From Clay Worthington, WAIS sprint coach :

Hello All,

Please pass word around that TCWA has agreed to run a winter sprint series in Perth. We have targeted the last Friday of every month starting in April (and with one exception … please see attached), and we think it doesn’t clash with many major events (although there are likely to be clashes with road events). The better it is attended the better the racing experience will be for everyone.

Racing format is still being developed, but we’ll start smart and let it grow. At this time we’re planning a F200 qualification to determine racing groups by ability (not age, gender, or category). We’ll run 2up match sprints, derby’s, and Keirins depending on numbers and all in sprint formats and distances (i.e. sprints 2-3 laps, derbys 2-4 laps, Keirin 6-8 laps). I’m not planning any “Coach’s Kilos”, but will keep working on DB and Muzz to line up opposite one another. J If you attend, expect to race 4-6 times plus a 200.

Registration will run through TCWA as per a typical Fri Night Racing (i.e. Tues midnight deadline, through TCWA website, or email Ken Benson), but please feel free to express your interest to me as we’ll need attendance to keep it running. Same $15 as is typical.

At this time, I’m expecting to be registration desk, session coach, commissairre, motorcycle driver, etc as it’s being listed as a TCWA Sprint Training session; but we’ll be racing for training. Warm up starts at 6p and racing starts at 7p with qualifications, and we’ll plan to finish by 9p. Electronic timing gates will be on track with hand timing for back up and to deliver splits.

If you have questions, please call/email/text me. If you know of folks who want to sprint but haven’t gotten a chance yet, please tell them their opportunity is here!

Thanks for your attention.

Clay

It's even got food in it ...

aboc, ie: me, is sponsoring this; Blackburn's running five sprint nights at DISC over "winter".  The rough program is this :

Flying 200 for grading.

1.5 lap dashes (4 riders at a time I think)

Team sprints (graded by your f200, not able to nominate your own team - this is still being 'discussed', I am not happy about not being able to nominate my own team or starting order).  These at least will be no longer than 3 laps (they originally wanted 4 laps, huh?  What 'team sprint' has 4 laps? And then expects the poor bugger that rode 4th to race again in 15 minutes?!)

1k handicap, held start, no push (The kilo is dead, no-one trains for it anymore ... why is this in the program?  To embarras sprinters?)

Scratch races for the leftovers

If there's enough time, keirins to finish.

I will only be racing the F200, team sprint (assuming an acceptable team and I'm lead rider) and the keirin, assuming the program doesn't have to be cut short because there's too much going on.  The other stuff is just silly and I'm not doing it.

Those of you who were at the last round of the SSS will know that the above is not what I planned, but since I'm not running this, it is what it is and it's better than a night of scratch, points, h'cap and/or motorpaces. It's a start.  If it's a bit successful, we can lobby to make it different for later rounds or next year etc.

So that's tonight's festivities at DISC.

I've been pretty busy with the NTID squad and helping Hilton for the last few weeks, as well as coaching in the 'Haus a lot, running Spin, Sunday DISC sessions, and that's my excuse for not writing much here in May.  I have loads ot writing to do for The Book too ... lots of gaps to fill!

My original intention for the aI was to have some racing for the pure sprinters who have nothing 'til summer.  But, I've been underwhelmed by entries and late withdrawals which I'm surprised by, but if that's the market, we have to adapt.  So we're opening it up a bit, not to all comers, but relaxing the entry criteria.  The race is tomorrow night and we'll see who shows up!

I think the Summer Sprint Series is a pretty good thing, but then, I would, it's my baby and all parents are irrational and myopic.

Cycle Sport Victoria have an award for the club promoted event of the year.  The forms and so on are here.

Should we nominate for it?  Has anyone got the time to bash out two pages of guff about it?

Today's weather radar ...

Rain ... everywhere rain!  Glorious water falling from the sky!  So, track racing at Blackburn isn't on.  We did an ergo session in the PowerHaus and then some weight training.  And, I didn't feel bad about not getting out for a ride in the rain.

We're promoting the Blackburn Australia Day Madison - I need to get some stuff done in time to get it to DISC tomorrow for the women's omnium, so that they see it and know that there's a women's madison.  Last year, 3 teams, maybe we didn't promote it well enough?  This year we'll try and do a little better. The website is here.

Tomorrow we're training indoors at DISC in the evening from 7-9pm, anyone's welcome to come, I need to see your licence and steal $20 of your units of currency to attend.

I had a chat with Mal Sawford on Sunday at the Blackburn/Hawthorn ITT on the boule', and he was interested in my promo cards I've done for the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series and the Blackburn Summer of Track.

So I've knocked this up for his consideration. You might recognise a couple of the riders in the photo ... One's a very successful aboc alumni and another is a former guest speaker at an aboc dinner! I had to put Frank in there too.

Last night at the BBN committee meeting we decided to pop a flyer in a mailout to all BBN members, so I offered to put it together.

An hour with illustrator later, and here it is, click it for the full PDF :

I'm off out to the Powerhaus now (wasn't feeling crash hot this morning, so missed training with Dino at the velodrome), then the Mermet later to coach and do some explosive lifting. It's all good ... except these creatine loading headaches! Must drink more water ...

Yesterday, the powerhaus and I rip out 4 sets of 5 @ 145kg deep squats, not bad.  Then some bench, 102.5kg, 3 sets; 4, 3 and 3 reps - that extra 2.5kg is a lot! I was doing 5,5,5,3 at 100kg last week.  Thursday is power day, squats in the morning then olympic lifts in the afternoon at the Mermet center in Hawthorn.

Then Nath takes me to spin and we run the session together as usual this year - 3 x 10s big gear sprints and then 3 x 30s sprints.  I manage a peak output of 1,375 watts. Ok, I wanted 1,400+ but was tired from the squats, that'll do, I've been consistantly improving over the last few weeks and am about to start focussing on more power than strength - the Powertap says around 180nm of crank torque which I'm happy with.  Nath swaps in and rips off a big PB on the watt-o-meter, top stuff Nath!  The bolla sauce was noticed to be a bit bland (I ran out of chilli) - so I promised the troops I'd double it up next week.  I think they thought I was joking ...

My clothing order's going to be delayed (again!) - Rowbust, who make them, get their printing done by Giramondo, and apparently there's a problem with the digital printer.  It's supposed to be being looked at today.  I hope it's a quick fix, one of the lads wants his skin suit for an ITT coming up soon and everyone wants them for the first round of the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series.  Speaking of which we're going to do a practice day the weekend before it, on the Saturday 27th Sept.  Details are at the website, as usual.  Free BBQ courtesy of aboc for all that come and have a go...

The Blackburn Summer of Track promo cards arrived yesterday too, so I started handing them out last night at Spin.  Congrats to Jamie Goddard for winning the Blackburn elite road championship out at Modella. Thankyou to Carnegie-Caulfield for running the event. CCCC really do set the standard for quality and number of road races in our combine.

Finally, I'm ordering a lenticular disc wheel, a Shimano 'Pro' wheel for track use - it'll be available to hire and borrow for selected events soon.

Just as we did for the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series, I've made up some business-card handouts for the 2008-2009 Blackburn 'Summer of Track' track racing program.

Here it is

We'll start handing these out at all the local bike shops etc, and hopefully it'll help make the '08-'09 track season at Blackburn better than ever!

I expect they'll be back from the printers mid next week (early September). If you want some to help hand out, let me know and I'll get some to you.