Vic masters sprint day on Saturday.  No excuses, I have trained all year, gotten stronger, thought I'd gotten faster.  Even lost a little bit of weight!  To no avail ... Flying 200 was 12.95something, slower than last year (12.91) despite better aero gear.  Didn't qualify for the finals.  I didn't do the kilo (never again after last year, the kilo sucks!) and in the Keirin I didn't want to get involved in the stupidity happening at the front and gambled on doing a Bradbury when they all crashed. 

They crashed in the first run of the race, Turbo got brought down most unfairly and I think no-one was watching it happen, the perpetrators didn't get suspended and from where I was, it was clear that they should have.  Modern Keirin does not include pushing down onto a rider who is in the lane and causing them to crash.  Maybe back in the 1970's, but not in 2010.

In the re-run, almost the same thing happened again, I sat off the back and watched, then when the pace went on I didn't have the legs to go with it. 

So, no better than last year.  I think that means, that after a year or so's dedicated sprint training, that I'm not ever going to be any good as a sprinter.  I can live with that, I'm enjoying the sprint series, I'll never be any sort of elite, but that's ok, I love sprinting and will keep doing it and keep trying to chip away at my PB in the flying 200.  I just won't ever be able to give guys like Lou Pascussi any competition, but that's ok with me.  We're all playing with the hand we're dealt at birth and I figure if I can get the best out myself, that'll be enough for me.

Everyone else had a good day.  Dino and Mick were the best of the Vics at the sprint and keirin respectively, I still don't know why Queenslanders and Tasmanians are allowed to enter, and win, the Vic state titles, I'm sure there's a reason for it but I don't know what it is.  Chris Ray rode his best kilo in competition (after a F200 and a bunch of sprints) and got 3rd in the sprint and I think placed in the Keirin as well?  Craig rode well given his very upset year with a lot of personal stuff to contend with too, and on the Sunday Cam and Mick rode scorchers too. 

MMAS2, sprint day (Saturday).

Hot, gusty northerly.

98.4", disk wheel.

Held starts (!%#$CV#$RT@#$!!!!!) not gate starts.  500m ITT, 42.02s (~0.5s faster than last year) - good enough for 3rd, beaten by the Wizard and Jamie Goddard.

Flying 200's - same gear, 13.4 (hand timing, lots of variance, one had me at 13.2 .... results as such of no value as very inconsistent).  Qualify 4th (!) - Wayne Arazny rode a 12.9ish f200!  Wow..... Very gusty northerly making for fast but inconsistent times.  A lot of luck with the gusts, or bad luck, depending on when you got a blast of wind.

I drop down to 91.8" for the sprints.

Race Jamie Goddard in the semi, he wins after leading me out for 2.5 laps.  I didn't come off his wheel with enough power, maybe a chance lost?  Jamie's bloody quick ... I dunno, if I'd come at him harder?  Maybe?

Race Wayne Arazny for 3rd place, I win, Wayne's cooked, he needs more sprint training, he's fast, but he runs out of efforts very quickly, if his 200m time was right, and we think it was close, he's much faster than he raced against me.

So two third places.  Given that The Wizard would win, and Jamie .. they're both a level above me, I'm pleased with the days efforts.  The F200 was my best for the summer, although the time is not to be trusted.

Dino won the 500 and the sprint in MMAS5.

Em won the 500 and the sprint in JW15.

It'll be a busy night at presentation night for the aboc sprint squad.

Em on fire at state team training, reports of a blisteringly quick standing 125 ... Watch out at the Aussies ...

Thanks to everyone who came to DISC last night for our training session.  The AIS-inspired K1 drill went well for the sprinters and the revouts .. what a blast!  Em's legs were a blur! We were very happy to have Fast Eddie come and train with us, and hopefully he'll be a regular, he's looking strong and is blisteringly quick and is one of those genuinely good guys that's great to have around.

So what else has been going on?  I've been to Adelaide and done the first part of the level 2 cycle coaching course.  Mixed feelings on that.  Some of the presenters were excellent, Craig Colduck (strength coach) and Shona (AIS recovery) in particular were superb.  Some of the presenters were presenting some quite dated material and some were clearly poorly prepared and not willing to explain what they did in much detail.  To be fair, that wasn't always their faults, John Beasley was brought in at the last minute to fill a gap and even with limited preparation he was a solid presenter.

It was a pretty intense 6 days and I met some really good people and caught up with some old aquaintances as well.  There's a lot of work to do to finish the level 2 but I don't see it as being terribly difficult, just time-consuming.

We had the third round of the SSS just after I got back, and I rode a shocker of a flying 200 (despite near perfect conditions!), a 13.8-something.  I knew I'd be flat after the 6 days in Adelaide doing bugger-all, sitting down a lot and eating sugary food too much.  My warmup in the 'Haus on the Sunday morning was no false alarm, I was flat and weak!

But I did manage to win a couple of races, despite being in a hole.  I'd qualified slowest in B grade, which wasn't a good sign, but Leon Simms didn't bring his race-face and I got him in the first heat :

But in the second, Ed Osbourne has a savage jump and he used it to smash me to bits!

Too easy, Ed!  Well done!

In the third heat I was up against Wayne Arazny.  Wayne has a habit of racing Glenvale in the morning, which means he comes tired and hasn't the snap I know he's capable of.  After a f200 and two sprints, he's toast, and it shows :

So two wins, but with a bad F200, I'm not in the finals this time.  C'est la Vie.  Next time ... There's two solid months of training between now and round 4.  I'm a bit burnt out, but with an easy week I'll be right, and I'm gunning for a 13.2-something at Blackburn this season.  That's the goal.  I've done a 13.4, I can find another 0.2s ... Somewhere!

The round went really well, our team was superb (Thanks Sue and Jodie and Anne and Lucie) and everyone had a ball.

On Saturday at Blackburn's regular track racing Emily had a spectacular tumble which resulted in a loss of a lot of skin and a trip in an ambulance.  Those of you that read this and know her will be relieved to know that she's not too badly banged up.  She's lost some bark and got some pretty impressive bruises and isn't the happiest of little Vegemites but so far, nothing major's shown up and she's in good spirits.  We're all very relieved for her, she's still gunning for the Vic Championships and the aboc family is united in supporting her.  Em's a very tough and motivated young lady and strong people are harder to kill.

After round 1, I felt crap for weeks.  Really weak and lethargic.  Every time I tried to lift heavy or sprint hard, nothing .. Flat and empty.  My diet, sleep and work had been out of kilter and nothing felt right.  To top it off, Lucie got crook and now we both have a cold.  Anyway .. Round 2 went ok, I qualified reasonably well with a 13.7 something, I was glad to be under 14 at least, given how I' been feeling that was pretty good.  The bye was a stroke of luck, I dealt with Wayne reasonably easily :

And Chris Hickey and I had a very very close finish

Both Chris and I though I won it, the photo was ambiguous and Sue and Kim in the middle thought Chris, so Chris got the win, and thus, I was to race for 3rd against Peta Stewart.

Peta's no slouch, that's for sure, and while I'd qualified faster and was probably a bit quicker, she drew the lead and I (foolishly) let her keep it.  She did a great job of boxing me up when I wanted to go and held off for a good win, so I got 4th again!

On Monday the cold really started to kick in and for this week I've been in and out of bed whilst setting the world record for litres of snot expelled by a human.  Hrm.  Anyway .. I have been able to do some anaerobic work, my squat strength is coming back, I ground out 3 x 3 @ 185kg this morning and got 1 x 5 170kg deadlifts, the deadlifts was a new personal best for me, so that was gratifying, and I pressed 3 x 5 @ 57.5kg, my press isn't my best lift by any stretch but that was a PR too, so despite being a snot-generator it was a good session, and young Will trained with me and did well as he learns the art of black iron training in the 'Haus. 

This arvo is keirins at Blackburn.  I still can't breathe too well, so I doubt that I'll be able to do well, but I'll have a crack at them. Once I shell this virus for good, round 3 will be a scorcher.  I'm going to go 13.2 for a flying 200 outdoors soon, I can feel it ...

And Em just rode an excellent time at Shep today (500m ITT) in windy conditions she's 2.2s faster than this time last year.  Go you good thing!

I was trolling the 'net for some trivia on sprinting ..

World professional sprint champions from Australia :

1920, Antwerp, Bob Spears (Bob was also runner up in '21 & '22)

1970, Leicester, Gordon Johnson

1975, Rocourt, John Nicholson

1976, Monteroni di Lecce, John Nicholson

1988, Ghent, Stephen Pate

1993, Hamar, Gary Neiwand

1995, Bogota, Darryn Hill

2002, Ballerup, Sean Eadie

For the women, no Australian women have won the world sprint championship (yet), Anna Meares was runner up in 2004 at the Melbourne world titles.

It's been a pretty busy week at aboc HQ.  I haven't had time to write much, but it's been hectic.  We've had many people over helping to clear the shed in preparation for the launch of the aboc PowerHaus, I've trained with Brad Robins at Blackburn, and Pat and Dino, and Dino again on Thursday on ergos.  We raced on Saturday, trained again on Sunday at DISC, very busy indeed.

I haven't lifted at all for almost two weeks.  I feel bad about it, but every time I've tried to squat heavy I've felt weak and unable to get any sets done.  So, a bit of time off to recover, and I'll hit it again next week.  A big increase in volume of track training has probably contributed to my gym training's flatness. I'm not too worried, the gym work is to go faster on the bike, not to be good in the gym all the time.

Last night was our first Summer DISC session, a healthy turnout of riders, mostly sprinters, made for a busy night - we did standing half laps out of the gate, and then revouts chasing the motorbike, the enduros did a couple of E3 efforts then some motorpaced sprint efforts and revouts.  Suffice to say that come time for chicken and chips, everyone was well toasted.  Chris Ray's overtaking of the motorbike was a sight during a revout.  He's going pretty quick ... And Em and Jamie chasing the bike on J15 gearing at close to 60km/h .. Those kids have some legspeed ..

Speaking of going quick, round 2 of the aSSS is now oversubscribed, we've got 32 pre-entries and a rider on the standby list.  Fantastic.  Ride is due out this week, so we'll get a flurry of interest from that too I expect.

I've had signups and payments for the Hotham camp trickling in, the lodge is now paid for and we're all looking forward to it in four weeks.

I got the chance to congratulate the V-Train for his regaining of his world masters pursuit world title, he's riding at the sprint series this Sunday (round 2) so we'll see how he goes at that too, there's a bunch of new faces racing with us, it should make for some pretty exciting racing. I can't wait!

I've (finally!) booked in to do the Cycling Australia level 2 coaching course in November/December in Adelaide this year.  I've been wanting to do it for some time and with the move to Adelaide of the course, increase in time (6 days from 5) and more sprint focus, and thus a chance to speak with and learn from the AIS sprint team there I couldn't resist.

So I'll be away from the 28th of November 'til the 3rd of December, but will be back in time for round 3 of the aSSS.

In particular I'm hoping to get a chance to spend some time with Craig Colduck, who is the author of this post from fixedgearfever, there's a few details I want to ask him about.  I'm pretty sure that a lot of the stuff in there is really only meant to apply to elite athletes, in particular the "set a personal best, go home" bit, which is, I strongly suspect, intended only for riders working near their genetic potential where overtraining is a real concern.  This is similar to some programming data in "Practical Programming for Strength Training". 

Anyway, I'll be in Adelaide for a few days without a bike during the leadup to round 3.  I'll have to see if I can borrow one of Pete's folders and train on that!

It's great to see that Liz Randall won her first event at the UCI World Masters yesterday.  I didn't know she was doing the 500m ITT, but not only did she do it, she won it.  Another world title for Liz! She's also qualified fastest for the 2k pursuit.  There's no such thing as a dead cert, but I think she'll come back with a few more than just one world title.  I'd bet on all of them for her age group.  Go Liz!  I spent a few mornings over the past month at DISC motorpacing her, I'm not her coach, but am a small part of her team, and that's a great thing, I'm very pleased.

This last weekend was always going to be a big one.  We had track racing on Saturday at Blackburn, which had a keiren, and I wanted to do well in that, then I had to do some work at a client site in the evening doing part of a server migration, Sunday was up very early (5:30ish) to get down to Lang Lang to do my corner marshalling for a road race, then motorpacing Neil the week out from the Warny, home to have dinner with my Dad (60th b'day)

Or so the plan went.  Of course, it got busier.

Saturday went well on the track, in the scratch race I did a couple of longer turns for Dino before pulling out to save energy for the keiren.  With 91.8" on for the day and racing C grade I kinda expected to win.  Doug split us up into two bunches of 4, so the first 3 were through to the final.  I drew the first heat, along with Dino and a few non-sprinters.  It was pretty windy, so the bike was the place to be.  I got the bike from the start and when it pulled off I had a junior behind me (perfect) as a buffer, I kicked hard on each straight and sat up on the corners, and won by quite a way, but did use quite a bit of steam to do so.

We had about 15 mins or so to recover before the final.  Wayne Arazny had made it through (no surprise there) as had Dino.  Right .. it's still pretty windy.  I missed the bike but the young junior who got it relinquished it when I made it clear that I wanted it, afterwards he told me he didn't want the bike anyway, which was why he was so easy to dislodge.  So I have the wheel again and the best sit into the headwind.  With 1.5 laps to go it pulls off, I've been watching Wayne over my shoulder and see him looming up on the blue line.  I kick moderately hard down the back straight into the wind, no-one comes over, I sit on the corner, still no-one, but Wayne is close, I can sense him there.  Where's Dino?  Up the front straight with the tailwind I kick again, still nothing, Wayne makes his move around the back straight into the wind and gets a nose in front into the last corner, I still have the lane, but I'm fading fast, and Wayne has the beans to hold his lead and get me by half a bike.  Doh!   Dino takes third after fluffing the start and having to come from a long way back.  Second will have to do! It was a pretty slow race, my powertap showed a maximum speed of only 51.5km/h. the heat was only a 52km/h race too, so the wind had a big effect.

After that we had a motorpace, but I wasn't interested and pulled out after 2 laps with no legs and no heart for it.

After that I had to go in to a client site in town and work for hours on a server build, and eventually got home around 1:30am.  Up at 5:45 to get to Lang Lang by 7:30 for the Lang Lang road race, where I was a corner marshal at my usual corner.

I've been the corner marshal for that corner for years now, it's my home away from home at Lang Lang!  Neil Robinson hooked up with me there at around 12 and once B grade had come past for their second lap, we packed up and headed out to Modella to do a motorpaced lap for his preparation for the Warny next weekend.

I was pleased to find that Neil had ridden the Tour of Timor recently (wow!) and done pretty well.  He's always been a naturally talented rider and able to do just about everything.  I didn't know he'd been racing that well though!

The Modella course we used was the flat one.  It was quite windy and there's little shelter and the course we rode is essentially a square. Neil took his camera(!) and snapped a few photos while we warmed him up, but once the pace was on there was no camera use!  After a solid hour he was trashed and my wrist aching.  Time to go home.

There'd been a crash on the M1 freeway, someone had tried to see if trees move out of the way of speeding cars, and the freeway was blocked for miles.  I don't know if the driver of the car lived, but it looked pretty unlikely.  Ugly .. People driving cars really need to understand risk better than they do.  Home eventually by 5ish only to find that the client site I'd been at on Saturday night wasn't on the 'net.  Right ... In I go again, only to find that they'd lost all power to their floor (co-incidence!  Imagine ...).  After stuffing around with the fuse box, calling a sparky, finding that there was another switch box in a room we didn't have access to, the call was 'bugger it, I'm going home'.  Dropped in at Rich's for a pizza then home to sleep.  Dad was moving house this weekend and was still working on it, hopefully I'll catch up with him this week for dinner.

Phew ...

Turn down the volume, Alex Vaughan is commentating!

I was very much looking forward to round one of the aSSS yesterday.  On Saturday I was jumping out of my skin, but I woke on Sunday feeling a little flat and lethargic.  Lucie and I did all the making of the rolls for lunch etc and I did a warmup set in the 'Haus to kickstart my legs.  The warmup felt heavy.  Hrm.

Anyway .. We got to Blackburn, John Lewis and I set up the timing tapes and people started arriving.  I slapped on the replacement FFWD 5 spoke front and the disk rear wheel onto my T1 and did a few warmup laps and one surge, that felt ok.  98" was the gear for the day, not much wind and I should be strong enough to push it.

A bit of background on the 5 spoke.  I got it initially about 3 weeks ago, and tested it out at DISC only to find that it had loose bearings and shook uncontrollably at around 30km/h, so we sent it back to FRF (Aust importer) and they sent me another one which we got just in time for round 1.  Pete from CS-M glued it up during the week. On Saturday I bolted it into the bike and it didn't feel 100%, but was a lot better than the first one.

Flying 200 time, and I'm psyched for a big one.  Wind it up with a very light northerly breeze blowing (< 5km/h, perfect conditions), the front end twitches just a little up the front straight during my windup but seems ok, I hammer it into the clubroom corner to get up to speed, drop down following the Nicko-Line and feel fast crossing the start line ... then I hit the corner and the front end goes ballistic.  In motorcycling terms it did a tank-slapper.  The front end of the bike shook uncontrollably and I was heading for the fence with no control over the bike, frantically backpedaling to slow down and wash off some speed.  I managed to get around the corner with the front still wobbling all over the place and record a 15.something time.   I ask for a rerun and Sue approves.  The 5 spoke is swapped out for my older Bontrager carbon front wheel (that I trust!).   The FFWD 5 spoke is going back, and I don't want another one. A $3,000 wheel should have better quality control than these things have and as far as I'm concerned they ran shove it up their backsides and I want my money back!

I get about 30 mins to recover to do my second run.  I'm still a bit shaken (and fatigued from the first run!) and I only manage a 13.802 (52.17 km/h).  That's pretty slow.  It qualifies me as the second seed in B grade, Rob Tidey was 0.4 faster and he's the first seed in B grade.  Dino's made the cut into A grade as has Neil Robinson (his first time in A grade!).  Chris Ray and Gary Jackson are the fastest two in A grade, being the only riders on the day to get into the 12 second box.

Round 1 and I'm up against Nathan Fraser (14.174).  I should be able to get this, Nathan goes very early, very hard.  I'm on a big gear (98") and it takes a while to wind it up and I chase like a madman for a lap and a half before catching him just before the final bend, he's blown and I fly past and take a win first up.  That took a lot of energy to do!  I had to ride a 550m ITT to catch him.  Ouch. I'll pay for that (and the extra F200) later.  Final 200 : 15.036

Round 2 vs Leon Sims (14.124).   Similar race, Leon jumps around 450m so to go and gets a gap, again I'm chasing but once I get on top of the 98" I have speed and get him by a bit over a bike length.  That hurt too ... Still, two from two is the best I've ever had at an SSS round.  Final 200 : 14.121

Round three and I'm up against Andrew Steele (13.921).  Steelie's the flying 200 record holder at Blackburn, before he had a long break from the sport he rode an 11.94s. He's a very smart sprinter.  Certainly he's not in the best shape of his life, but he's still got a lot of power and a hell of a lot of race smarts.  If I'm not in front of him with 200m to go I'm toast, I figure.  Jokes at the start line about the combined weight of the field in this race being close to 300kg! I get schooled in how to ride a sprint and Steelie wins it by half a bike length after sitting up once he knew he had the win.  He has this amazing surge and back off which he kept throwing at me and I'd never raced anyone with that in their toolkit.  A really good lesson and I'm thrilled to have been able to race against him.  When he gets into some better shape he'll be very fast again. Final 200 : 13.789

Finals, I'm in the 3v4 ride off against Marc Wilson (13.905).  This is over 3 laps and he draws the lead.  I go under him and take it off him and hold him up high, I don't have the energy for a long sprint and I want this one to be a last lap drag race, I'm persisting with the 98" gear.  I haven't had a chance to watch Marc race much, he gave Rob Tidey a decent race in round 3 which I did see.  We jump around about together and it's a good race, but Marc gets it by half a bike.

So, two flying 200s, Four match sprints.  Two wins and two close losses. I shouldn't be unhappy with that.  I'm very unhappy with the (very expensive!) FFWD front wheel though!

The day itself went just about perfectly.  A full field, some brilliant racing and the series is everything we dreamed it could be.  Lots of positive feedback, the team did an amazing job (again!) - Sue ran the races with the right level of control and authority, it was all run in good spirit and we have hundreds of photos (thank you Lucie and Nathan) and loads of video for me to edit and upload over the next few days.  The electronic timing was great, thanks to John Lewis and Nathan Frazer.

Next round, I think I'll drop down to 94" or so, the 98" was too much to accelerate and while I had loads of speed on it, tactically it was the wrong gear for the day.

Last night many in the aboc Sprint Squad set PB's in the PowerHaus, I did a couple of singles at 200kg which Emily told me were legal lifts (below parallel squats), the others set PB's.  It was low volume, high intensity in the 'Haus and the rest of the week is a taper so we should arrive at round 1 breathing fire.  The forecast is good ... Bring. It. On!

Unfortunately I can't embed this one, but you can see it at Youtube :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=DE&v=Ki2re9uILtc

John Nicholson : 2 times world professional sprint champion, Comm games gold medalist, Olympic silver medalist.

Old footage of him courtesy of Merv Tracy.

This is from the old Northcote velodrome sometime in the 1970's.  I don't know who he's racing against.

Some data from the powertap for today's practice round for the SSS.

First up, my flying 200.  13.51 I think, hand timed as the electronic timer was 'teething'.  Gusty west/souwesterly wind, 98.4" gear.  Not a PB, but given the weather at the time, not too bad.

After that, the first sprint vs Dino Apolito. Dino got the jump on me in front of the clubrooms from behind and I didn't quite catch him. Close, but not close enough.

Finally, my race against Craig Towers.  Craig had fallen earlier (not a crash, a mechanical as he rode to the start line!) and was a bit bruised and sore.  I jumped clear and won by quite a margin.

This isn't an airing of dirty laundry! Last night we addressed (eventually!) the 300kg gorilla in the room - the Friday night DISC slot.

Nicko's initial suggestion was one that most of us were pleased with; retain Saturday's racing as-is.  Grab the Friday slot at DISC and use it for club training and once a month racing - something special, a niche that people would come to race like the SSS or Hawthorn's Sunday Roast.  Maybe do more Friday night races over winter? Most of us nodded in rigourous agreement with this.

Then Nicko had to go, family stuff, and we got bogged down a little.  To cut a long story short, almost everyone at the meeting was not going to move on Saturday's racing staying as-is.  The Saturday program at Blackburn is what makes the club special, it has broad appeal and is suitable for everyone, if Tom Leaper, Barry Woods, Stu Vaughan and Steve Martin can race on Saturday alongside the F grade novices and keep coming back then we have something very special indeed.   To steal the words of one of the people pushing to change that to Friday at DISC instead of Saturday at Blackburn, consistency IS important and the Saturday races benefit from being consistent.

So, at the end, nothing was really achieved and no firm decision was made (nothing new at  a BBN committee meeting!) except that the Saturday program will continue as planned this summer - The guys pushing for the Friday change have gone away to cook up another plan.  If they're smart (and they are and I mean no disrespect to them.  We're friends and we all want the best for the club) they'll realise the importance of Saturday's racing and NOT TAMPER WITH IT.  When I started the Summer Sprint Series we were very careful to compliment, not compete with, Saturday's racing, which is core to the identity and ideals of the club.

One of the things our racing on Saturday does really well is provide a venue for riders of just about every level to compete in a welcoming family environment.  Sure, some riders will out-grow it and will want and need to move to higher level races but that's a normal thing and I think a sign of the success of the race program and a win for the club if and when it happens - we shouldn't fight that, we should be proud of it.  We're awfully proud of Richard England, who came up through our program and now races professionally, we don't expect to see him very often but he does show up sometimes and race with us and he remembers where he came from, as does Tom and the other elite guys who race with us and have a lot of fun doing it.  That's what club cycling is all about and that's how it should be.

Those of you that come along to the Tuesday Spin sessions may or may not notice, but each week we increase the amount of chilli in the sauce.  This is because I like chilli!  It's also because chilli is good for you.

Don't believe me?  Fair enough - wise people don't believe anything they're told by random unqualified bloggers without further investigation.  So here's some supporting material.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/hot-news-chilli-may-be-answer-to-your-ills-20090902-f8fh.html

From the article :

CHILLI could one day replace aspirin for the prevention and treatment of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to University of Tasmania scientists who are looking at the way the spicy fruit affects the blood.

A research fellow at the university's school of life sciences, Kiran Ahuja, said the two active ingredients in chilli - capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin - have the potential to lower blood glucose and insulin levels, reduce the formation of fatty deposits in artery walls and prevent blood clots.

So how about that! It's also reportedly good for ulcers (not causing them .. curing them!) and is full of vitamin C.  Is it like oxy-shots?  No, this stuff is real!

 And on another front, I dropped in at Andrew Steele's Croydon bike shop yesterday to get some glue for the new wheel (which hasn't arrived yet ...) and we spoke about the series - he's keen, his track bike was out in the shop getting some attention. 

While discussing it I was bemoaning the fact that no wholesalers wanted to be involved, not even FRF, who I though would given that they've just started importing FFWD wheels (which are the same wheels as Bouwmeester who have a local reputation) and that they'd have a captive audience of 30 sprinters who will drool over a 5 spoke and a disk wheel and would be very tempted ....  You can lead a horse to water and so on ... Even the big article in Ride didn't sway the position.  So Andrew offered to help out.  The series will now be the aboc Summer Sprint Series (aSSS!) presented by Riviera Cycles and AvantiPlus Croydon.  Andrew is sponsoring the series with a high end pair of Specialized S-Works shoes which will be our runner-up prize, and Gary Jackson from Riviera and I are going 50% on a nice set of carbon track wheels he's (Gary) building.

 So that's boxed up and sorted now, which is a big load off my mind.  Now I have to rally the troops (the volunteers!) to get everyone fired up for a great series this summer.

Last Saturday (8th August) while training in the 'Haus with the Sprint Squad guys, I managed to grind out 3 x 3 @ 185kg squats at last.  I stuttered on the second set and had to revisit it (repeat it!) because on rep 2 I lost control of the bar and had to regain balance, but I got the lifts. In the end it was 3, 1(stumbled on 2), 3, 3.  So I'm happy with that.  

We had a solid session at DISC last night, it got cold very quickly after it being quite warm at 4:30pm, but by 6 it was an icebox and we all rugged up a lot.  Come 7pm and everyone was pretty-well shattered, so job done for another Sunday.  Our 1/2 lap chase onto the bike, 1 lap paced 1/2 lap sprint drill is starting to get challenging and we'll keep making it harder (the bike goes faster!)

At the moment, according to FedEx the track Powertap wheel is in Australia!

In other news I'm pleased to see that Alan Dorin won CCCC's Lenny Hammond handicap on Saturday down at Modella.  This year it was their hilly course, way back in 2004 I won it, when it was flat!

It's been hard to miss this week, swimming's world record smashfest at the world championships in Rome.  Previous "nobodies" (sic) beating world marks set by famous swimmers.  Why? Swimming suits that reduce drag and increase buoyancy.

They (swimming) started down the slippery slope years ago, but it's finally become obvious that their records are now a farce.

Cycling addressed this issue quite a while ago to howls of derision by some, who still whine about it now.    There's really only one major record in cycling, and that's the Hour.  One hour, fixed gear, velodrome.  If you watched Graham Obree's semi-biographical film or read his book 'The Flying Scotsman' etc you'd remember.  How did Graham break the record? With a special narrow bike, less drag ... How did Chris Boardman break it again? With a bike designed 'On a Computer'.  Eventually the UCI said enough, and now the Hour must be set on a standard bike with standard bits and pieces and there's a separate section of the records that covers the fancy bikes used to set the hour record.  If you want to break the record now you have to do it at sea level on a standard bicycle.  So the Hour is a record that means something.  If you break it, you're actually faster than Merckx was and that's how it should be.

All the other cycling disciplines aren't really based on times, they're all relative (save for some track time trials), so as long as everyone has roughly equal budgets they're on a level-ish playing field.  Our sport coped with the issues swimming has blindly plunged into (who seriously didn't see this coming?!), it'll be interesting to see how swimming copes.  It's a pretty boring sport to watch, the only thrill is the breaking of a world record or seeing someone you're connected to do well, so how they cope with the records issue will be intriguing.

Two big sprinters on a tandem! Thankyou Dino for the photo (and the loan of your daughter!)