RTA big ride from Mt Kosiousko next feb. Anyway, we all went into the local and were dismayed to find that they hardly had any road bikes. My mates who know less about bikes than even me made the mistake of saying that they didn't know how to judge a bike but if there was a good reason for spending $5k then they'd spend it. Anyway, yesterday had to get the rear wheel on my mountainbike trued after a blowout (damn things flat spotted and will need to be replaced ). Anwyay, go into the store and what do you think they have on display? Nothing other than a Cannondale Six13 for $5.5k, a Giant TCR 2 Composite for $4.5k and a Specialized Roubaix Comp for $4.5k. Now bugger me but I fell in love with that Specialized on the spot. I know it's twice my budget (haven't had a haggle yet though) but I LOVE it! Now unfortunately for me I can easily afford it but am still wary of spending so much.

So tell me fellas. Any opinions on a Specialized Roubaix Comp? Would I be doing my dough as the money would be better spent on something else? (BTW, most of my riding I want to go fast, but I'll also be going long at the same time on some fairly coarse stoned roads. I'm not racing either, but it could happen in the future if my love affair grows).

I haven't looked into all those bikes yet, but I'm sure you don't have to spend that much to get something fantastic. Try offering 4.5K for the Roubaix Pro -- that would be a reasonalbe price.

There's obviously several options, and too many to list, but........

If you have someone that knows a lot about bikes, they could help you get something 2nd hand. There's some absolutely amazing bargains in the trading post (https://www.tradingpost.com.au/) -- just think of all those people who buy bikes with good intentions, then realize it's actually hard work.
In my opinion, it's even worth paying a bike shop guy to check out a bike for you, just like the RACV do for 2nd hand cars.

However, if you want to buy new, and get the benefits of a warranty and follow-up servicing, etc, I would be getting all three of you guys together, and try and haggle a great deal on a "three bikes at once" sale.

There are 2004 Giant TCR Composite 2 (carbons with Ultegra) selling for around $3000, which is very cheap for carbon bike. Hitchy said that there are some shops in Sydney selling them for $2700!!
The Specialized looks to be a very similar bike for much more money. I'm not sure how the Roubaix frame compares to other carbon frames.

I'll look into the Cannondale.