Dasher Double
Many thanks to all the STEAM members who generously provided support to Daryl Allen in the "Dasher Double 48 hour ride for Youth Insearch"
It was a great success and he managed an amazing 915 ks which equates to over 245 laps of the park.
As Daryl was heard to say to Tom O'Connor ( who rode the graveyard shift from 1am to 5 am both days ) on the incline from the Showground gates to the kiosk "Where did this bloody mountain come from !!!!"
Almost every moment of the 48 hours there was a rider in a STEAM jersey helping and it was a tribute to our club that over 12 members were there for the last 3 hours.
Best of all Daryl raised $100,000 for Youth Insearch and through his many crazy challenges can now very proudly claim to have raised over $1,000.000!!!!
Alex
Dasher’s Thank you ….
I had a fantastic turnout of riders on my 48hr.ride,most of them from STEAM.To thank everybody for their assistance I'm inviting all those who participated to drinks at my place [1/83 Birriga Rd.Bellevue Hill] at 4p.m. on Sat.30th. Please rsvp to Daryl :-
dallen@bellpotter.com.au or mobile 0411488406.
Thanks Daryl
(note from Ed …. All those planning to go had better start drinking training now ….)
Anthony’s progress
I am happy to say that Anthony has now moved from ICU and is one of the general wards in POW Private. His shoulder surgery went well and they managed to find enough bits to weld something together to a comb like instrument which can be seen on the X rays. I think he will be setting off the metal detectors at the airport now. We saw Anthony on Monday and he was sitting up and apparently doing laps of the ward with his crutches. Better still for the rest of the patients, he is now in his pyjamas rather than the hospital gown. A vast improvement – you can’t keep a good man down.
Weekend Riding
Sat – 6:45am two groups leaving from the caravan for approximately 60kms of crit experience or a steady ride and back in the park by 9am. We will be starting to throw in a bit of TTT training in early preparation for the State titles in July.
Sun – 6:15am from the caravan. There will be two groups going out. This month’s north ride and ATTA time trial has been postponed due to scarcity and health of coaches. However, the Turramurra bunch will still be going out from the shop to do the time trial. Please check their website for full details.
Faster bunch in at Audley and up Waterfall for 105km ride. Steadier ride captained by Daniele will be just going to Waterfall (90kms).
Results from this week’s racing
Heffron Sat 23rd
Heffron as ever was really exciting again last Saturday. Colm and I ventured out to do D grade and Col asked for the plan – “sit in for 7 or so laps and then try and have a go …” was my advice. Col promptly spent the first 7 laps out in the front hammering. But on the 7th lap with 3 to go one of the likely lads attacked off the front and I decided to follow him with Col hot on my heels. We got caught (a lot of burglars in D grade this week) and Col did the penultimate lap out on the front (derr !!) so had nothing for the final break on the straight. So as my lead out man he was a total failure – but for his first crit he was sensational. I think we sprinted down the straight at full bore with Col coming in 5th and me 6th. Col’s final comment was “Where did all those guys come from who went straight past us in the last 100 metres ?” All I can say is welcome to criterium racing, Colm. (Comment from George “If I’d been in D grade I would have won it.” Hmmm.
C grade was twice as fast as last week with half the bunch shelled by the middle of the race. Muir did a sensational attack half way through but no-one went with him so he decided against a solo finish. Young Ben Howard returned to racing (not D grade due to pressure from his first race !!) and rode really well with Pete to close down breaks and keep the pace up. Marcus and I were watching and Marcus exclaimed in amazement “Goodness me – Ben just rolled. I didn’t know he could do that.” Unfortunately for the Steam Train, Pete punctured on the last lap leaving Ben to fend for himself. Three Eastern suburbs boys were riding really well as a team and in the famous words of one US Postal rider “3 against 1 – you lose.” Ben did well on the feral last lap to finish respectably in the bunch. Well done to everyone who raced C grade – I reckon it was faster than A/B combined this week.
Sunday “ride”
A special note of thanks to Col “Colnago” Stapleton and Pete Galvin for taking us home on Sunday’s ride – from Captain Cook’s bridge to the SupaCenta we didn’t drop below 40kms ! Got back in the park nice and early and managed to keep the average up !!! Not that anyone was checking.
Eastern Creek
Muir fronted up the next day to race Waratah Vets at Eastern Creek. Despite his vehement protests, he was seeded in the combined A/B grade and finished very respectably in the bunch. He seemed to enjoy the course thoroughly after racing at Heffron where there is an occasional bit of road to the holes, bumps and sand.
24hr MTB
Congratulations to Paul Angel for finishing the 24hr Mountain Bike race which was on the weekend before last. Another 100kms on the mtb with a lot more food and recovery in between.
Update from MTBer in South Australia
It is sunday and we have just finished a rest day at the Melrose fat tyre festival.
Yesterday was our second 100 km day in a row and I was totally shattered. Almost fell asleep over dinner and was basically too tired to eat. To make matters worse, it was a 105km day with 1500m of vertical, 34 degrees and most of the day spent pushing into the wind. I thought I would teach these hairy mountain bikers a thing or two about efficiently riding into the wind and set up a pace line. The first few kms of this went pretty well on secondary road until I touched a wheel and fell over. Embarassing and painful and still 50 kms until home. But no real damage done.
Highlight of the rest day was one of the downhillers who had come to the fat tyre festival had his $8000 bike stolen from the house he was renting. Cops were called, people were looking for the bike etc until the people in the next door house called the cops to say there was a strange bike in their kitchen. The guy had come home wasted and just put the bike in the wrong house!
More from Warren Lee next week – riding on the dark side …..
Newcastle Duathlon
Kate Rowe 3rd in age group
10km run 45.55 40km bike 1.28.55 5km run 21.09
Woke up feeling quite ordinary as really have only been doing light exercise to recover from IM.
10km Run All the women started together in a wave and it was on from the start. Felt really relaxed and started at the back. Bad move #1. Once i started moving up and saw my friend from Canberra, i switched on. We raced very evenly and in fact we worked together taking turns at the front. i was tired by the 5km mark, so it was good to have someone to pace with. Water was in very short supply and she got quite distressed, so i slowed down whilst she caught up to me to help her get to the end. Bad move #2 i realised that my competative spirit had been left in Forster!
Transition 1 : Ran right by my bike not once but twice! lost time.
Bike 40km (four 10km laps) I had been told that the bike course was very hilly and weren't that the truth! I hadn't had time to go over the course and by the end of the first hill i wanted to get off, so slowed down to get a sense of the course. Hard is all i can say and another 3 laps to go. I found that i got faster each lap as i worked out which gears to get in on the hills and steep downhills. Could feel my calves cramping so couldn't get up out of the saddle. My friend was in front of me but i caught her 50 metres from the finish. i had also passed five women in my group on the bike, so i knew i was in third position
Transition 2 Once again couldn't find my spot and went past twice and then totally cramped as i put my shoes on and lost another minute
5km Run. Don't know where the energy came from, but now i knew i was in 3rd, i got really competative and went as fast as i could and was hurting. However, it wasn't long enough to catch my friend, but i did make up 30sec. Have decided to apply for a spot for the World's and at least i will have time to train properly.
Am very happy with my effort given my downtime and extra weight i am carrying from a recovery sugar indulgance.
KRowe