Cycling club near Surry Hills Sydney

[robeven]

Hi

I arrived a month ago in Sydney and we live in Surry Hills. I did some trainings in the Centennail Park in the morning, went up to Royal National Park and to Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Currently I am looking for a cycling club to join. In the Netherlands I did some Master Criteriums and a couple of Gran Fondo's in the French Alps (Trois Ballons and Marmotte), Belgium and the Italian Dolomites (Maratona).

Can anyone recommend me a club that does training rides during the weeks, participates in criteriums and rides some gran fondos/cyclo sportivs as well?

Would be great as the rides start not too far from Surry Hills

Cheers
Rob Even

rob_even@hotmail.com
0447043400

[mjd]

Not to sure about the group rides these guys do but based on where you are located this club may suit your needs. I am not a member nor do I know any its just purely based on your location.
http://www.easternsuburbscyclingclub.com.au/ or

http://www.nsw.cycling.org.au/default.asp?id=29393

[sogood]

There are a few clubs that'd be suitable for your location, and the first four have rides starting from Centennial Park. They all have their own characteristics and variety of rides to suit.

Sydney Cycling Club
Randwick Botany Cycling Club
Sydney Uni Velo Club
Eastern Suburbs (as mentioned above)
Dulwich Hills Bicycle Club (Based in Marrickville, ride down King St Newtown for access)

[MREJ]

Hi Rob - welcome to Sydney!

For masters criteriums, consider Waratahs Cycling. They race every Sunday morning across 6 grades, and normally get 80 to 150 riders.

You can race with Waratahs (and most clubs) if you are not a member of that particular club, as long as you hold a Cycling Australia racing licence. Joining any of the clubs listed above as a racing member will get you that licence.

Waratahs venues are in the western suburbs, and they normally attract riders from all over Sydney. The most popular venue is Eastern Creek Raceway, which is wide, fast and hilly in a gentle sort of way.

[marc2131]

Just had a read on your Waratah Cycling website. Notice you guys do training runs around Olympic Park.
I was thinking about this lately but was unaware that there was a group doing this over there.
I am a member of another group and have a current CA licence. We tend to head down to Centennial Park but Homebush is just as accessible.
Do you guys entertain outsiders on your rides in Homebush? Do you do this on weekends?
marc

[mikesbytes]

Hi marc,
Based on where you live, for group rides you have good training rides heading south on Sundays to Waterfall, with some riders going thru Royal National Park;
Easts
SCC
RBCC
DHBC (my club)

Also during the week;
RBCC - mid week ride thru eastern suburbs
DHBC - track training Mon, Wed at Tempe Velodrome
St George - track training Tue at Hurstville Velodrome

You can also do training Tue and Thu mornings at Homebush with LACC

DHBC and Bankstown have loaner track bikes to get started on. Don't know about St George

All of the above clubs have their fair share of Vets, while Waratah Vets probably has the biggest number of Vets, so there will be no problem forming teams for TTT's etc.

[ni78ck]

hi Rob,
i dont ride with a club, but a local cycling shop near you. we train on tuesdays, thurdays, and saturdays with recovery rides inbetween.
most of our training rides feel like races! im not sure what your use to overseas but we are more of a boutique group. its like were being coached, as we pay a monthly fee.
we also have some strong riders amongst the group which makes it lots of fun trying to keep up. some of our guys race on saturday arvo at heffron. i will start next month, but to do so i need to become a member of a club. most probably for me it will be dullwich hill last weekend we had one guy from our group in D grade race and two in b grade.
our d grade rider won, which was his first race. out of our other two riders in b grade they came in 1st and fifth
hope this helps and welcome!

[MREJ]

In answer to Marc, Waratahs training at SOP is in fact the Lidcome Auburn bunch ride training. It's very good training, with 5 or 6 bunches. You choose the one that suits and if it's not right, you can drop back to the following one or just try another one next time. If you are aiming to improve, then you can try to work your way up the groups. The club welcomes all comers as long they behave so there is no issue with the fact that you belong to another club. I usually bring my licence in case, but have never been asked to show it.

I ride on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I believe there are also bunches on other days, but I don't go then so can't personally vouch for that. Bunches start promptly at 6am on the western side of the railway station. You won't miss it - there are usually 100 or so riders there. Most people either ride to the park or drive and get there early, so they can warm up, as the bunches get moving pretty quickly. They go for about 45 minutes and then the rest of the day is yours.

As a guide, I have been riding in bunch 4 and it typically averages 36 or 37 kmh. No idea what bunch 1 does - it's always out of sight!

Just make sure you are familiar with fast bunch riding technique and etiquette. If you're not, then I'd suggest starting in a lower level bunch - e.g. 5 or 6 if there is one, at least til you are familiar with the route.

Marcus

[Alex Simmons/RST]

its like were being coached, as we pay a monthly fee.

It's like you're being coached because you pay to ride in a group, or because you actually get coaching?

[mianos]

Sydney Uni Velo.
From Surry Hills and training that always starts in Centennial park + lots of support for criterions and road racing, particularly in the master category.
Weekday training finishes in the park at about 7am

I've pasted this from my reply before:
"We meet at the Bondi/Waverly gate at Centennial Park at 6am Tuesday to Sat.
We have a wide range of members with a lot of member riding in a whole range of races from criterions to country tours in grades D to A.
We have lots of support for people interested in starting to race, including a dedicated coach to get you started with specific race coaching/training.
A good start is the coffee ride is on Fridays for new members. We do an easy pace out to lapers and back.

Contacts and further info is here: http://www.suvelo.com.au/
If if you can't find anything on the web site feel free to PM.

A good way to meet the guys and girls would be to contact a committee member and come along to the social ride on a Friday morning. I'm sure you would be welcome because obviously you already know how to ride. (We do also cater for new riders as well).

[ni78ck]

its like were being coached, as we pay a monthly fee.

It's like you're being coached because you pay to ride in a group, or because you actually get coaching?

both.

[Chris249]

Randwick Botany does what you want, although I don't think any club around here does as many sportivs as they seem to in Europe.

Training rides start at Centennial Park every day apart from Mondays, when we join Dulwich for track training at Tempe.

http://randwickbotanycc.org.au/Training%20Rides.htm

Crit racing takes place each Saturday and on Tuesdays during daylight saving. This attracts riders from many other clubs, attracted by the Heffron circuit's fabulous facilities (a brick shed with a shower and a road surface that lets you work on your mogul technique!). The standard at the top seems to be good (3 current national champs, a Conti pro rider etc) but their attendance at the moment is poor to patchy. Actually, I get the impression most of the bigger Sydney clubs are pretty level as far as standard goes, although it would be interesting to find out from others.

The usual open events (Blayney,Grafton to Inverall etc) get reasonable turnouts (40 club riders turned for the Blayney and associated events last year).

Although it's not in your line of interest, there are also some extremely strong (ie currently 5 world titles and 1 world record) master trackies, and if RBCC was a country it would have finished fourth on the national pointscore at the last worlds!