The Thread about Nothing....

I'm pretty sure it's still 130mm.

I was shocked when I got my first ten-speed stuff and saw that the ten cogs take up less space than a 9-speed cassette! I only figured it out coz the cassette was loose, so I realized it needed a spacer.

531Aussie said:

That's what I was thinking, too. :P

I don't think I've ever ridden to a pub, but I've got a crappy Tange 4 bike (Bennett) for that if I did. It's got [censored], white Sugino cranks, SR bars and stem, down-tube shifters, my last 7-speed Maillard screw-on cluster, and black Araya rims with 36 spokes. In the midst of all it's ~10.5kg of [censored], it's got cartridge Suzue hubs, which are farkin awesome -- they're probably the smoothest cartridge hubs I've ever had.

Hehe. Gord, if I didn't ride to the pub, I'd basically not have ridden at all in close to a year now. Thanks blurter. I am a dirty smoker too, so I am generally sitting outside where I can see it where it's locked up, but not always. Eh, if it gets stolen I would definitely cry, but I must admit that it gives me pleasure to look at it while enjoying a beer if for some reason the quality passing distractions have dried up. :P

gplama said:

Yolandi [censored] Visser!

Yeah baby. I know they're doing festivals here atm but I wouldn't mind seeing them if they're doing pub/club gigs too. I'll check, although it's likely too late already.

cheetahmk7 said:

I think I need to vent.

Every regional cycling club that I have dealings with seems to be saying the same thing and that is that a big percentage of riders are no longer taking out Gold Licences as they are too expensive. We aren't talking about the ultra-keen cyclists that go to Opens, but those on the fringe such as triathletes and club riders. We have more people riding then ever but race numbers are down just enough that holding races is verging on being uneconomical.

Throw in over the top traffic management expectations. ($3k for an interclub race at Chiltern, traffic control expected on a side road that is gravel road with a stop sign for a club race north of Albury etc.)

Add the proliferation of people riding for micro-teams with their kit sponsored gear which is completely fragmenting clubs and I'm not seeing a rosy picture for road cycling right now.

What can be done about this????????

I rarely reply to these kind of posts because I'm not a road racer.
However the kinds of people who are have new enough $6k road bikes at least, so the what? $500 per year maximum? racing licenses and fees aren't that much of a stretch from there. So the cost for the individual racer is not likely prohibitive.
I totally agree that Australia has in general become stupid expensive for insurance and gov't approvals for anything at all, and is at risk of completely failing as a competitive system due to overbearing OH&S and bureaucratic blame game nonsense, but that is a slightly different topic.
In regards to the cycling itself, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna blame the cyclists. And have a curmudgeonly rant.
I suppose I'm odd, and was rural and a tradie, but cycling in the 80's was pretty down to earth where I crossed paths with it then. I was never a clubbie but the cyclists I crossed paths with, we had a shared passion. And niche, proudly so. In the 90's and 2000's I became more urban, 90's in a big country town, 1998 onwards in Sydney. But I want to make it clear that I was noticing before moving to Sydney that Aussie road cycling was changing. It went from blue collar to white collar. Quickly. The new golf. Not niche anymore, I think that's crucial.
In short, [censored] took over. The Lance years didn't help, but it was hardly his responsibility. All competitive sport will attract the ... well, competitive, aspirational, um cnuts, with all our various quirks, for better or worse, but it's become an infestation in road cycling here. And again, I'm gonna say it's not just cycling, it's Australia as a country too.
Nothing proves it to me more than seeing a bit of a replay of a classic old Test Match during a rain break in a current broadcast. With the crowd as well as the players too. We've changed. We're not the larrikin matey people we once prided ourselves as anymore. We're a bunch of highly strung, overly ambitious global economy [censored]. Winners. [censored].
I don't really play with road cycling per se here anymore in my personal life. Once I discovered the dirt and mtb the chasm in the quality of people and attitude was stunning. I still hear stories of mates getting told to stop pulling turns, and go to the back in amateur morning bunches on the road here. WTF? Because most of you are from one club? Is it an insurance issue? Or are you just cnuts? I don't care. But I'm happy not to have to deal with you any more. And maybe that's just Sydney? No, sorry, I don't think so.
So if there is a crisis is Aussie road racing, well, fair enough. Blame the culture that has been the recent status quo, not just with ever increasingly pretentious roadies, but the country in general.

Good rant. classic1 approves. I'd agree with nearly all of it.

When I was a kiddy I'd train on beach road with the rain coming in sideways and I'd see Ian Stringer, me, probably Nev and no one else. Now it wall to wall trendies and ppl riding around in matching gear.

Things changed. There'd be track opens every weekend in summer. On Forges or Austral night there'd be 300 riders with the amateurs running down to G grade and the pros down to D, with the u16s running four grades, midgets, plus the women. It's dead now.

Winter was an open every weekend, pro and amateur. Now there's [censored] all. What happened? I don't really know.

ok, this post ended up as a bit of a jumble, but whatever, I'm watching a movie.....

The over-sponsored and over-commercialisation of the sport has [censored] with it to the core. There is NO MONEY in the sport anymore for the rider to put food on the table. However, there is no lack of 'teams' who roll around in brand new cars, on [censored] hot new bikes every year, and in shiny new clothes that have these sponsors all over them. Commercialised to the brim. Yet the events they attend are run by volunteers or organisations on less budget than one team bike.

There are a lot of opposing forces in the sport. When a company comes on board and put the right people behind it, the event is usually pretty [censored] ace. Sam Miranda case-in-point. Marty works pretty much full time getting that show on the road every year, and as an old racer himself, he knows what racers want.

Back to the money. My father in-law was a builder, he got paid double his weekly wage to race the Sun Tour back in the 60s. I think I've said that before.

Anyway. Racing is a dying art. People come and go. Not enough are coming.

Oh and track.. don't even get me started. Horsham, has an awesome velodrome. You can't even buy a [censored] track bike within 300k of that town. Compare that to the basketball stadium next to it, balls and shoes, sold everywhere.

Anyways, back to my flick. Watching '71.

oh, and I like this song and this chick is smoking hot.

[media]

gplama said:

Anyways, back to my flick. Watching '71.

Good luck with that. I've fallen asleep every time I've tried. Actually I should probably remember to try and finish watching it more often.

What I like is Lama coming to the sport late and smashing it. Vadar coming to the sport late after the disappointment of losing a previous sport career through injury and immersing himself in its culture and having a win. Eoins lass smashing it. Jonos adventures and ability and love for the sport (sad it ended for u mate - learn not to crash!). Paul's sheer joy buzzing around the velodrome. Even swampys ghey charity rides ahahahah

What I don't like. The millionaire club 'can't ride in this group unless u have a million in the bank'. 'Teams' and circle jerk talk about what team u ride for. No respect for hard old cnuts who raced in the 70s and 80s and their views on bunch etiquette. They don't go out to block the road, or hold up traffic and their views on keeping the bunch tight reflect that. The Hell Ride. Coffee stops. Calling downtube shifters 'suicide levers'. If u can't change gears using downtube levers you can't ride a bike properly and I don't want to ride next to you because you're a menace! 99ers. Ghey yellow friendship bracelets. I'd keep ranting but typing on the phone sucks.

The country Vets clubs are what everyone needs exposure to. They are bloody ace. Ballarat, Grampians, Seymour, Geelong to an extent but they're more metro than the others.

Get a vets license Classo, come race up in Ballarat. They'll give you an awesome mark. You can sit on my wheel any time*. They put on a massive spread of food after every race. Win the meat raffle and it is a bloody great day.

*during the warm up.

Classo,

You should come over for one of my "charity rides." The only charity are from the hospitality of the club that organizes the events - but I'm sure you'll love the mountain views, a couple of hundred KM's and upto 6,500m of climbing...

.... Which seems at odds with what you guys are seeing. We have a ton of races here. For the folks new to the sport they even have training races and some open events where a fast vet will tag along in the bunch to "have a chat" with those that don't have a clue. On the longer organized rides, whether they be brevets or challenge rides, clubs are out in force and there's volunteers a plenty.

Track wise it's pretty [censored] - we have an outdoor velodrome about 160km away. The nearest indoor one is about 500km from here but then with the ace weather and terrain it seems almost unfathomable that anyone would want to ride indoors :p

Downtube friction levers... I've only ever had one bike with those on. When shimano 600Ex-SIS came out in 85 I was all over that like flies on [censored].

I did have some bar-end levers on my tri-bars of the TT bike that were friction. Campag [censored] d'Anus gears and Syncro never worked with the Shamals. Cnutbagnogo.

cheetahmk7 said:

We have more people riding then ever but race numbers are down just enough that holding races is verging on being uneconomical.

This is an obvious thing to say, but with so many people riding now, there are a million group smash-fests, and, for a lot of people, they can get enough "competition" and bragging rights thrills from that.
Being a Hell Ride Hero is plenty for some dudes.

classic1 said:

What I don't like. The millionaire club 'can't ride in this group unless u have a million in the bank'. 'Teams' and circle jerk talk about what team u ride for. No respect for hard old cnuts who raced in the 70s and 80s and their views on bunch etiquette. They don't go out to block the road, or hold up traffic and their views on keeping the bunch tight reflect that. The Hell Ride. Coffee stops. Calling downtube shifters 'suicide levers'. If u can't change gears using downtube levers you can't ride a bike properly and I don't want to ride next to you because you're a menace! 99ers. Ghey yellow friendship bracelets. I'd keep ranting but typing on the phone sucks.

Hee hee, Good ranting.
...and by the rest of yooz

bbp said:

I rarely reply to these kind of posts because I'm not a road racer.
However the kinds of people who are have new enough $6k road bikes at least, so the what? $500 per year maximum? racing licenses and fees aren't that much of a stretch from there. So the cost for the individual racer is not likely prohibitive.
I totally agree that Australia has in general become stupid expensive for insurance and gov't approvals for anything at all, and is at risk of completely failing as a competitive system due to overbearing OH&S and bureaucratic blame game nonsense, but that is a slightly different topic.
In regards to the cycling itself, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna blame the cyclists. And have a curmudgeonly rant.
I suppose I'm odd, and was rural and a tradie, but cycling in the 80's was pretty down to earth where I crossed paths with it then. I was never a clubbie but the cyclists I crossed paths with, we had a shared passion. And niche, proudly so. In the 90's and 2000's I became more urban, 90's in a big country town, 1998 onwards in Sydney. But I want to make it clear that I was noticing before moving to Sydney that Aussie road cycling was changing. It went from blue collar to white collar. Quickly. The new golf. Not niche anymore, I think that's crucial.
In short, [censored] took over. The Lance years didn't help, but it was hardly his responsibility. All competitive sport will attract the ... well, competitive, aspirational, um cnuts, with all our various quirks, for better or worse, but it's become an infestation in road cycling here. And again, I'm gonna say it's not just cycling, it's Australia as a country too.
Nothing proves it to me more than seeing a bit of a replay of a classic old Test Match during a rain break in a current broadcast. With the crowd as well as the players too. We've changed. We're not the larrikin matey people we once prided ourselves as anymore. We're a bunch of highly strung, overly ambitious global economy [censored]. Winners. [censored].
I don't really play with road cycling per se here anymore in my personal life. Once I discovered the dirt and mtb the chasm in the quality of people and attitude was stunning. I still hear stories of mates getting told to stop pulling turns, and go to the back in amateur morning bunches on the road here. WTF? Because most of you are from one club? Is it an insurance issue? Or are you just cnuts? I don't care. But I'm happy not to have to deal with you any more. And maybe that's just Sydney? No, sorry, I don't think so.
So if there is a crisis is Aussie road racing, well, fair enough. Blame the culture that has been the recent status quo, not just with ever increasingly pretentious roadies, but the country in general.

You have some good points there but you may be surprised at how many people out here in the country can't afford a race licence. One friend of mine would be a very competitive female cyclist but she simply can't afford a licence. She still has one child under school age and her husband is working on the family farm for a pittance. My sister in law is another potential candidate. She was smashing me on climbs last year but forking out for a race licence is still a big cost for her and she might not even like racing.

Regardless of wether people can afford a licence or not there can be no argument that its cost is keeping people away from racing in droves and that is not a good thing for the sport. Things are particularly bad for riders in their twenties who often have the least money of any age group and yet have to fork out almost $400 for a race licence. Look at the lack of 'Elite' race riders in tomorrow's race at Griffith: riverinainterclubracing.comtdrOpen ↗

I'd also like to chip in that I don't think cyclist are such [censored] in the Riverina and North East Victoria. I'd say that there are less [censored] around now then when I started and the whole sport is leagues ahead when it comes to friendliness and welcoming of new riders.

gplama said:

The country Vets clubs are what everyone needs exposure to. They are bloody ace. Ballarat, Grampians, Seymour, Geelong to an extent but they're more metro than the others.

Get a vets license Classo, come race up in Ballarat. They'll give you an awesome mark. You can sit on my wheel any time*. They put on a massive spread of food after every race. Win the meat raffle and it is a bloody great day.

*during the warm up.

Unfortunately there is no Vets racing near me, but the feel to their races is pretty similar to our ones I reckon.

531Aussie said:

This is an obvious thing to say, but with so many people riding now, there are a million group smash-fests, and, for a lot of people, they can get enough "competition" and bragging rights thrills from that.
Being a Hell Ride Hero is plenty for some dudes.

That is certainly true but hasn't it always been that way? In Albury we always had big numbers at the Tuesday and Thursday World Cups but no matter what was tried over the last 20 years the club couldn't convert any more than a fraction of the participants into racers. I used to like those kind of rides but once I started racing they stopped being of interest. Mickey Mouse rides with riders with little in the way of group skills is not something that interests me.

Someone said Hell Ride? Here is a story from today that's been posted around the place: instagram.comz6PqJigK3FOpen ↗

gplama said:

The country Vets clubs are what everyone needs exposure to. They are bloody ace. Ballarat, Grampians, Seymour, Geelong to an extent but they're more metro than the others.

Get a vets license Classo, come race up in Ballarat. They'll give you an awesome mark. You can sit on my wheel any time*. They put on a massive spread of food after every race. Win the meat raffle and it is a bloody great day.

*during the warm up.

Couldn't agree more, I found the Grampains club about 3 years ago. Was just riding out through halls gap and come across this race run on the side of the road, reminded me of how races were run when I was kid. Joined up on the spot and raced, I think I even won some cash $20 or something. Geelong and Ballarat are both good clubs, the racing at Ballarat is heaps better, much safer roads than geelong.

gplama said:

Someone said Hell Ride? Here is a story from today that's been posted around the place: instagram.comz6PqJigK3FOpen ↗

nasty!

What was the go with the site today Steve? httpd process [censored] itself?

was out today and haven't bothered setting up any sort of monitoring on the servers, got home just before and was greeted with a read only file system. all fixed phew! Lucky i'm a better sysadmin than bike rider.