Newsletter No 8 13/05/04

Hello there fellow cyclists another week has rolled around again.

I thought I'd start with a spam alert. With spam becoming an increasing issue, I would hate for this newsletter to end up in that category. I started the newsletter with the aim of spreading a bit of news and gossip around. I started with the list of email addresses for the club. Now some of you may not be interested in receiving the newsletter so here is your chance to get rid of me!

If you wish to keep receiving the newsletter all you have to do is reply to this email. If you don't reply, I'll take you off the email list and bother you no more (it will also help to remove those people who aren't using their email any longer). So if that is it read no further, just press delete.

Still here? Right then here we go again. So, what's been happening over the last week?

First a correction to last weeks newletter. As you know I uphold the highest standards of journalistic ethics and also ensure all my stories are total truthful!! It turns out that Robyn Puru wasn't just second woman in the Masters race, she was second overall. Way to go Robyn. Robyn also tells me that her and the woman she was riding with caught the sole limit rider, an 80 something year old gentleman, quite a way before the finish. Apparently, he hung onto their wheel, until the finish and still tried to sprint them to the line! It just shows you that cycling ethics never die. Bob Puru, of course completely identified with the gentleman and stated that he would have done the same thing!

Well last Saturday, in addition to our club race, the Centre held the WBOP Time Trial Champs and we did pretty well. John Badger emailed the following report (yes, he is on his way to mastering the new technology):

The WBOP TT Champs were held at Te Aroha on Saturday May 8th. The weather was overcast with light rain at the far end of the 40km out and back course.
HCCC rider results were,
Elite Men Ross Simmons 1st 56:57min
Dean Fulton 5th 59:52min
Vet 1 Scott Raynes dnf
Vet 4 Graham Dudfield 2nd 62:00min
John Badger 3rd never you mind
Vet 6 Harry Donker 1st 64:52min

Not a bad swag. Harry (Gollum) Donker of course is looking at buying a spare garage to house his collection of medals. Very keen, is Harry to acquire as many 'precious' medals as possible. I was surprised that our other medal collector, Blyth Andrews wasn't sniffing around looking for more.

We also held our club race in much better weather and a bigger field. Scratch still couldn't pull in that awesome break bunch. And the stupid handicapper gave Tim Bennett from TA a gift by putting him in limit, when he should have been in scratch. Tim rode away from everyone to take the overall prize. If he comes back this week, he won't find it quite as easy. Kerry Evans came in second after playing a big part in keeping a solid break bunch together. Yours truly punctured in lap 1, obviously I had offended the gods (can't think why).

Mid week I received an email from Bruce Love in Singapore. Those old dogs among you will remember mad Bruce of 200km plus ride fame. Bruce was a legendary long distance cyclist who thought nothing of spending 10 plus hours on the bike. Long ago Bruce managed to corrupt poor innocent Kevin Stuart into an image of himself - Kevin has never been the same since. Kevin and Bruce would often turn up to our Sunday rides and after a couple of hours they would disappear down a side road and reappear about 6pm that night after riding all day. I have lots of stories about those two. A couple of times I ventured out with these two sick individuals and suffered for my stupidity. I have also had the joy of receiving a couple of calls from concerned spouses at about 4pm on a Sunday asking after their partner, "Oh, he went off with Bruce and Kevin this morning", I would reply, "You mean he's not back yet?" The conversation would go downhill from there as I realised that someone was in DEEP trouble. Any way here is a bit of info from Brucey (now he's in Singapore, we are all a lot safer. Except for Kevin who remains a sick and deeply troubled man.)

Hello Michael

Kevin forwarded me the newletter and I really enjoyed reading it. You
really enjoy taking the piss out of anybody and you do it so well -
nobody could do it better

I want to add that once I was riding with Shane Bullivant (and just to
keep the record straight - you did say that he cleaned his Eddy (ex
Stuart) once - that is a downright lie - Kevin once went around to do
some work on the bike and he was so disgusted with the state of the bike
that he cleaned it for him). Now this story goes well back before that -
when Eddy was not even a glimmer in K Stuarts eye (back to his Klein
days). I was riding around Ngutunui and Shane punctured. I helped him
fix the puncture and this took much longer than usual because I had to
count the number of patches in his tyre. I swear that he had over 20 of
them and yes there were patches ontop of patches.

I have one story to remind you - oh you who easily slanders others -
Riding north on the (forget the name damm - go north from Pirongia and (Ed: it was the Te Pahu Rd - my first 100km ride)
turn off to the left). We were riding the sunday Dey street bunch. This
is from the old days. We had a very porky M Hamid who had not long (Ed: True, even porkier than now!)
started riding (back to his Cadex days - the times when everybody rode (Ed: Actually it was an Avanti Super Sprint)
them). He was finding that he liked it and rode up alongside me and
talked about the club. I was actually no club member - avoiding joining
any clubs - not because they didnt want me but because nobody like the
type of riding that I did. He asked me about the club and I pointed him
towards Colin (on his meticulous Bosomworth - I think that out of all
the riders that I have known he sticks out as the person who really
looked after his bike - it is rumoured that he would rather sleep with
his bike rather than his wife). Michael rode up alongside Colin and
asked him about joining the club. Colin replied with the cost of the
subs. At the very mention of the cost suddenly Michael had violent
cramps. So much that we had to stop. Was that a coincidence??? an act of
God?? or and this is what we commonly believe a deepseated reaction in
Michael to paying money!!

Keep up the good work

Bruce

Bruce has a very good memory. I had long forgotten that story, I put the violent cramps at the thought of touching my wallet down to my Scottish ancestry - clan Hamid). As for Shane Bullivant, I was speaking to him tonight and he thinks he'll call on Kevin to clean his bike again. It's been a few years.

Now who's turn is it this week. Oh, I know CARL PATON. CARL is a Pommie cyclist. I use capitals in his name because that is how CARL talks - loudly. Rumour has it that CARL's original job was as a fog horn warning ships coming into harbour, but he was fired after his voice shattered the eardrums of the local populace for the third time. CARL had a hypothesis that he could shout a hill flat. He tried it up Turkey Hill (round Te Miro) one Sunday ride. There we all were grinding our way up that devil hill when all of a sudden from behind came this earth shattering roar and CARL came flying past screaming at the top of his lungs - he lasted about 10 metres past us before collapsing on the side of the road. It took us quite some time to calm our shattered nerves.

Now CARL works at the Polytech in Sports Science and he loves nothing better than testing his fellow cyclists. He tested Jack (Off) Swart and Dave Mann a couple of years ago:

Brain function: Nil

Heart: Dried desiccated and withered

Legs: Gnarled tree trunks

Ability to distinguish right from wrong: "Whaa??, I think I know right from left"

As you can see they both passed with flying colours - consummate cyclists, masters of their domain!

CARL is currently working on his thesis for his PhD. So, when he gets it we'll have to call him Dr CARL. His original topic was uncovering the sexual habits of cyclists, but he had to drop that due to lack of evidence.

A thesis is a terrible thing, it is a form of slow torture with yourself as the victim and the torturer. Thesis topics usually start off with really broad names as you start off all idealistic-like, with a zeal to solve the problems of the world. You'll start with a topic like "Saving the World". By the time you're halfway through reality has struck. It's sort of like watching Lance or Jan prancing up L'Alpe D'Huez and thinking "I could do that". Then you try it and all of a sudden it feels a lot harder than you first thought. So your topic goes from "Saving the World" to "Measuring the distance your toe nail clippings fly" or "Do men fart more than women (now someone has studied that, I've seen the results - pretty obvious really)" So CARL's thesis has shrunk from uncovering the sexual habits of cyclists to "Finding Kevin Stuart's Last Remaining Brain Cell". It is a stretch target, but even if he can't find it, he can still write volumes about the process! So good luck to CARL, he reckons he'll have it all done and dusted by the end of the year. I haven't included a picture of CARL for two reasons; one I don't have one and secondly because you'll hear him before you'll see him.

Anyway, I'll sign off now. Time for my beauty sleep (yes, I have quite a bit of catching up to do). Remember, if you want to continue to receive copies of the newsletter just click on the reply button. BTW just because I take you off my list doesn't mean I won't talk about you! It's even more fun behind your back!!

Regards

Michael