A Sign for a Change

Big excitement recently with Gladstone Regional Council installing 5 "Share the Road" signs in Gladstone.  I was excited, well at least until I spent a week in FNQ.  Whilst I know we have to start somewhere, and appreciate the effort of a couple of the Councilors, the GRC effort could be vastly improved (understatement I know, but we need to remain polite).  Perhaps the GRC civil works department could learn from doing some work experience in Cairns?

Going from left to right, top to bottom, in the picture below:
1. Strips on the road to assist motorists to stay out of the bicycle lane.  These are installed on curves in the road that veer to the left - not corners at intersections, just bends to the left and on some roundabouts that are not protected with concrete barriers.
2. At roundabouts the bicycle lane is segregated by concrete barriers.  Yes they have bike lanes on roundabouts!!!
3. Not exactly sure what this means, perhaps that a bicycle path crosses the road ahead, but hey it's in the motorists face.
4. At a very small township called Mystic Sands there are a couple of the CAUTION signs - not too small either.  Not sure if you've seen a golf buggy, but it is pretty darn hard to miss - especially in comparison to a cyclist. 

In a particular 100m section of road in Cairns, approaching an intersection, I counted 4 cycling related signs, for both the motorist and the cyclist.  Leaving Cairns to the south, just to rub it in a little more, there is a "1 Metre Matters" billboard - not a sign on pole, a bloody huge billboard.

Below are few more of the different signs.  The "WATCH FOR" signs are located on dual-lane roundabouts, at each entry point, and on the left and right side of the entry road.  So a single 3-entry roundabout has 6 of them - how many cycling related signs do we have in the entire Boyne/Tannum area??  Yep, even horses and cassowaries get a guernsey.

Mission Beach, with a cycling population of about 5, has a share the road sign and more Cassowary signs than the Mayors' had free lunches.  Now to be fair, I have noticed at least two cycling related signs in the Tannum area.  At each end of the John Oxley bridge there is a sign that says "Cyclists must dismount" to traverse the bridge.  This may be good for pedestrians, but not very useful to educate motorists about the presence of cyclists.

Let's hope we start seeing some improvements very soon.  Don't get me started on Noosa!! Stay vertical, stay safe.

The Southern Connection

Brad and Dylan out keeping the southerners honest! Love your work men. Dylan's been busy riding with some Drapac cycling pro's to keep his eye in and Brad's been showing up some local A graders on the track. Talk about living the life!

Just a little update

Over the long weekend we saw the Agnes Tri come and go with great conditions greeting those that braved the first race of the season. I won't go into great detail on results but there were some very good showings from local athletes with a lot just happy to finish with a good time. The water conditions were worthy of a special mention with the water crystal clear and flat as. Well done to all that had a go, it looked like everyone was having a great time :-) well as they passed us cheering them on anyway lol.

Over the weekend some Grinders invaded Agnes and and took to the road early Saturday morning for an easy ride to 'The Tree' at 1770 for coffee and breakfast. Mind you it wasn't easy all the time.... every time someone spotted another rider in the distance the pace picked up considerably......What a spot 1770 is, time just stands still there and you can almost forget you have to go back to work even if it's only for a little while.

Last Thursday saw 10 riders brave the stormy conditions and almost make the end of the ride before the rain came down. I imagine they may have made it back if they hadn't of waited a little longer for some other riders to appear......:-)

This weekend we'll be having our first ride from Calliope leaving at 6am from the IGA car park. This is early for some but you better get used to it because they'll get earlier to escape the heat :-) Distances will be 25, 40 and 60 to kick off with so most should be catered for. If there's enough interest for a longer distance on the day that will be sorted out on the morning.

I'm sure a few of you remember the Boyne Tuesday afternoon runs from the Lions park. Well for anyone interested there might just be a midweek run from the Esplanade in Tannum starting up midweek very shortly. Distances will be 2k's through to 8k's just like the old Tuesday run's. No timing will be provided as most people have fandangled watches these days. Stay tuned for further details.

It's now official order number 4 for Grinder apparel is open. So the pink and 'man salmon' jersey's will be on offer, short sleeved white and pink jersey's will be up as well.
This order we expand into Tri kit's as well! Shock horror lol. At this stage we'll have Tri suits on offer in men's and women's cuts. We only need a minimum of 5 suits in each style to proceed and the cost will be around the $120 I'm thinking unless the total order goes beyond 50 items (it gets cheaper then).
I would like this order to go in on the 18th so please have a good think about what you want and get back to me asap. I'll add the Tri suit pics in the next 24 hours.

 

London World Champs

As mentioned in the last post Scotty has not long returned from London where he races in the World Sprint distant Champs. Here are some happy snaps.
Yes that's Big Ben in the background, anyone top that in Grinder kit?

OMG is that sunshine!

Weekend Wind Up

What a weekend for TSCG riders!  The dam ride on Saturday was well paced with a small group of 4 turning up at 6am.  Wayne was the only starter at 7am and met up with the group near the highway as they returned.  Keep your eye out for a couple of time trial contenders in the group, given their record smashing trip to the dam on Sunday arvo!

The big news of the weekend was a number of guys competing in competions around the state, and around the globe.  Scott Wilson raced in the World Triathlon Grand Final in London.  It is the same course as used during the Olympic Games last year.  Scott finished a very commendable 87th in his age category with an overall time of 02:07.  Dane Linforth rode in the Qld Mountain Bike Epic - 50km Pursuit, which was held not far from Ipswich.  He came 4th in age category out of 201 starters, in a time of 02:37, only just missing the podium.  Gerard Galvin competed in the Ironman 70.3 Sunshine Coast in Mooloolaba, along with 1435 other starters.  The water must have been a bit too warm because he gave almost the entire field a head start after the swim leg.  A strong cycle leg and Gerard was up more than 500 places in the overall standings.  This was followed by a run leg where he gained another 100 or so positions.  He finished 133rd in age category with an overall time of 05:23.  Mark Ruthenberg, raced in Rocky Cycling Club Road Race Championships on Sunday.  I'm told by a reliable source that, despite not hanging around for the official results, he was definitely on the podium in his grade, but if 1 other person had of showed up it may not have been the case.  The results haven't been posted yet so nothing confirmed, but depending on the results there may have been 30+ riders in the grade, temps in the low 40's, 40km/hr headwinds at every turn and non-stop attacks from the starter's gun until the bunch sprint at the finish.

A quick reminder that the Thursday Roll returns to the summer start time of 5pm.  This allows the beer to get 15 minutes colder!!

Conquering the Great Divide Gran Fondo 2013

It's 4am Saturday morning and the group of brave souls have gathered at Calliope for the 2013 edition of the Great Divide Gran Fondo.  We were joined by several Northerners - Vicky, Jamie, Andrew, William and Brett.  The plan for Vicky and Jamie was to swap riding/driving during the day.  I'm not sure how they worked it out, drew straws?, but Jamie got to be in the warm car and drive the Bilo range.  The Skipper gave a quick debrief about the road conditions and safety, then before we knew it, we were off.  It was cold and I knew it was going to get colder as The G had arm warmers on!!

L to R: Robin, Vicky, Andrew, William, Brett, Gerard, John, Daryl, Wentzel, Mark, Schalk, Kaye, Mike.  Behind the camera is Jamie.

12kms from Calliope, with about 25 minutes of warmth built up we get the first flat of the day.  This was repeated 12kms later with the 2nd flat.  The sun was nowhere to be seen and it was about 8 degrees.  Wentzel warmed some of up with has motivational speech about the day ahead and what to expect, using his experience from the previous year - we got colder.  We encountered a few road works before the bottom of the Bilo range but passed them without issue.  Gerard left us to return home, as was his plan, near the bottom of the range.

At the top of the range we met up with the support (SAINTs - Support And IN-car Team) vehicles for the first time.  The cold weather meant that we hadn't consumed a lot of water or food.  William got a chance to sort out his tubular tyre, then we set off for Bilo.  After a long stretch of road works we passed the SAINTs at Mt Murchison, who were vigorously waving and shouting encouragement.  First stop of the day was Andersson's Fruit Market, where we rolled in at about 8am.  Apparently you can buy fruit there, but they definitely had coffee, pies, coffee rolls, cream buns, etc, as many of us sampled.  Note, don't park in their car park.  If anyone is riding out Bilo way we have a contact in the Biloela Cyclists group, which may be interested in meeting up.

After a 45 minute recharge we headed north towards Dululu.  We passed through Jambin and had a stop further up the road where the SAINTs had pulled up in a shady spot.  Some riders were lucky enough to get a massage. 

The Skipper had earlier, mistakenly, advised that we were 70kms from Dululu, and when 70kms passed and Dululu was not in sight, the ladies were not impressed.  It's a wonder he didn't end up in the savannah or the Don River. 

It's about this time that Craig had his radio call sign changed from Eagle1 to Dove1, apparently after flying the coop.  He was chased down by Mother Duck, who bought him back in line with Bravo1, Bravo2, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Chick Wagon.  A lot of fun was had in the SAINTs vehicles, including D&M conversations about marriage and games of I Spy.  With a slight tail wind we made good progress and at 12:30pm we arrived at Dululu pub for lunch. 

After carbing up on burgers and beer, and taking a photo opportunity, we headed towards Mt Morgan.  Dove1 sat behind us beeping the horn to let us know when vehicles were overtaking us, which was a great help particularly on the narrower roads.  A slight climb towards Mt Morgan was followed by a speedy descent towards the pub.  We'd been on the road now for 10.5 hours and travelled 204kms.  The end was in sight, not literally though. 

Leaving Mt Morgan we climbed again to get to the start of "The Razorback".  The name sounds much more fearsome than it is.  That said, my rolling speed topped out at 88km/hr on the descent - probably would have been higher if I didn't have to brake for a slow Wilier.  We'd conquered the Great Divide and were steaming on to Gracemere.  I think Kaye was getting cranking with Craig for sitting back in the air conditioned ute beeping his horn, so she decided to do some mountain biking on the Pina.  A flat rear ensued and Craig was out in the heat with the rest of us.  A quick 7 minute stop and we were off again.  Coming into Gracemere we were unsure where we were actually going but luckily for us Mother Duck marshalled us down the right path.  After 12 hours and 234kms we had arrived at Anzac Park, Gracemere.  The SAINTs were there to cheer us in. 
For many of us this was the greatest distance we had covered in 1 day, and an achievement that is going to be hard to better.  Without doubt it would be an extremely tough ride without the support of the amazing SAINTs - on behalf of the riders I would like to say a heartfelt THANK-YOU.  Several riders had planned not to ride for the entire 234kms, yet carried on to the finish as part of the SAINTs.  Overall, it was a fantastic day with a great bunch.  Bring on Gran Fondo 2014.

 

Funny Photo Competition

10 words or less :-)