A beautiful day and as James Stratford said “Farewell Winter”. James and Alex rode to Strathewen, Hindlebrand Road, St Andrews, Sugarloaf, Alma and home.

What about you?

Strava riders have recently been talking about magpie strikes on them and the opening of the attack season this spring. Many riders were looking for strategies to avoid them and Cyril recently commented that we should just see them as another training partner.  Maybe doing interval training as you come into the nesting zones where they hang out is a good idea.

Some riders who have been riding in the GreenWEDGE for decades tell me that magpies have been the same locations for years. Learned behaviour no doubt. By the way that cable tie thing doesn’t work, research done in a SA university a few years proved it was a waste of time. Check this out

This is where I’ve been attacked by those in the black and white jerseys in past seasons.

1. St Andrews KG road near the Dawsons and Water Gully intersection.
2. The roundabout on Fitzsimmons Lane / Warrandyte Heidelberg Road heading towards Warrandyte.
3. About 8 KM out of Kinglake heading towards Humevale.
4. The lookout on Bells Hill Rd, which goes past Eltham College
5. Wattletree Rd as you go up the hill towards Ryans rd.

Lets build the list.

30th September 1883

Bicycling‘, Evelyn Observer and South and East Bourke Record, Friday 5 October 1883, p.2.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/58916562

“On Sunday last, September 30th, Messrs. W.S. Haselton and Alf Joy of the Melbourne Bicycle Club, took a run from Melbourne to Kinglake. This, we believe, is the pioneer bicycle trip to the Mount. The following are the places called at and the time ; –

Left Melbourne at 6.30am, arrived at Heidelberg at 7.20;

Left Heidelberg at 8.20 arrived at Research, 9.38;

Left Research 9.48 arrived at Queenstown, 11.18. Thus doing the journey from Melbourne to Queenstown, a distance of 27 miles, in 3hrs 33m riding time; the stoppages taking 1hr 10m.

At 12.18 they made a start for Kinglake, arriving there at 2.15, and at Mr E. N. Staffs residence at 2.20 and stopped there 20 minutes;

Left Kinglake at 3.30 and arrived Queenstown at 4.45. After a short stay they made a start for Melbourne“.

Anyone wanting to commemorate this ride by Messrs. W.S. Haselton and Alf Joy of the Melbourne Bicycle Club?

Alain

Leader of the pack

Two weeks in a row GreenWEDGE Cyclists have enjoyed success in the Northern Combine. This week Alain shot home to get first place in Alf Kimpton Memorial in the scratch race of 66KM over 2 laps. Top result Alain! You’ve put plenty of effort into that result,  well deserved. Full results below and you can see them on the Northern Combine site here. Thanks to Jo Upton for photos

Strava engineers produced a heat map of Saturday rides on Saturday July 20, 2013. Have you checked it out? Click here. Beach road was busy!

One our co-riders, Simon Gamble, raced in the Northern Combine’s  2013 Tom Probert Teams Group 1 Support Race and came in second. The 36KM race  was held in cold and windy conditions at the Calder Park Raceway.  Well done Simon on your result (pictured in the foreground with Benny and Alain).

Aero

St Kilda – Team winners

Heading onto the track

After kicking it around a bit we’ve decided to have the rides vary each time and just depend on contacting each other before we ride somewhere in the GreenWEDGE. We’ll do special rides too but I think it seems the riders want to do a bit of exploring and bring people from other places to enjoy the rides.