What will I find in the Alice?

master6
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What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:23 pm

We are planning to visit Alice Springs in July /August 2011. What racing or other cycling events will a masters 7 road rider with a CA licence find there?
Last edited by master6 on Fri Apr 01, 2011 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Comedian
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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Comedian » Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:38 pm

I'm not quite sure what you mean - in terms of cycling?

If you are visiting there I'd urge you to sort your accommodation well in advance as it can be difficult to find at that time of year.

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:16 pm

Yes, enquiring about cycling events conducted by local Cycling club.

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby The Womble » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:18 pm

Flies and lots of drunk natives with broken bottles. Have fun

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby CommuRider » Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:06 pm

Beautiful country and a frontier town with whites who have run away from other parts of Australia to feel emasculated against the blacks.

Really, I enjoyed the Alice. The generations of dispossession and stolen generation are in Alice. There is a more palpable racism there than other parts of the country. The whites there are pretty disparaging of the blacks regardless of who they are or their personality as whites like to stick together in that town. I had a white American just be racist with no compunction towards two teenage indigenous boys. I was pretty appalled. Black stereotyping rules there.

Other than that there are some good cycling paths there and you can count the traffic lights in one hand.

I would recommend going to Papunya Tula art gallery the birth place of modern indigenous art. While Aboriginal art may not be appreciated by white territorians, the art that you see there has been used to fill the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Pity recognition needs to be overseas, in the Alice if you are black you are treated pathetically, you get exploited by contractors charging the government $500k to build a shanty house and you turn to alcohol because the white pub owners know they can make heaps of dosh from you. Segregation by any other name. Felt like South Africa actually.
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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby The Womble » Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:33 pm

...Flies

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CommuRider
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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby CommuRider » Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:39 pm

The flies are bigger in Tassie. Similar to this one

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They suck the blood out of you like a syringe and you can roast them on a spit. But then again very dumb like mozzies
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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Fri Apr 01, 2011 3:34 pm

master6 wrote:We are planning to visit Alice Springs in July /August 2011. What racing or other cycling events will a masters 7 road rider with a CA licence find there?

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Parrott » Fri Apr 01, 2011 10:15 pm

CommuRider wrote:Beautiful country and a frontier town with whites who have run away from other parts of Australia to feel emasculated against the blacks.

Really, I enjoyed the Alice. The generations of dispossession and stolen generation are in Alice. There is a more palpable racism there than other parts of the country. The whites there are pretty disparaging of the blacks regardless of who they are or their personality as whites like to stick together in that town. I had a white American just be racist with no compunction towards two teenage indigenous boys. I was pretty appalled. Black stereotyping rules there.

Other than that there are some good cycling paths there and you can count the traffic lights in one hand.

I would recommend going to Papunya Tula art gallery the birth place of modern indigenous art. While Aboriginal art may not be appreciated by white territorians, the art that you see there has been used to fill the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Pity recognition needs to be overseas, in the Alice if you are black you are treated pathetically, you get exploited by contractors charging the government $500k to build a shanty house and you turn to alcohol because the white pub owners know they can make heaps of dosh from you. Segregation by any other name. Felt like South Africa actually.
I arrived there in '91 and had similar first impressions to what you have described. After 15 years I left fairly disillusioned. I worked for a building contractor building housing on remote aboriginal communities for 2 and 1\2 years when I first got there. in that time we were renovating again the houses we had built at the start of that period. The blokes I worked for were Danish twins who had come over from Europe and started their own business. Nice blokes with a ton of guts and to my knowledge not making a fortune for working hard in some very trying conditions. They had made the town their home and one of them married an aboriginal woman. It was an eye opener working on the communities and seeing the local people live. There was alot of money being spent on schools housing and health clinics but the scale of the waste was astounding vandalsim and destruction everywhere you looked. Throwing money at the problem was not fixing anything, my bosses had seen no improvement in the 15 years they had been working out bush. 2 and 1/2 years was enough for me living rough and working away from home, I got out and got a job in town.

I spent the last 5 years as a paramedic dealing first hand with the problems of alcoholism and violence. over 90% of our patients were aboriginal and most of them were pretty good patients. I would rather deal with a drunk black fella than a drunk white fella any day. After a while though the repetitive cycle of dealing with the aftermath of binge drinking, violence and non compliance with treatment and medications seemed to be an exercise in futility to me. There is a complete absense of personal hygeine and self care among many of the alcoholics in the town camps and it wore me down. Seeing the same pts over and over with the same presentation was like groundhog day. I got away from the crime and grog and moved back south.

Nanette Rogers gives an insight into some of the problems in Alice. She started her professional life there as a defender, became disillusioned and became a crown prosecutor.

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby CommuRider » Sat Apr 02, 2011 12:08 pm

The Alice stays in the memory, long after you leave her. It's caterpillar country. The ranges at Alice look like a caterpillar :-)

Back to the topic - has anyone cycled parts of the Larapinta Trail? You could probably do Alice-Hermannsburg but would need an MTB. Hermannsburg is Namatjira country and it's a beautiful part of Australia.

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Sat Apr 02, 2011 2:23 pm

Can you tell me about the cycling club?

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What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Parrott » Sat Apr 02, 2011 2:37 pm

Yeah it's beautiful country. Hopefully headed back for a holiday this winter. Catch up and see some friends will be good.

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What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Parrott » Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:15 pm

master6 wrote:Can you tell me about the cycling club?
I don't know if you are talking to me, but sorry no not really. I didn't start racing until I left there. They do have an outdoors concrete velodrome and I saw some reasonable sized bunches on the road at times ( 30 or so riders)

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:22 pm

Parrott, I will talk to anybody. Particularly you, as you seem to be my best (only) source of Alice cycling information. :D

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What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Parrott » Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:22 pm

You could try sending a message to member Sandman on here. He was or is still living there though I don't know if he is involved in the cycling club. He may be able to give you more information on them though.

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Tue Apr 05, 2011 1:14 pm

Sandman,knockknock, Sandman, knockknock. (quickly spoken) Sandman, knockknock,
Sheldon Cooper here, hear?

:D :D :D

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Gabon » Sat Apr 09, 2011 10:09 pm

Hey master6 try http://www.alicespringscyclingclub.com.au/ has a few contact and ride details

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:48 am

Gabon wrote:Hey master6 try http://www.alicespringscyclingclub.com.au/ has a few contact and ride details
Thanks Gabon, I tried that, however the fact that it offered online membership for 2008 prompted me to seek a 2011 person. :D

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Gabon » Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:19 pm

there is some 2011 info and contacts on the site - this is the territory so some things just take a while to update :)

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby Gabon » Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:35 pm

if you are still looking Master6 the new 2011 newsletter for ASP Cycling Club can be found on the Darwin Cycling Club web site or try www.alicesprings.cycling.org.au

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Thu Apr 28, 2011 6:25 pm

Thank you Gabon. Your assistance is appreciated. I have also had a pm with some info, and met a girl on one of the rides in Hobart, who has some Alice springs experience. Our travel timetable is not set in concrete, and I will be keen to see the road program for July/August/September when it is decided.

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby sandman » Wed May 25, 2011 3:35 pm

I have been away from the forum for a long time so excuse me... Yes I am in Alice Springs and yes you can ask all sorts of questions about cycling :-)

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby master6 » Wed May 25, 2011 3:43 pm

sandman wrote:I have been away from the forum for a long time so excuse me... Yes I am in Alice Springs and yes you can ask all sorts of questions about cycling :-)

Sandman
Hi sandman, good to know you are about. Everyone is entitled to a break.

The latest Alice Springs club newsletter has been forwarded to me by one of the participants on this site, so I think I have all I need at present.

Thanks,
Jeff

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Re: What will I find in the Alice?

Postby sandman » Wed May 25, 2011 3:52 pm

Hi Jeff

Good to hear you've got some answers. There is a bit of stuff that goes on outside the Cycling club, again it depends on what you were after. If you need to know anything specific, please feel free to ask. I'm about to don the Lycra and head home...30km, nasty headwind and its cold...hope its a fast ride home :-)

Cheers..Sandman
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