The Randwick Botany Cycling Club

The RBCC is based in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I was a member for some 14 years or so, until I fled 100km north and joined the Central Coast CC. The RBCC organises racing on most Saturday afternoons at Heffron Park, Maroubra from about 2pm. If you are affiliated with the Australian Cycling Federation, great. If not, join up!

The OFFICIAL RBCC Website may be found at www.randwickbotanycc.com/

The racing takes place at Heffron Park, Maroubra, a 2.1km criterium circuit that will test your crashing..sorry, cornering skills. The corners are sharp, like 90 degrees, and sometimes narrow, although the track is generally well surfaced with either concrete or bitumen. The main straight is wide and long, offering a fast sprint to the finish line. The bumps are predictable and regular, as they are the expansion gaps in the concrete. The bitumen connections between the old concrete sections are smooth as silk, though. It really is one of the best crit circuits in Sydney.

The Heffron Park site itself was military land, nestled in the sandhills that characterised the south-east of Sydney. The concrete sections of the current criterium circuit were built to support the weight of army vehicles, possibly including tanks, and linked many Nissen huts and other buildings. Little remains now of that era, but it's easy enough to imagine. This was an isolated area at that time (although the trams to La Perouse passed close by on both the eastern and western sides) and remained so until the late fifties. It is now surrounded by suburbia whilst remaining close by to the spectacular southern Sydney coastline.

The RBCC itself formed just after the start of the 20th Century, with road racing held on a number of sites including Bondi beach (not on the sand, on the roads adjoining!). The Bondi circuit used what is now car parking between the shops and the beachfront. Track racing was held at the Sydney Sports Arena in Surry Hills (an inner Sydney suburb), until that short, steep board track was moved to Canterbury (an inner-western suburb) in the '40s. With the increasing population in the Randwick and Botany areas, the club moved the road racing south to Bunnerong. Eventually even those roads became too busy, so with local council assistance the old army base, which had become a migrant hostel after WWII, was selected as a safe, non-public-road circuit. Although at that stage the bitumen links that have created the circuit were not in place and an out-and-back racing arrangement was in place. The current layout being inplace in the late 1970s.

There is now a small clubroom and plenty of helpful clubmembers. Graded races run from A to E or even F, with plenty of junior racing as well. "Combine" racing takes place, with the Dulwich Hill, Eastern Suburbs and Sydney City clubs often to be be seen at RBCC events. Come along, join in and race! (Helmets are compulsory.)

Heffron Park looks a bit
like this (would you believe)...





If you'd like to read a bit of old club gossip, try the newsletter.

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