Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

G'day all...Long time since I've visited after having spent quite some time publishing ride reports for the Heidelberg & Surrounds Group Rides thread. I'm glad to report that my riding has gone from strength to strength and that I commenced training with a bunch of Masters racers, joined a cycling club and started racing.

A little while ago our ride group decided to start up our own cycling club, Banyule Cycling Club, for riders more interested in "training for racing" rather than the usual shop ride. It's a social cycling club with a mixture of competitive racing members and non-racing social members. Our group "training for racing" rides are geared towards competitive and experienced riders that prefer a smaller and well behaved group, tempo and fast paced riding, minimal waiting time for regroups and being able to practice race craft such as rolling turns.

Last weekend was a great weekend's crit racing with Paul placing 4th and Tony Z 5th in a 24 strong field in A grade. Tony Q continued his great form with another win in a 27 strong C grade field, his 2nd win in a row and earning a promotion to B grade next week.

Our webmaster has been busy revamping our site so check out http://www.bcycling.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; when you get a chance. Still some work to go but it's moving in the right direction.

Lastly the BanyuleCC strava group has been unlocked and is now open to new "training for racing" members.

Cheers!

We're hosting a "training for racing" session at Kew Blvd this Wednesday at 6am, meet up at Chandler Hwy / Kew Blvd cnr.

Also running our usual Thursday Black Rock ride. Easy out, fast rolling turns back. Rolls at 6am from cnr Station St / Heidelberg Rd Fairfield.

Well a case of ecstasy and agony this morning with our Black Rock ride thanks to the strong NE wind and "Turbo Tony" continuing his stellar form.

With a strong tailwind pushing us along we managed well over 40kph without breaking a sweat. Come the Black Rock roundabout however and our smiling faces were replaced with tortured expressions as the head wind made for slow progress and buffeted us around like rag dolls.

Turbo Tony seemed to be revelling in the conditions however, as each track turn he pulled saw the speed climb by several kph. I felt for Kev who pulled his turn just prior to Tony's as his recovery roll was well and truly truncated each time by the surge in speed. I had my whack of this last time with rolling turns however and it nigh on killed me!

As a group we were working really well together and we caught and passed a large bunch in black and green kit who were seemingly paralysed behind their leading pair. The same group made up ground just after the yacht club as we got the traffic lights and then decided it was time for their sprint to North Rd, cutting our wheels in the process...dumb a$$es!

It wasn't long before we passed them all over again however around Luna Park and made our last effort along Beaconsfield Pde.

All up we averaged over 35kph for the round trip from Kerford Rd, not a bad effort considering the slog on the way back. The return leg saw my avg HR of 153bpm for over 30 minutes. Not bad when my LTHR is 160bpm and I exceeded that for the last 5 mins of the ride...ouch!