CYCLING DELIVERS AN IMPORTANT COMMUNITY MESSAGE ABOUT ONLINE SAFETY
As a rider you always look forward to racing. Be it a club level event or a National event, there is nothing like the feeling of racing with your Team mates and against other cyclists and competitors. The long hours traveling and the longer hours spent training are broken up by visiting some stunning locations of our great country where the racing is staged and with it meeting some of the local people that call these regions home.
Today was not just all about the preparation for a cycling tour ahead of tomorrow’s start and first stage of the Tour of Toowoomba, or the beautiful scenery that Toowoomba has to offer. Today it was about the people and more importantly the children, as the Team visited Glenvale Christian and Glenvale State Schools.
For the two local schools it was a very exciting day having a team of seven riders roll across the school oval like a scene out of an old western movie. For the riders they too had excitement as they were greeted and swarmed by the students, with one of our Kiwi riders George Roberts describing the moment “unsure what to do the primary school children ran at us like fans of One Direction”. As like at all schools the trusty principle and teaching staff came to the rescue and restored order and control to the over excited students and the odd over excited cyclist ha!
Enthusiastically, they all raised their hands eager to ask questions ranging from the cycling standards “who is the best rider on the team”? To completely unrelated ones (being the first thing that popped into their head) “have you ever seen a Piranha while riding”? It was a pleasant change for the riders having fun and letting go some of the pressures that are associated with cycling, but pressure of a different kind came from the students as they all chanted for Tommy Chapman to get tricky and pull a few wheelies around the basketball court to their delight. After that display we predict there will be quite a few students going home and asking their parents for a Focus racing bike.
As cycling is a fairly complicated sport with a lot of aspects to it, it was awesome to see that the students were so interested about how we work as a Team to achieve the best possible result and how ones sacrifice can lead to an others success.
During the visits we talked a lot about the life of a cyclist and the demands that come with being an NRS rider, but more importantly we used this opportunity to inform, educate and spread the message of the Carly Ryan Foundation and a free app named ‘Thread’. It was a proud moment knowing an important, valuable message that the riders could share about online safety and the dangers that is associated with the new online social media and digital age, will help to make a difference to the lives and future decisions of these children, their friends and their siblings.
Be sure to download the free app named ‘Thread’ which is available on the Apple and Android app stores has been provided by the Carly Ryan Foundation. The app which is an extremely valuable tool allows children and family members to stay safe during ventures away from home via a ‘location tracker’ feature as well as many other features, can be also used by anyone who is on the go from campers, hikers, travelers and even cyclists as used by the Swiss Wellness Cycling Team to stay safe on the roads.
It was a great experience to educate young children about cycling at the NRS level, an active lifestyle and safety not only whilst riding a bike but in their normal lives. Special thanks to John Osborne and Sylvia Hedges from the FKG Tour of Toowoomba in their assistance in organising the school visits.
ALEX EDMONDSON SADDLES UP WITH SWISS WELLNESS ENDURANCE CHAMOIS CREAM
Advertiser newspaper reporter and cycling analyst Reece Homfray chatted briefly with Alex Edmondson prior to his departure for Paris where the Track World Championships were being held.
Follow the link, scroll down and read what he had to say in the Coffee Ride edition #58
Make sure you checkout the link on our home page that takes you to the Swiss Wellness online store so you can purchase your next batch of all natural organic Endurance Chamois Cream, tested and recommended by World Champions and the riders of the Swiss Wellness Cycling Team.
SWISS WELLNESS CYCLING TEAM TO HIT THE NRS IN A’QTO GEAR IN 2015
This week, we are proud to announce our partnership with the Swiss Wellness Cycling Team – an NRS team based in Adelaide with a strong focus on developing home-grown South Australian talent.
Following a fantastic weekend with the team in the Adelaide Hills at their season-launching training camp this past weekend, we came away with a very strong sense that this team is set for success over the coming years.
Backed by Rick and Melinda Harper, business owners of the Swiss Wellness Natural Health & Beauty Spa in Adelaide and the Swiss Wellness organic range of skin care products (which includes a sensational organic chamois cream!), this team lives true to their brand of pure, active and natural health and well-being.
A’qto is providing the team with their full ‘on the bike’ and ‘off the bike’ clothing in 2015. It started with the team decked out in style with personalised dress shirts and polos for their training camp post-ride dinners.
The team kit will be launched prior to the Adelaide Tour, 9th-12th April 2015.
Read more about A’qto’s investment into NRS development here.
HOGES TAKES ON THE WORLD AT CX
Jack Hogan has had a fast paced entry into the Australian Cyclocross (CX) scene, taking up the discipline in early 2014 as an U19 competing in the local South Australian races and rounds of the National series. A no nonsense approach to his riding ‘just get on and go hard’, leaves no surprise that in a short period of time that Jack would be off to Tabor, Czech Republic for the 2015 Cyclocross World Championships. Following on from Team mate and current U23 Australian National Cyclocross Champion Tom Chapman who represented Australia in 2014, internal bragging rights were always going to be up for grabs.
As an U19 he showed lots of raw bike strength and exceptional bike handling skills, two of the key ingredients in the ever growing and competitive world of CX racing. This caught the eye also of Australian selectors looking to build a squad for the CX World Championships and despite Jack stepping up in 2015 to U23, his results from the previous season validated his inclusion in the Aussie squad for Tabor.
Coming off the back of a solid NRS road season and towards the end of 2014 racing in the local and national rounds of the CX series, Jack flew to Belgium a few weeks out from the worlds so that he could better acclimatise and accustom himself to the Euro style and courses that differ so much, not only in conditions but layout compared to the Australian scene.
This pre-worlds preparation may not have given him enough UCI points to avoid starting at the rear of the field for his World Championship debut, but it was valuable in mentally knowing the conditions which better adapted his body and riding style to the European mud. In a post race webcast interview along with his Australian Team mates (link provided) cyclocrossdownunder.com Jack briefly touches on the difficulties he encountered with the thickness and texture of the mud, and preferred believe it or not the colder snow covered courses as the snow and the way to ride it was very comparable to riding the sandy, dusty conditions in Australia.
Race day and the snowy conditions Jack had been wanting didn’t eventuate and it was going to be the heavy mud that he was going to have to contend with. Starting from the last row Jack knew the start was going to be critical to set him up for the face pace of the early laps to gain and consolidate good position. Making an explosive start with some 80 plus of the world’s best U23 CX riders to pass, it was as Hoges puts it “hectic times, dodging crashes on lap one after having a cracker of a start from the last row”. Early on in the race Jack was as high as 30th position but as the race went on and the pace intensified he started to drift back through the field, this wasn’t helped by laying the bike down or the “huge over the hangers! Were I went wide and hit the foot of a barrier, but all was good and I kept going” as Hoges recalls. The race played out from here pretty standard with Jack consolidating his place as best he could under the conditions and due to his ‘offs’, until with two corners to go Jack railed his leg into the pit gate with a massive off resulting in a ‘fair old hole in his knee’. At this point most would have pulled out from their injury, but not Jack as he puts it “I didn’t come half way across the world not to finish, so I one legged it down the straight and crossed the finish line still on the lead lap”. There he lay on the ground until medical attention arrived, with his resulting injury requiring a trip to a Czech hospital.
Jack’s first ever CX Worlds campaign didn’t end quite the way he wanted it to, but it was an impressive ride none the less with a finishing position of 45th some seven minutes down on the eventual winner. Big thanks to all that has helped Jack get to worlds, Swiss Wellness Cycling Team, Verity Capital Management, Focus Bikes Australia, The Bike Station, Depasser, and of course his coach and parents.