Self Righteous Cyclist

Numbers at the club champs have been a little light on in recent years post Covid, so it was encouraging to see almost 40 riders from under 11 to under 65 make the trip to Balliang. Close to half the field rode the Northern Combine ITT in the morning, making it a two stage event for the purists amongst us. Great to see many Brunswick riders young and old on the podium for that event.  Under postcard conditions, Mr Pink assembled the riders, gave them their orders and sent them on their way. One 10km lap for U11s, two 10km laps for the U13s and two 25km laps for the rest of the field. It was great to see so many families riding in the same peloton, the Fuad family (Zafran, Ziqry and Nasir), the Fitzgeralds (Lucas and Tim), the Moulds (Michael and Stuart), the Christensens (Fletcher and Glenn), the Kirmizis (Aziz and Omer), the Dempsters (Rhett and Jed), the Muscats (Domenic and Isabel), the Disseldorps (Oscar and Felix), the Boddam-Whethams (Hugo and Augie) and Brunswick power coupl...

The Bendigo and District Cycling Club hosted the Merv Dean Memorial 3 stage tour over the King's birthday long weekend at Sutton Grange and Harcourt just outside of Bendigo. 83 riders across Men's A, B & C grades and Women's A, from as far afield as Alice Springs, Mt Gambier and Adelaide signed for 3 challenging days of racing. More notably Alyssa Polities, a local star of road and track and heading to her second Commonwealth Games in just over 6 weeks and Mark O'Brien, who has won about every road and gravel bike race there is to win in Australia, were ready to serve it up to their rivals. The elites in A grade received a lot of the coverage, so this report is going to concentrate on the combined Women's A and Men's C grades. Whilst there was an overall General Classification for each grade, the stages, the sprint and king of the mountain primes and time bonuses were combined. Picking up time bonuses within each stage would be vital for those hoping to sta...

Northern Combine and Coburg Cycling Club hosted the Jack Wood Memorial Handicap to honour the memory of Jack on the Glenaroua course, just out of Broadford.  The 16min bunch of 8, started 18min behind limit on 34min in conditions as good as you could hope for at this time of year. By two thirds the way around lap one, we were down to 6, but still rolling strong. Shayne Kirby gave us a time call of 3min to the group in front and 7min to Tom McDonough's 25min bunch. It was deflating to know that we had made no progress on the group of 11 in front of us with a 3min head start, containing some pretty handy riders. On lap two, Shayne was parked at the top of the Sugarloaf Creek climb and this time the margin was down to one and a half and four to Tom’s group. This time we were in with a shot. We took the left hand turn onto the Broadford-Glenaroua Rd and had the 19min bunch in our sights. We swept them up and a good few of them including Roger Venning, Seb Slezak, Carl Simmons, Stephen ...

What travels at 100km/h, has 4 heads, 12 wheels, a kitchen sink? Stephen Saunders' Kombi on the way to Balliang for the Northern Combine Pop Stewart, Alf Walker and Norma Adam's Handicaps. Never mind how we fit 4 bikes into and onto a Kombi, all I can say is that I was rewarded with the most leg room in the back. Needless to say that I was "on the rivet", "in the wheels" and "chewing bars", and we hadn't even left Melbourne. Business Class in the Kombi: Tom, Roger & Steve Welcome to bucolic Balliang where thanks to global warming the weather just keeps getting better each year. The late autumnal weather was turned on as about 60 riders from as far afield as Portland and Warrnambool fronted up for three torturous threshold laps, including a challenging climb, corrugated gravel and a stiff northerly headwind. Before the race, Bella Gadsen (limit) came over to me and asked me to take care of Liam Vaughan who was riding his first race. Happy to...

2024 the year of not focusing on results.  Wait, didn't I nominate a bunch of time and result driven goals for 2024?  Yes I did, but I don't care about them anymore. Shortly after I broke my Kinglake PR in February, it got me thinking, when is enough, enough?  Why is it that once we reach a certain goal, we then hunger for more?  Who am I competing with here?  Yes it would be great to post a better time than my mates, but ultimately the only person I am competing against is myself.  During the year I listened to a TrainerRoad podcast on goal setting and the emphasis was on process goals, rather than outcome goals, which many of mine are.  I have always prided myself on being about the process, but there's no doubt that I have become caught up in the outcomes, because they are a tangible measure of personal success.   Listening to the Anecdotally Speaking podcast last year, they introduced a story about Joseph Heller (author of Catch 22) bei...