The Legend of the Lollies - Seymour Broadford CC.

Seymour Broadford CC usually hold a raffle after every race to raise money for the club. Members donate items from their work place to add to the raffle table. One of the boys walks around post race with a raffle ticket book while members dig into their pockets for loose change. The item that caught my eye at my first race with SBCC was the 'kilo of lollies' from the local Allen's Lollies Factory. Sure, I could just buy a kilo of lollies from anywhere, but these are something else. They are the freshest, chewiest, best lollies you'll ever taste. You might even spend $30 over a year trying to win them. You might end up with a pair of socks, 10m of garden hose, or an umbrella. All valued items, but nothing compares to the lollies.

I've had a few wins out at SBCC but the most memorable was at the SBCC Christmas raffle last year right after their 16km ITT event. My number came out and the lollies were still on the table to be selected! Oh yeah!

Last month Stephen Lane called me on his drive back down the Hume from a Tuesday night TT with SBCC. He'd won the event but was more keen on telling me what else he'd won in the raffle - and he got the lollies! Win win!

On the weekend at the Tour of the South West, when Shayne Kirby (SBCC) found out Von was in hospital after crashing out, he reached into his car and pulled out one of these magical 'kilo of lollies' to give to her. It was only a bag of lollies, not much in the scheme of things. It meant the world to her when she got them. She wasn't in a good way, but her eyes lit up! She knows the legend of the lollies. It made her day. On her birthday too.

Thanks Kirbs - You're a legend.

Links:
Seymour Broadford CC. www/Facebook.
Cycling Victoria - Clubs - Regional Victoria

Shane & Von's Excellent Adventures - October/November 2012.

Von looking cute, me looking like a crazy.
Bright TT course - Post Alpine CC TT.

A lack of updates hasn't stopped the traffic hitting this blog. The CyclingNews article about my oceaniacycling.com domain ownership and people snooping past race results prior to the Tour of Bright is keeping the traffic up..... So here is a mixed update of things with a lot of photos. People love photos!

After the Masters Nationals TT SuperVon (my fiancé) and I have done lots of riding, lots of travelling, and a bit of racing. Von has done the Goldfields Tour, women's crits, and more training than me. Here is the rundown of my past eight weeks:

• Grampians Audax. Our yearly return to the hills after the Masters Nationals TT. 100kms, 2600m of climbing. From 30deg in NSW a few days prior to 2.6deg, it was a tough day! Strava Linky.
• Grampians Vets 46km Handicap: Off scratch. Almost taken out by a rider falling on the 12km corner. Lost 5mins helping him change. TTed like mad on the front for 34km. We caught nobody. Great to finally race with this club after years of following their races/results. Von and I will be racing with them whenever we get back to Horsham. 
• The Brackenbury @ Creswick. Eureka Vets. Technical crit in the center of town for the festival. Was great to meet a few new faces and scoot around town with them on bikes! 
• Seymour-Broadford CC 2012 Mountain Goat Classic. We missed the winners by 45 sec. Close! I managed FT with a little finish line kick. SBCC run road races and handicaps in summer. Keep an eye on their calendar if you want to race something other than crits! 
• Eastern Vets Wednesday Crits - Kew. Snuck in an early morning race. I let someone else make the move at about 20mins in, I bridged, worked with them to stay away, rolled in 2nd.
• Had a good crack at Tony Reeckman's Mt Buffalo Challenge. PB and 2 mins faster than this time last year. The not-so-secret diet of eating less is working. It just takes time and lots and lots of kms.
• Kelly Country Classic at Sam Miranda. 105kms with the Wangaratta locals and a few others to support Northeast Health. Marty Tobin once again leading the way in running cycling events in North East. Great day out.
• Coburg CC 'FlashMob TT' in Bright. Wandi 16km TT course. Great prep for the Tour of Bright after 130km in the morning. 1st place, with SLane in 2nd.
• Alpine CC Monday Night TT. The awesome 16km Wandi TT. Headwind out. Lightening fast home. 1st and a new PB on the course. Bring on ToB!

Somewhere in all the mix the wedding planning is happening. I've also been working with a few people to improve their time trialling too. Can't wait to see their improvements in 2013.

It will be a pretty busy few months coming up. As always, keep an eye on my Twitter feed and Facebook for other shorter, and sometimes more emotionally charged updates.....

---

Heather Mills has her own public loo in St Arnaud.

Jimmy the dog.... trying to open his own Facebook account.

SBCC Mountain Goat 2012 - Fastest Time.
Photo by Jo Upton Photography

Snake Valley main street. Fully sick.

Von warming up at Snake Valley. Goldfields Tour stage 4.

Von and Emma - B Grade Goldfields Tour Superheroes!

Mt Buffalo Challenge - 1/2 way.

Mt Buffalo

Trainer-ception. Twice the resistance?

Post ride story telling at the Kelly Country Classic.

SLane at the top of Hotham.

Eurobin Falls - Mt Buffalo. Magic!
I had to take my bike shoes off and rock-hop up here for this shot.

Artsy shot of my 'Wiggo' front wheel on the TT course.

Support during the Alpine CC TT was awesome!

Post TT warm-down with Von.

Yeah, I got arty. Saw this somewhere and made my own.

Seymour Broadford CC Tallarook Handicap. June 9th 2012.

Tallarook - Schoolhouse loop (raced anticlockwise)

The little known secret of good racing just an hour away from Melbourne isn't much of a secret any more. With Seymour Broadford CC running races every Saturday afternoon more and more of us are making the trip up the Hume Freeway to race on new (and bloody hard) courses.

This week was the Tallarook handicap. "Out the road for two laps of Schoolhouse and return, about 58km" was the best pre-race description I could find. About 20 riders lined up for their numbers on the sleepy main street of Tallarook with John Burgess taking our $5 entry and assigning us our starting groups with a pencil and notebook. A few familiar faces from SBCC were there but put in the chopping block (second scratch group), 4 minutes ahead of Brad Wright (Preston) and I off scratch. The two out of towners who had no idea where the race went were off scratch..... No problem! John Burgess was the race follow car and soon became our lead car as I waved him past and asked him to show us the way. John drove 200m up the road in his ute, blinkering for each corner, and keeping us on course. Very much appreciated!

At 16km in Brad and I were on the 'Schoolhouse loop' but there was no sign of any groups ahead. The course had no let-up, it was either up or down, a very solid workout. It wasn't until 25kms in that we spotted the chopping block group, catching them at the 32km mark. We reeled them in pretty quick and still had a lot of time to make up to reach the limit riders off 20 minutes ahead.... the pace would need to pick up... we had a lot of work to do.

Climb - Lap 1.

Brad 'Armstrong' Wright locked on.

Up the main climb and over the top I was off the front with one rider, 'Coops', just hanging on. Normally Coops would rip some good turns, but he'd dug himself a hole on the hill. I sat up hoping he'd gather himself and be right to go. He saw I was slowing up for him and he told me to go alone. I didn't need to be told twice, so off I went up the road and Coops was soon back with the chasing bunch.

C'mon Coops! I'll wait up!

Coops was seeing God at this point. Jo captured the moment as he told me to get up the road.
That isn't a smile, more a grimace at knowing the next 20km would be a lot harder alone!

With a slight tail wind and 20km from home I played leap-frog between the out markers who were evenly spread apart. Just as I got onto a group of four riders one of them shot off the front with 10km to go. I saw it was the strong ox, Darryl O'Keefe. I needed to get across to sit behind his huge Zipp 808s! :) Just as I got across Darryl turned around and wasn't surprised to see me. I told him "I'm alone, and the rest are long gone, lets go!". We were both pretty shagged as we hit the final turn with 8km to go and still having 10 minutes to make up! We worked some good turns picking off a few riders. 5km from home I swung my elbow..... Darryl didn't come through... I turn to see him 100m off the back. He was cooked. Shit. No local riders with me to tell me where to go, and no lead car... I switched to the map mode on the Garmin 800 to follow the blue "where you've ridden" line. What a little life saver! I followed the little line until I saw the finish line 5kms later.

I rolled in with a time of 1hr28mins. Fastest time of the day and 3rd across the line. The winner was first time racer Lachlan Hurst (Coburg CC). Being slotted into the limit bunch only happens once when you win by 9 minutes! He'll have his work cut out for him next time. They paid down to 5th place, and fastest time. I came home with $30.

Winner Lachlan Hurst (Coburg CC), and 2nd place, "Mr Green."
Photo by Jo Upton Photography

John Burgess shook my hand after the race and said he was impressed with how Brad and I rode. You could just tell the smile on his face as he said it that there was an young racer in his old body who wanted to be out there with us too. People like "Burgo" run races for cyclists and for the love of it. I am thankful for people like him in our sport. This is why I support clubs like Seymour Broadford. This is why I love racing my bike.

Links:
Seymour Broadford CC web page & Facebook
Jo Upton's Photos on Facebook

 

Random Visuals: 

Spotted these guys on the main street of Tallarook. Family! 

Seymour Broadford CC - Avenel Loop Handicap. March 10th 2012

With an unfortunate stack in B Grade at National Boulevard on Saturday morning, all racing was called off 15 minutes in. I still managed to get my racing fix with Seymour Broadford CC later that afternoon with a handicap race on the large Avenel loop (~40km). I've earmarked the SBCC Time Trial in a few weeks, so I was keen to get out there for a race before that.

At the rego desk at Burgess Signs I was greeted with "If your last name is Miller, we knew you were coming. You're off scratch!". hah! I'd mentioned to SBCC member Alan Adams who was at National Boulevard that morning that I might drive out for a race, he spread the word. All up there were 21 riders with limit being 13 minutes ahead of the scratch bunch of four containing Alan Adams, Shane Kirby, young Sam Fuhrmeister, and the new ring-in, me.

The course - Avenel large loop.

 

Elevation. Not much to it, two small bumps.

A slight tail wind meant the first 20mins was fast. 47km/h fast. Looking up to see a long open road in the distance is such a welcome sight, so much nicer than going around and around in circles in a crit waiting for the clock to tick down. We pulled back second scratch (3mins) to 60 seconds after 18kms. We only pulled back another 20 seconds in the cross wind 8km section at the top of the course along Avenal-Nagambie Rd.

Adams played navigator as we raced through the small township of Avenel. A few locals who'd seen the other groups come past stopped and watched the chase. Past the old cemetery (containing Ned Kelly's father!) and back out of town into the headwind home. A slight rise in the road was the nail in the coffin for the front two bunches that we swept up in quick succession.

All together at 8km to go. The race had turned into a scratch race. I sat out a few turns and had a look around at how big the bunch was. Too big, so off the front on the attack I went. Head down driving for a few 100m before checking the damage. A few out the back, a few poker faces I couldn't read still in contention. A few kms later Adams rolled off the front with nobody chasing. I let him go then launched across with a few others on my wheel. Only five or so riders left now with a few km to go. I hit them again trying to go solo to the line. After a few 100m it was looking good.... until Fuhrmeister had other ideas. He was coming across to me solo and fast approaching. I backed off and waited for him to get across then kept driving the pace. Adams and Kirby were chasing hard. If Fuhrmeister and I could keep clear I would have kept driving on the front to the line. Bets were off as soon as Kirby bridged across with 800m to go. Fuhrmeister reversed my plans, he was driving to the line with me on his wheel. I backed off to see if Kirby was going to kick early, he didn't.... no more time to think, I jammed down the gears and hit them at 350m out. 10 seconds all out, check for damage. Fuhrmeister only just lost contact, Kirby drops his head, spent.... I roll over the line for the win and fastest time. Kirby 2nd, Fuhrmeister 3rd, Adams 4th. The scratch bunch cleaned up!

30km team time trial, 10km red-hot scratch race. 325w/348w normalised. A pretty solid afternoon. At presentations we divided the winnings, enjoyed listening to everyone's race stories, and I was welcomed back at any time. Country club racing at its best.

Check their website for race info (Downloads->Fixture): www.seymourbroadfordcyclingclub.com

Course recon... on hold for a minute.