ACTVCC Stromlo Points Race Criterium

Lee Hopson made a couple of videos of the race on the weekend.

Southern Hemisphere Cup 2008 and other races

On Friday I left for a big weekend of racing in Sydney, firstly off to RAW Friday night track racing


I subjected my self to Division 2, avoided a big crash and got a first place in the mystery race.







On Saturday I headed down to Heffron Park, Maroubra to race a long crit with the Randwick-Botany Club. It was hot and windy! My first day of racing this summer at 30 degrees plus, hung in there and finished with a second group behind the breakaway winners.

On Sunday I headed over to Eastern Creek to race the Southern Hemisphere Cup, hosted by the Waratah Veteran's Cycling club. I managed 5th place in B grade (full results here) in a fast and attacking race. It was great to race with a different bunch, with different dynamics and tactics.

Fixed...not really? Sturmey Archer SX-3

Sturmey Archer blog is reporting the long-awaited 3-speed fixed cog system is finally to prototype. Made famous by Sheldon Brown is the SA ASC 3-speed fixed. The cogs are fixed - sure, but by the magic of internal gearing, there various speeds are fixed.

I have mixed feelings about this, especially now as I'm considering turning my Surly Steamroller into a single speed/fixed/crit racing and commute bike. It would be cool to have all the right mounts on the frame as well as I'm getting the rear brake and bottle mounts done.

It would be very handy to be able to ride to the crit on a fixed 74, switch using the flip flop to a single speed 90 and then ride bike home on an easy single speed gear.

I suppose I'll decide when Michelle is finished with my old track surly.

Richard Wright dies at 65

1943-2008: Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright.

Pink Floyd keyboard player and founding member Richard Wright has died at the age of 65 after a short cancer illness, his spokesman said.

Wright died at his home in England on Monday.

Wright, guitarist Roger Waters and drummer Nick Mason founded the band that became Pink Floyd in the 1960s when they were students.

Pink Floyd went on to become one of the biggest names in rock.

"The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer," his spokesman said in a statement.

"The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."

Wright co-wrote five songs on the Dark Side Of The Moon LP which was released in 1973 and spent 14 years on the Billboard 200 album chart to become one of the best-selling albums ever.

Wright left Pink Floyd after falling out with Waters during sessions for The Wall.

He rejoined the band in 1987.

My Llewellyn Road Frame is here!

My Llewellyn Road Frame is here! Expect to see the bike on the streets on Monday

Friday Night Track Racing

A few of us have made the trip to Dunc Gray in recent weeks for Friday Night Track Racing

Here are some snaps, courtesy of Action Snaps who supports the series

More pics at the Masters ACT Team Blog

Ever wonder about the devil?

While thinking about the TdF, have you ever wondered about the devil?


Well, this website might answer some questions

http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/worlds-weirdest-and-largest-bikes/offbeat-news

The 2008 Tour de France

The 2008 Tour de France cycling race is now over, won by Spain's Carlos Sastre, with a time of 87h 52m 52s. Sastre beat second-place finisher Cadel Evans of Australia by only 58 seconds, over a 21 stage course that added up to over 3,500 km.

Cadel Evans tried, but came second. Healing scars indicate a hard TdF

By conquering Alpe d'Huez with panache Carlos Sastre was a deserving winner on the on the Champs-Elysees

Sastre on the podium with his kids.

Yellow fever as Tour hits high point

BY DAVID STOCKMAN (Canberra Times)
24/07/2008 9:59:00 AM

Tour de France fever has taken hold of Canberra as locals will Cadel Evans on to claim the yellow jersey at the Champs-Elysees on Sunday night.
Competitive cyclist Ally Roche, 36, has been following Evans and the large contingent of Australian riders in the Tour for the last three weeks.

And she hasn't been alone, with fellow cycling junkies regularly taking a place on her couch to watch the action.

The Curtin resident regularly dons the Team CSC jersey of Stuart O'Grady in her living room as she marvels at the skill and endurance of the riders.

On Tuesday night Ms Roche had a group of fellow cycling junkies in her living room to catch another stage.

''We have Tour de France parties, people come over for drinks and dinner and we sit down and watch the tour,'' she said.

The house Ms Roche shares with Allan Bontjer contains a special ''bike room'', with a collection of bikes set for training in the cold Canberra nights.

''I know how hard it is to climb these mountain stages and the people who do it are just machines ... especially for the people not on drugs,'' Ms Roche said.

The long-time cyclist and member of the Tuggeranong Vikings and ACT Veterans Cycling clubs said she often fell asleep during the late Tour sessions, needing sleep for her early morning training rides, but was back in the lounge room for the daily highlights.

Her well-earned slumber meant she missed some controversy as Evans appeared to headbutt a TV camera crew out of the way after finishing the Tour's 16th stage.

Evans waved the camera away, to little effect, then continued travelling forward, using his helmet to break clear of the media throng.

President of the Canberra Cycling Club Jason Parkes said the group had one of their largest ever turnouts for a winter race at the weekend.

He said 75 riders raced the Iron Mike scratch race, a huge increase from 2007 when there were only 12 competitors for the 90km event, won by a 19-year-old Evans in 1996.

But he said many regulars were absent from early morning sessions as diehards struggled with the regular late nights in front of the television.

''You find most of the cyclists don't do training in the morning because they've been watching the event the night before,'' Mr Parkes said.

Brent Miller, from O'Connor cycling shop Bike Culture, said he had noticed more cyclists on the roads presumably inspired by Evans and other Australian Tour riders. ''Business always picks up for that time before and after [the Tour de France], people think 'I'll dust off the pushy again','' Mr Miller said.

He expected sales of new bicycles and cycling merchandise to soar after the event finishes late on Sunday Canberra time.

I stole this story from the Canberra Times.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/yellow-fever-as-tour-hits-high-point/1225402.aspx

Comments from Canberra Times site

I cant believe it possible that Cadel is still there after the attacks. How would we have been wwith Stuart O on Cadel's team. Grear for ussie cycling??

Posted by cindy484 on 24/07/2008 5:55:42 PM

Lugged frame construction

Since I'm just about to take delivery of two new steel lugged frames I thought a spot of reading would be good. Found some good resources


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugged_steel_frame_construction

Why choose steel and lugs anyhow?

http://www.terrafermacycles.com/joinery/lugs/lugs.htm

Henry James produces many of the fine lugs

http://www.henryjames.com/productlug.html

Interesting read about a newbie frame builder having a go, includes a tutorial

http://www.littlefishbicycles.com/framebuilding.html

The passion of the bikes

Jim Trail writes about Ian Downing..........

Some pics and a story from our local ABC

A passion for bikes. We all had it once. Learning to ride is a rite of passage for most everyone when we're growing up, but somewhere along the line most of us misplace it.

Ian Downing is one man who has enough passion for cycling to sustain an entire peloton of non-cyclists. He not only rides, he lives bikes. His house is part workshop, part bike museum. He takes the kids to school by bike, does the grocery shopping by bike, in fact he lives his entire life by bike.

According to Ian, it's not the bicycle that makes cycling great, but the ride. His Nirvana is the ability to travel through the world in an accessible and low-impact way, doing something that's as relaxing as it is uplifting.

666 ABC Canberra's Jim Trail is not in his league, but in the first of a series on cycling Jim talked to Ian about the Passion of the Bikes.


http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2008/05/28/2258332.htm?site=canberra

Road Frame Progress

I've decided on the compact design after a phone conversation with Darryl on Friday. He also asked if it was OK to take artistic licence. I said "sure" and was very impressed. I'll choose the frame colour after I see the design. But you can be assured there is more polished stainless steel just like the track frame.

My Llewellyn Road Frame

Now that my Llewellyn track frame is nearing completion, Darryl has sent me two plans for my new road frame. I've got to decide between a traditional horizontal top tube and one of those new fangled slightly sloping top tube.



Traditional horizontal top tube



Compact geometry, sloping top tube

My Llewellyn Trackie

My Llewellyn Trackie is well underway.


My Frame



All brazed up



Rear dropout detail after filing and sanding

New Frames

Hi,

I'm getting a couple of new bike frames built. A few weeks back I went to visit Darrell McCulloch.

For those not familiar with Llewellyn frames check out his website

I'm getting two frames built, lots of stainless steel, polished. My frames are being carefully hand crafted. The lugs will be standard, but Darryl is known for his custom cut and designed lugs.

The design for the track bike is below.

CCC Crit Report 30 Jan 2008

More photos by Greg Long can be found here




David Shepherd's report of Men's B Grade stolen from CCC website
Today I was tempted not to race: I'm heading to NZ on Friday for a tough week of orienteering races, the BOM radar said rain was on the way and I could still feel yesterday's intervals in my legs... But the team leader "You Me and Dapre" talked me into it (our other team mate Handsome Pete was sitting out today's race due to work commitments). I figured it would be a chance to try something new - sit near the back of the field and don't chase down breaks (and don't try and get in a break), then get ourselves into a good position in the last few laps and see what happens. So I smashed a can of rice cream and a coke and rolled out to Stromlo, the wind picking up as every minute slowly ticked by. By the time I got to the track there was a pretty nasty breeze and I was even more happy about the idea of sitting in. I told Dapre I'd pull out if it started raining, and on the first lap we got a few drops - but what I say and what I do are not always correlated... We rolled around for a few laps, there were a number of breakaway attempts but the angle of the wind (headwind on the back straight and tail wind on the home straight) made it hard to get away and every break was quickly chased down. After maybe 10 minutes it started getting wet and I got nervous about being too far back in the bunch so started moving forward with Dapre on my wheel. This luckily coincided with the race organisers decision to shorten the race due and we rolled over the line close to the front passing the 3 laps to go sign. Late in the next lap one of the Quon riders jumped off the front and the bunch seemed happy to let him go.

With a lap to go I decided to try and pull him in, with Dapre on my wheel, I was also quite keen to get off the front of the bunch coming into the corners in the slippery track. After a few scary moments losing traction on my back wheel we hit the back straight and I was 2nd or 3rd wheel, so I attacked and Dapre and a MACT guy came with me. The MACT rider then attacked us but we stuck on him up the hill and we caught the leader at the top. I was feeling pretty spent already but a short rest on the MACT riders wheel and the sight of the finish line down the hill got me pumped for my first sprint finish. I stuck on the MACT riders wheel until Dapre went around me and jumped for the line, then I realized i might have enough left to get around him too. Expecting the bunch to come by at any moment the Token Products team pushed over the line to take 1st and 2nd. The main field seemed to get slowed down a lot in the slippery corners which helped us out a lot. After so many weeks of trying different tactics which we always got wrong, we finally had some success. its tough to beat the big teams but when the bunch stays together like it did this time its anybody's race really.



Men's B Grade - 15 mins + 2 laps (44 starters)

1. Andrew Dapre Token Products
2. David Shepherd Token Products
3. Allan Bontjer Masters ACT
4. Michael Bulters
5. Wes Garrett Bike Culture
6. Dale Brede V-Mobile
7. Adrian Middleton Ride Shop
8. Jayson Carey-Brenton Masters ACT
9. Grant Grubb V-Mobile
10. Travis Hicks Team QUON