Ridewiser

Milestone photo moment, captured!

Former Australian representative c*cling team-mate of mine, Jamie Kelly, as he arrived onto the top 2km of the 27km epic 'Back of Donna' ascent from Launching Place to the summit last Sunday 24th March. This spot is where the road switches back from 14km of dirt to fast bitumen, and his speed went up again from 12 to 24kph ; )

After 2 years of training with Jamie who is riding with hemiplegia post-stroke in 2017 (so just the right leg is fully working), he successfully achieved this remarkable feat to climb the whole 27km unassisted on his 14kg recumbent tric*cle, and then descend 19km carefully into Warburton.

(note that tric*cles keep you stuck to the exact contours of the road surface all the time as having 3 wheels means you can't lean the bike through the turns!?)

Then after an hour off, feeling energised again after a coffee to ride another 24 km back to the cars in Seville along on the rail-trail meant it was 75 km total with 1100 mtrs climbing.

Yes, that's a 14.6 mtr/km ride route difficulty level, which is getting scarily close to my elite level courses that range from 17-19.
..and I have 2 legs working.

Incredibly, Jamie then said he feels more motivated and excited now about the prospect of improving even further than he used to feel back in 1991 when we were tackling the 2 year specialised Olympic training program for Barcelona selections.

His next goal is a 5-year challenge that I actually proposed to him in 2022, to try conquering the Mt Hotham alpine climb. Now he's hoping to have a crack in early 2025...!

Hotham is a much more difficult 30km ascent with frequently steeper gradients of 10-13% compared with the friendly 4-7% steady gradients of Donna Buang's backway route!

Oliver’s !!!

Amazing performance by the Kelly Gang team and special guest star Jamie Kelly (who yes, rides it with one leg!?) to finish CADELS RIDE 113KM and still finish all together through a day of mechanicals, bingles, blowups and bloody hard hillclimbs 🐴 🏁 ❤️ ‼️

This is awesome!

This is the first time I’ve EVER seen footage of me and the 100km racing team competing in the Barcelona Olympic TTT !

That’s us looking swish alright, until I got a flat and we lost 40 seconds (team was trained to wait in this instance!?) and our result fell outside the top 10 - terrible reality check after being 2nd on world seeding TTT squads coming into the games.

It was the first and last TTT puncture we had over 2 years of FT squad preparations and tour racing and wind-tunnel testing and altitude adaptation - you name it we did it.

And then (at 2:35 in this video) almost hooking Darren Lawson on the line trying to get an extra second as we drew up alongside on the finish line for a time - we were desperate men by that stage [sigh]

They were extreme moments indeed…

Thanks to Tim McGrath for finding & posting this remarkable historic footage
😉💥✅
🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️💦

End of an Era: Barcelona Olympic 100km Team Time Trial The 1992 Barcelona Olympics marked the end of an era for the epic 100km TTT road c*cling event at the Games. It was the last time that c*cling enthusiasts ar...

22years old
April 1991
Canberra A.I.S.
The most accurate way to determine how much lactic acid was precipitated into your muscles after a 40km time-trial @45-49kph average was to have ear-lobe blood🩸sampling analysed within minutes to see how efficient the body was at working in the red and producing toxins,

…or what level of pain you could tolerate!? courtesy of Heiko Salzwedel’s East German training regime we were lucky enough to participate in!

Some of us could produce and tolerate quite high levels of lactic, such as 12-14 millimol in the blood.

(NB: everyday fit people doing hard work-outs might get as high as 3-4mmol)

Incredibly, the Oarsome Foursome and other international level Olympic rowers of our time were able to reach 17-18 mmol using four-limb exertions!!!

🇦🇺 Thanks to Craig Ianna for locating this photo 📸🤣

Here is a rare picture of us as the new Heiko Salzwedel coached Aus Olympic Road Squad year in a special guest appearance lineup before a local A-grade race held in Sydney, March 1992. From left: Grant Ride (TAS), Darren Lawson (QLD), Pat Jonker (SA), Rob Crowe (VIC), Rob McLachlan (ACT), Jamie Kelly (QLD). *cling 🇦🇺

Look who I found under a tree on the home straight at Wollongong Worlds Sunday!? FFS

Fantastic stage win for well done mate what a superb destination that has all been 🇫🇷👏✅👍🚴‍♀️💥🚀❤️🤣👹

Winter series SOLD OUT Wednesdays 😉

Giant Steps Bike Ride - Noosa 🎉 first time since 2019

Amazing!
Special moment

Even VdPoel thinks so 👍

TRUE STORY
In 1992, I was leading the Polka Dot jersey in the Tour of Taiwan for Australia 🇦🇺 and with 1 day to go I suffered food poisoning through the night
(dog meat sweet’n’sour pork!?!)

Last stage finished atop a 20km cat 1 and I was already dropped in the neutral zone at kilometre one! Totally spent on energy I was 19mins behind the leaders on starting the big ascent to the finish.

With the Polka Dot jersey and tour-finisher status at risk of elimination on the 18mins cut-off, I was clawing my way up the hairpins completely depleted and hopeless to make the cutoff.

Then another ‘dropped’ rider came back and offered his hand to push me faster up the climb…

He was a tiny 45kg Kampuchean rider who had marvelled at my size and climbing ability all week, and survived the cut-off times every day for 11 stages in a row. Black riders were never seen in the arrow-head of the peloton, ever.

We finished together both hands high over the line, 17mins after the winner, and beat the elimination time by 40 secs. It was one of the most emotional finish line 🏁 moments in my racing career.

Today is the first time in c*cling history that a black rider has won at Grand Tour level.

Yep, made me cry 💦
😢✅❤️ !

Just awaiting today’s 6 Minute Step-Up Clock to start at 4pm 😬

Funds raised so far by Ridewiser Team Entry is now $2837
Visit 6minutechallenge.org to donate and help us conquer the goal!

The Ridewiser 10-member Team has achieved 16,090 steps of the 29,032 goal of Mt Everest in 3 days of 6 minutes step-ups each day.

Day 1 - 5201 step ups
Day 2 - 5402
Day 3 - 5488
Day 4 - today! TBA
Day 5 - (Tues)
Day 6 - (Wed) summit?

So we are approx ~ 1500 steps ahead of schedule to reach the ‘summit’ by on Wednesday Day 6. ***de

DO NOT MISS SBS VICE 10.30pm TONIGHT

“It’s rare the women race an event that is 100 percent uncharted territory. Paris-Roubaix is a beast that the men have had years to tame. Years of testing equipment and learning how to ride the once-in-a-season terrain. The women have all reconned the course by now, they’ve all seen what awaits on Saturday, but it has probably not made them feel any more secure about what they are about to do.”

quoted from >

https://c*clingtips.com/2021/09/preview-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-first-womens-paris-roubaix/

RIP Heiko Salzwedel

I didn't like Heiko very much when I met him in 1990, as our new National Olympic Road Coach straight from the Eastern Bloc, but I ended up greatly respecting this incredible innovator and teacher of c*cling in Australia through the 90's (the Ridewiser Pyramid draws on many of Heiko’s training principles). He would go on to be just that for many world class riders and teams, forging rider talents in many countries on his journey.

Sometimes, he'd drive beside us in the AUS team car if we were dropping behind in the European tour pelotons (that he often got us wild-card starts in, amazingly in that era), and call out to us, "so now you make holidays!?".
I was furious, offended, frustrated, he made me mad a lot, but I do remember often making it back to the bunch. He usually knew our body's capabilities better than we did.

One time, he overheard some of the riders complaining that our 1200km per week program was too much for us, and he said, "hey, we can increase it". And then he just did anyway! Haha, they were hilarious times.

Heiko organised the AIS sports science biomechanics dept. in Canberra to drive out on the training course to video-record our struggling bodies up the last kilometre of the final ascent of a 190km day, and then had us all watch each other on the screen that night during dinner to see all of the imperfections needing rectifying over the next 2 years. It was brutal, honest, genius, beautiful, and a new kind of fearless guidance we all needed to step onto the world c*cling stage.

Everything Heiko did actually show-cased his brilliant craft and sincere intention of constructing formidable c*cling engines and getting results that led to brighter futures. I know I can speak for so many in Australia and around the world in saying…

Thank you Heiko, for your inspiration, your teachings and loyalty, the amazing times of learning and toughening us up to be able to make the cut above. We all gained new knowledge, altered our perceptions and saw grand returns with your c*cling leadership.

You will be missed by many.

And now I can finally say, with a heavy heart, you make holidays.
RIP Heiko

Respectfully
Crowie

Join me and make a difference
Oct 8 - 13
Each day
For 6 Days
Doing step-ups for 6 mins
To climb as high as we can!

Every 6 minutes somebody attempts su***de in Australia 🇦🇺

Ridewiser Team Entry
Visit for more info
https://www.6minutechallenge.org

***de

Valuable insights that have helped me through many difficult times, shared in wake of the Olympic phase ending and also under our current restricted lifestyle during lockdown. Sincerely, Rob

Post-Olympic Cliff – Resilience Mindset RIDEWISER MINDSET BLOG - 2550 words (allow 10 minutes) After it was over, I sat totally stunned, just staring at the white canvas of the Australian c*cling team tent, totally bewildered for more than 20 minutes. I'm sure all four of us were just left wondering how the last few years of full-time

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