more praise for ya thylacine:
and it came from Velocity Aerohead rim failure (with pictures) thread out of ss/fg too

Sea Otter RR, we are all over this one !!

Results
1 Matty Rice (Aus) Jelly Belly 2.50.17
2 Karl Menzies (Aus) Health Net presented by Maxxis 0.03
3 Caleb Manion (Aus) Jelly Belly 0.05
4 Jackson Stewart (USA) Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada
5 Gustavo Dominguez (Spa) ORBEA
6 Andrew Bajadali (USA) Jelly Belly
7 Xabat Otxotorena (Spa) ORBEA 0.06
8 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 0.12
9 Iker Mezo (Spa) ORBEA 0.39
10 Doug Ollerenshaw (USA) Health Net presented by Maxxis 0.46

woo hoo, 1st win today in D grade at WSMTB lead out from the start and tried to build a bigish lead in the 1st lap. not having lead like that before i found it hard to know how fast to go. anyhoo, half way through the 2nd and final lap i could see a guy was cathing me, so i eased it up a bit and let him get on. was also getting cauught in some traffic. i was faster uphill, he was faster downhill so i was pretty sure he wasnt going to get too far away, either way he sat in behind and took the tow, wich didnt bother me as i could dictate the pace.

theres about a 3\4 of a k long single track climb to the start line so i figured that was my chance. i made a small break and then got held up by a day dreaming c gradercalled track and got past and line dup for what was going to be my 1st sprint to decide a race, gave it heaps then had to negotiate a single speeder, took the inside line, which was really tight, as did he, i kinda cut him off, but meh thats racing and sprinted over for a win by a centimeter!

stoked

Well done mate
Feels good dunnit?

sure does was actually ironic, but me and my mate had been out there last sunday practicing the exact same ending to a race, but with me taking the lead out instead! so at least i knew what the other guy was potentially seeing

Congrats to all! I spent the weekend painting still the end is in sight, just in time for road season... oh and baby making an appearance

Hey Thunder, what about boonen getting 2nd in PR? if that aint a rort I dont know what is, they reckon the chase group went under the barrier before the train, boonens group went under the barrier after the train. whats the ruling? 3 DQ's boonen gets 2nd.
Lets stir up Walter again!

yeah, the Discovery train derialed too, they had three up there and a numerical advantage before the gates went down with Hincapies steerer.

Don't know about the DQ yet, but Cancellara, in Riis' hands, future tour winner, Indurain style.

Hey Oz, have you been down to Casey Fields yet? I went fer the opening on Sat morning. Nice track... pity about the wind.
We had to ride behind the mayor fer a lap (used bike clips on his pants ) with the EVCC president the whole time saying "c'mon, lead me out... I can take him"

Link to map
It's a bit different to what they're showing on the map (bottom right). Apparently EVCC will be using it quite a bit

nah, I didn't go. AAAAAGH!! I hate courses like that! I reckon Sandown will be the only criterium I'll ever to again. The only time I like to take a corner is riding out of my driveway

Rooman, on this thread, says the course was criticised by some of the Southern Vets guys
https://www.cyclingforums.com/showthread.php?t=328978

I really wanna do some winter races, most of clubs have been slack gettign their schedules up on their websites

https://www.casey.vic.gov.au/caseyfie....asp?Item=6499

looking at the bottom picture, it does like pretty rough to get through the chicane bit there on the right hand side where the truck is driving.

I guess that's what criteriums are all about, but I don't know why anyone would like tight, slow courses.
Once you go Sandown, you never go back!!


By the way, I missed the cycling on SBS yesterday; what was on?

Thanks for commin'! How cool is that? Makes me wanna paint my bike with the flag and a 'roo and Alexander Downer in a dress.

How are our XC lads going? Hope Lowe and Co. make a show, yo. (sorry, couldn't help myself)

I'll have to go check out that thread in the FG forum. Can't imagine why I have a good rep over there (or anywhere for that matter.)....

(World Cup track from Pre ComGames was on SBS on Saturday, Nev. Pretty ho-hum)

No Thylo, you really want to paint your bike up like the HMAS Melbourne carrier - then you can use it to ram other riders off the track/trail/road

We had a nice one the week before last near Kinglake. 'Rolling hills' Our winter schedule isn't far orf now.

I like either type of race. Tight twisty crits take me back to my road racing and karting days... fun with a capital F (just wish I didn't have a dud motor)

We only did 5 or so easy laps at Casey, and some of the Southern guys were already wondering about the track width and the length of the start/finish straight. It's like a longer, more open METEC... and a lot smoother.

have you heard anything about Eastern being a better club than Southern, or vice versa?

WEll i doubt that Lowe will be there unless he can get that discovery chanel trek madone offroad huge loss to aus MTB

Yeah, Southern seem much more erm... aggressive? It's like they're playing fer sheep stations. I've raced against some Southern guys and they were definitely more aggressive than us.
A couple of the blokes at East used to do the Sandown Thursday evenings fer practice, but left it at working on attacks etc as they reckon when the sprint came on, there were some pretty desperate moves fer a $20 win.
Eastern seem more safety conscious and the grading is a bit different. D graders in Southern are probably closer to C in Eastern etc, although in the higher grades it evens out a bit more.
I don't want to sound like I'm putting schitt on anyone but from my limited experience, Eastern seem a friendlier bunch. Southern has 400+ members, Eastern has 230ish.

Last interclub was won by Southern, one before that by Eastern.
Which grade do you race?

CCCC winter road calendar has been out for 2 weeks, you guys need to move

seems Eastern might be a bit more together with their schedules. Carnegie haven't even got past April on their site!! https://www.carnegiecycling.com.au/index.php?c=Calendar
Nor have Blackburn: https://www.blackburncycling.org.au/c...track_cal.html

The guys a Southern seem pretty friendly, and definitely more so than Carnegie in the late '80s, early '90s -- the only people that spoke to me down there were the guys that took my race fee!

I first did a B-grade open age race at Carnegie (Sandown) in November, which was a bit harder than I expected (ave 43kmh), then I heard that the vets license was ~half that of an open age license, so I rocked on down there. My first vets race was A-grade, which was also a little harder than I expected, then I did B-grade, but that was a bit easy (I felt like a big, young bully, but I still couldn't win ), so I went back to 'A', but I wasn't good enough to do anything; I just sat in the bunch. At the end of that race I hurt my back, so I've been stretching like crazy, trying to lose some weight, and getting used to shorter cranks again (175mm) ever since.

I definitely plan to race again; it gets a bit boring rolling up and down Beach Rd every night, especially if I don't encounter any 'competition' for a few weeks. I'm waiting for all the fixtures to come out, then I'll see which courses suit me. I might join Carnegie and race with the young blokes if I like the look of the courses.

Looked at the results. What happened to Sid Taberlay? More importantly, where can I get a set of the sunnies he was wearing at the Com Games?

Man, I know SFA about racing, but is Jongewaard mentally deficient or something? In the Com Games he went too hard too quick and cracked, and at Sea Otter looks like he did exactly the same. I mean, 12th is insanely awesome, but with his track record of over-training and going out hard, you have to wonder how he'd go if his was a tad more....err....tactical?

Interesting side-note to Paris-Roubaix: Hincapie crashed out due to his Aluminium steerer snapping (ouch) but in an interview beforehand the head wrench or whoever said they were going with deep section carbon rims and narrower tires than expected, rather than the usual 25c tires and regular x3 36h lacing "To be quicker and more aero".

Curious to see if that decision ultimately meant more stresses were transmitted to the fork than usual causing it to fatigue at an alarming rate.

Curious to see also if we get some dejavu and see some Rock Shox turn up next year! *flashback 1993*

Maybe, but I doubt it. Museeuw broke a full suspension steel Bianchi the year Tchmil won. Those cobbles will wreck anything.

Yeah, but seriously, that was 13 years ago, and Bianchi has a long and glorious history of quality suspension bikes

I would've thought current suspension technology would be even more relevant to the road now, what with 'stable platform' damping and everything being current.

Guess it's always that roadie obsession with 'lightweight' putting a damper (heh heh) on development there. I don't think it would be too difficult to design a bike that you'd be able to ride on the cobbles and you wouldn't even know they were there.

Jonewaard has raced like that for a long time. why hes going so hard hes blowing up early is a mystery tho, he rode with strong tactics with Uni SA in the tour down under, so why it doesnt translate into MTB is a mystery.

that said, i found that when leading the race ont he weekend, its a wierd situation. i tend to go out v hard on lap one then settle down into quick, but sustainable ( i hope) pace. in the 1st race i went too hard and exploded halfway into the 2nd lap. this time i eased off and was much more sustainable, but i got caught regardless. part of me wonders if id upped the pace a little, and assuing that lapped traffic complied could i have held a gap?

im going to race the CCCC road race on the 23rd and having no idea about road tactics, while admittedly it will only be E grade as its my 1st RR hit out, this is going to be an adventure into the wild unknown.......

Haha. Bianchi's don't do it for me either. The last one I saw that I liked was Argentin's with the black chrome in 1987. The Italian Malvern Star (maybe a tad harsh, but you get the picture ). I've even learnt not to click on the 'crack a stiffy over my mass produced Bianchi' threads anymore.

I suspect the 'spongy' feel on the tarmac may have had a bit to do with the demise of suspension at Paris Roubaix. Everyone used to worry about locking it out, so your point about 'stable platform' might be the ticket. Maybe transferring mountain bike suspensions into a road application is overkill? To be honest, I know less than fark all about suspension. My mountain bike has drop bars in it. The last race I ever rode was on a veldrome with 160psi in the tyres.

I do know Museeuws bike was one of the most horrible monstrosities I've ever seen - it looked like it was made from celeste coloured meccano. Suspension forks looked like taking over in P-R at that time, then your favourite bike maker and good mate Ernesto Colnago said 'I'm not having those fugly things on my bikes', Mapei pwned everyone using (allegedly) EPO and C40's with straight forks, and that was the end of that!

BTW, who's the MTB guy using that 'sliding' suspension, and who is the manufactuerer? I saw it on TV a while back - looked pretty good.

Wow got my first sin bin on another forum site At least Im feeling better so Im off cycling again
Anyone got some pics of the Hincappe Incident