Wednesday, December 8, 2010

PBKblog: Dave intervies Jonny Walker

PBKblog Interview with Carnegie Caulfields cycling Club President

You beauty! It’s Sunday and it’s doing what the day claims it should be doing, and at last. The sun is well and truly out. With that it’s up i and early and a spin down the road to the local sunday race, the one thats organized by local club carnegie cauilfild.

I’m not going to use this blog entry to tell you what happened in the race, at the end of the day a crits a crit, well it is until I manage to get up there and get a result. Then I’ll be telling you all about the ins and outs of the race, blowing my ow trumpet i think is what they call it.

But until that happens i’ve decided to focus on other aspects of the racing and cycling.


It’s not all about the guys who race, cycling in general is booming. And here in the Melbourne area you can see that boom. It’s almost sonic!

Head down beach road over the weekend and expect to be swamped by cyclist. All shapes all sizes, from the racing whippets to the guys who base themselves on the over indulgent ex-pro (aka Eddy mercx from about 2002). Aparantly statistics say that 15,000 people head down that road over the weekend. I still can’t get my head around that figure after i was told it.

Men women and kids all out ripping it up.


Melbourne has a huge cycling scene with out a doubt, with that you have a good lot of well run and well organized clubs to help the sport along. Developing the sport, organizing events, racing and group rides. There to help the newbies, and generally keeping the sport on track from the ground up.

Without these clubs the scene would be a hell of a lot poorer. You have a team of dedicated cycling loving folk who run these clubs, putting huge amounts of there own free time and effort in to keep the club alive.

These people get up at silly “o'clock to get everything in place so us guys can turn up sign and race. A lot of us may not give a second thought to the running of these event’s, taking them for granted. After all that race we head to every sunday may have been running for years.

The sport needs these people and a lot of the time they don't get the recognition they deserve. So I’m going to focus a bit on these people in upcoming videos and blogs.


First up is a guy with one hell of a mustache. President of Melbourne and Australia's biggest club. Malg gasg of the carnegie caulfield cycling club. Or the CCCC as it says on the jersey.

This guys got his work cut out for sure, with hundreds of cyclist in the club the order for team kit must take weeks alone.

I caught up with him after sundays criterium at Springvale. To talk about the club.

Mal’s the guy who’s the main man at CCCC, he has many jobs with in the club. He runs the website, is the go to guy, the one that tells us all at the start of our race the info we need to know, the guy who keeps law and order at the races and the guy that help find me a place to stay while here in Melbourne. Yes people you australians came through at last and I’m now in a nice little place of my own away from drunken backpackers.

All in all Mal's juggling a few things to keep the club up and running, there’ll be more like him in the club. You need them all to run a club the shear size of CCCC but as he has the title president title I decided he’d be my first victim in this seres of people who keep the sport afloat.

Dave reviews the Lake CX401 road cycling shoe

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Dave's Diary. Racing in Melbourne


I’m sure you lot back in the UK are going to think that I’m hard done by and at the same time you australians are going to shout “Winging pome” with what I’m going to write.

Will the rain that seems to have settled over the area of Australia known as Melbourne please get lost, I aint brought enough wet weather kit.

Now it’s not that bad, it’s just when you come to Oz you kind of expect the weather to be well a bit brighter than it has been.

Due to this wet weather there has been a severe lack of racing, it’s crit season here and no one is crazy enough to race let alone hold a race in the rain here. Sure back home in the UK we hold races in the rain but here and I’m guessing it’s something to do with the roads not being use to having water on them, it seems to be a hell lot like riding on ice when its wet here.

I’ve been on a few cycling forums and other cycling websites and it seems I'm not the only cyclist who is getting frustrated at the weather.

It’s something crazy like 120 years since they’ve had this much rain over the winter. Last time I came to Oz I brought the rain with me, toping up the reservoirs around the blue mountains. Now, I’m not saying I’m a rain god and the wet weather loves me but if this is even close to the case surly you australians should be thinking about giving me a fell time traveling job, roaming the country bringing previously barren landscapes a fresh lease of life. I only ask for a passport (and a half decent wage). Good deal I’m sure you’d agree.


Though as I write this the weather seems to be picking up, the forecast says that we should be getting some of that sunshine for the next few day’s. Today I should be racing, I cant blame the the fact I’m not just on the weather. No, I’ll take some of the blame. I blame myself for ending up in a noisy hostel (well noisy for a backpacking cyclist who want’s to race, for an everyday bloke its practically morgue like). A lack of sleep, some crappy weather, hostel life style living and earning some cash the hard way by working on a flower farm all adds up to the fact I’m here in front of this computer and not out racing. Though I feel i’ve made the right choice. I’m not a guy who can afford to get to shattered, friends and family will back me up here. I usually end up at the side of the road sparko and thrashing about, but thats another story. A slightly sad crappy one but I wont bother you with it.

Instead I’ll continue my diary.

As I’ve said the weather has been a bit poor, though I did get myself down to Sandown race circuit on tuesday. There has been a few days between the rain that have been blooming lovely.


I’d managed to secure a ropey old van that usually sits in the corner of the hostel car park and sometimes gets the odd outing to the local supermarket. With this mode of transport I was halfway there, there being Sandown, the motor racing circuit that on a tuesday night during the australian summer is home to Carnegie Caufields Cycling Club (or CCCC as i’ll refer to them in future) evening race series.


After fighting with the old beast (the van that would be) and getting slightly lost I arrived at Sandown with plenty of time to get ready and race.

Yet again I was pleasantly suppressed at the venue the turn out of riders and thankfully the sunshine.

The circuit is about 3 km long, wide with got a good little hill that pulls the legs and then there's the wind.

Being open it’s windy, apparently tuesday was an odd en, the wind was in the opposite direction to usual. But either way it was all new to me.

The turn out was as epic (well from a british point of view) as sundays event, all the grades showing a strong number of riders. And all again looking fit for action.

I on the other hand was looking maybe mildly fit but at the same time feeling like that word that begins with an “F”, the opposite of fully fit you know the one!

I was suffering, no excuses i was just not going great. Though I was excited and fired up for good race. As is the way when your like this you make stupid mistakes. But I’ll come to that later. First up I’ll tell you about the set up of the place.

The pit lanes of the circuit were where everyone was mingling, chatting getting there bikes sorted and generally preparing them selfs. Along the grass verge were what we would call spectators in the UK if we ever had spectators at a race. Like Glenvale a nice atmosphere was in the air, all amenities were at hand AKA toilets.


Right, back to the racing as with sundays critirium each grade set off individually but due to it being a bigger circuit and wider roads everyone was using the course at the same time, all setting off at staggered periods.


The “A” grade race was close to 100 guys. A huge number for a mid week race. With me jammed in the somewhere. race started and now i van get back to that stupid mistake, being an eager, happy to be racing and generally not thinking I followed a small group off who had attacked off the front on the second or third lap up the hill, i try to forget the finer details rather than not actually know.

This ended up in my body telling my head that “your a bloody fool Everett”, eagerness is not a substitute for crit training. I hung on in there for a bit. The move up the hill was no problem for me it was the bits after that that I realized i wasn't ready for. Dear god, with my lungs and heart trying to escape through my mouth i slowly got dragged back to the bunch where I too refuge.

Hiding in there for the next god knows how long, my legs and heart started telling me that I was still suffering and not fully recovered from my first racing outing in Oz.

To cut not such a long story short I did what’s know in the business as “a piss poor performance” (can i write that in a blog. If you australians are alowed to use mild swar words on the radio at any time of the day then yes I can say “piss”).


The guys that were going good destroyed the field. Snapping it apart and getting a huge gap on the field. Finishing a long way off the front.


For me it was a ride back to the van, a big swig of something refreshing to rehydrate myself and a 40 minute drive back to the hostel where i’d have to fight for hob space to cook myself something tasty.


Still two down, I now know what to expect. fast furious racing would be it! Until my next blog entry, tally ho (non of that G’day mate yet I’m still kinda british after all)! Oh, n if any of you local Australians fancy a trip out on the bike leave me a message. I could do with some training partners.