 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
This page brought to you by GTVeloce.com, theSPIEL.com and KlausenRussell.com
An Unsettling and Disturbing Guide to Road, Criterium and Track Racing in Australia 
Bike racing is like running, swimming, golf or any other sport. In fact it’s just like anything in life. Put the time and effort in and you’ll get better at it. It’s a simple equation, really, limited more by your own motivation or commitment than by any theoretical potential you may or may not possess. If you are looking for easy fitness and a sport that won’t take up much of your time, stop now - it doesn’t exist. Multiple Australian and World Point Score medalist Gary Sutton was once reported to have replied to the question, What’s the secret to success in bike racing?, with the statement: Ride lots. Eddy Merckx is reported to have said the same. Let's face it, if you want to be good at something you practise it, over and over... Simplistic, but not a bad thought - and don’t put it off, thinking that you won’t do well, or that you don’t have the time. This is a multi-level, multi-discipline sport with a niche for everyone. As the cliche goes, you won’t know if you don’t try. OK, maybe some sports are easier on the body, are less risky, or consume less time. But we’ve settled here on something that does involve injuries (guaranteed), risk (a given) and a commitment of some sort. Hey, you can choose not to train and be happy racing in a lower grade, but don’t come to me after you’ve died from a mid-race heart attack and then ask my advice. You get out what you put in. Bike racing is hard. It's a demanding sport that will suck hours out of your day and draw the sweat from your skin, whilst demanding top aerobic fitness, great lower body strength, quick wits and excellent hand-eye coordination. You need tactical nous, swift reflexes and a will to win. It ain’t easy. And that’s just C-grade. On the starting line. This is not intended to be a coaching manual for cyclists. However it may be thought of as a guide, a prompt, a pointer in the right direction. It may save you some time, it may send you straight to the nearest accredited coach. It may just be an interesting read. You will be the judge of that, and of what you do next… Let's get tough right at the starting line. You should set yourself some achievable goals, first-up. To do that you need to know enough about the sport of cycling that you can make a reasonable call on what type and level of racing interests you. Let’s face a few facts: the higher the grade or level of racing, the more commitment you need to give. The training is time-consuming, punctures happen all the time and falls hurt. More likely than not you will be 'dropped' in your first race, and many times thereafter; in fact you won't even get close to winning a race for months, if at all, and as soon as you do start winning you'll get put up to the next grade. So you can then get dropped all over again.
Of course you can be philosophical about all of this pain and heartache and just focus on the positives: you'll get fitter, build self-esteem and meet like-minded souls. Furthermore, bike racing justifies the purchase of a really good, lightweight road bike replete with all the bells and whistles, plus maybe a track bike, lots of spare wheels and endless copies of great cycling magazines. And it's better for you than watching television. So why not, as they say, just do it. In fact, why read about it. Get out there now and start riding! Anyone still with me? Thought so. Part of the fun of any sport is having a good read, and bike racing is no exception. In fact there are countless books on the great riders, the great races, coaching manuals, magazines, touring guides, novels...you name it. There are videos and Internet Websites galore as well. And if you get two or more cyclists together at any one time then conversation - on cycling - will spontaneously occur. Guaranteed. So why yet another string of sentences on the subject? Well, I have an angle here that hasn't yet been fully explored. This is a 'Realistic' Guide to Bicycle Racing in Australia, not a coaching manual or even a beginner's book. It doesn't glorify, nor does it diminish the experience or the effort. It's a collection of experiences, tips, anecdotes and suggestions that you may find helpful as you begin to race your bike. It may provide an insight that gets you up a grade, or it may help you plan and manipulate a race to suit your strengths. Maybe it will ring some bells for you, or maybe not. Reading this will not provide any sort of guaranteed pathway to competitive success at the next Olympics. It's also not suggesting that you will reach B Grade in your local club competition, or even that you will progress any further than E Grade. I can't guarantee that you will finish even one race. However I am hoping that you will enjoy the read, and I'm attempting to share some hard earned knowledge that worked in a basic sense for me. So let's get started. |
|
|||
|
||||
|
Oops, nearly forgot the bike. It's self evident that you need a bicycle. The question is, which one? The red ones are quicker, by the way. There are 5 main forms of bike racing in Australia, namely BMX, Mountain Bike, Road, Criterium and Track racing. There’s a sixth that I know of: you can also play football (read soccer) on a specially designed fixed wheel bike, but getting a team together may be difficult in this country! As you can tell by the title of this essay, we are dealing with road, criterium and track here. Road racing usually means, ahem, riding on a road, as against riding on a track. These races are out and back or point to point. So you are either going somewhere or nowhere or back to where you started. If you string several consecutive races together and add up overall times you get a stage race. Distances vary according to grade, but road races are usually longer than a criterium, and sharp corners are the exception. So comfort matters more than outright handling, unless you have some technical high-speed mountain descents to consider. Hills are to be expected, so you need to be trained for some climbing and have the gearing to suit the course. Usually you will have 53 and 39 teeth chainrings, although 52/42 is common as well. At the rear you may have an 11 or 12 tooth sprocket as your "big" gear, and a ‘granny gear’ of 21-23 teeth to get you home after being dropped on a climb. Plus all the other sizes in between. Expect to race 30 to 60km for most club-level races, 40 to 100km for open competitions. However you may race up to 230km in a big classic one-day race like the Grafton to Inverell. 
Road handicaps and timetrial events are also held, with specialized timetrial bikes an option. Criteriums can be held on roads or closed tracks (not velodromes) and are typically shorter and faster than road races. Hills are unlikely but possible, corners are to be expected and excellent bike handling is needed. The bike will not be as comfortable but will handle with aplomb; the bottom bracket may be higher than for a true road bike and the cranks shorter, so that pedaling through a corner is possible. Gearing will be like a standard road bike, except that you won’t need a granny gear. 18 or 19 teeth are all you need at the back. Track or Velodrome racing involves a specialized bike: just one fixed gear (ie no freewheeling) and no brakes. Gearing from 47 to 53 teeth on the chainring, 14 to 16 teeth on the rear sprockets. A variety of events take place, from scratch races to handicaps, timetrials to pursuits. The racing is usually in the evening under lights and the tracks are short and banked, with the steepest banking reserved for the shortest tracks. These races are very fast and exceptional bike skills are needed. 
Three bikes, then? Although not ideal, you can usually get away with the same bike for both road and criterium racing, but track racing requires a suitable, fixed wheel, ‘look mum, no-brakes’ bike. If you haven't got a clue, stop now and start looking in bike shops, reading magazines and asking around. Join a club, start learning. Get carried away… A Loungechair on wheels…or something sporty? If you want to push the point, in a nutshell you will be looking for a comfortable, easy-handling bike for road racing and a quick-handling, higher-clearance machine for criteriums. A blend of the two is a nice compromise, and how you arrive at that compromise will be trial and error – unless you instinctively know that you want an unstable, flighty, jumpy road rocket and will settle for nothing less. (I personally have never had more than 3 road bikes, all different in character, at any one time.) Bikes, character? In some respects bikes are bikes – 2 wheels, cranks, chain, pedals, saddle et al. However there are the wanky looking carbon single piece frames, the conventional triangled tube effect and many variations in between. But that’s not really character, as I see it. It may be style, it may be substance…but not character! Character is the way the bike handles, how it jumps, how it leans into a corner… Some bikes are built short and high in the bottom bracket, with steep frame angles to give you ‘jump’ out of corners, lifting the front wheel like a 500cc racing motorcycle; which is nice, if a little nervous. You don’t want that all of the time. You find yourself leaning forward, pushing that front wheel down (and thereby encouraging that back wheel to lift!). Sounds like a good criterium (‘crit’) bike to me! Other, less steep frame angles give a more relaxed approach, where things happen slower and you can take your hands off the bars, get that energy bar out of your back pocket, change out of that rainjacket and write a note home to mum without finding yourself falling road-wards. Now that’s a road bike – it won’t embarrass you at a feeding station. Even when you have the frame angles the way you want them, you can still tweak the bike by changing seat height, stem length and height, crank length, gearing… you name it. It will all have an effect of some sort, it’s just a matter of what effect you want. Get some help, and do be careful, won’t you? You won’t get your bike set up right without proper assistance. Even after seeking such help, you may prefer to do your own thing. It’s a free country.(Depending upon which country you are in when you read this, of course.)Firstly, whatever you do, get plenty of opinions, and be prepared to try different ideas. I know one 70 year old who is still adjusting his position after over 50 years of racing! Secondly, when making changes, make only small adjustments, and each one in isolation, to give your body some time to adjust to that new position. By making big changes and then doing a long training ride I managed to injure my knees and put myself off the road for a few weeks. It's a painful lesson. Don't be tempted. Sizing things up, or getting framed You will get the hang of what you need, bike-wise, by looking around and comparing. Feel some bikes, pick them up, sit on as many as you can, do some test rides, and, if you are lucky, buy one that fits you. Then ride it and get that immediate urge to change a few things. For which my advice is, don’t be rash. If you haven’t had a lot of experience on a lightweight high performance bike before it will feel odd. Flighty. Maybe uncomfortable. Too quick in the steering. Too…uncompromising? Just strange. You may not think so after a few hundred kilometres in the saddle, however. I won’t attempt to give you bike set-up advice beyond my own experience, so here are some measurements that have worked for me. I’m about 169cm tall, and for riders around that height I’d suggest frame sizes between 53 and 55cm. Remember, smaller frames are lighter and stiffer, but if too small will compromise balance and comfort. And you will risk damage to components as well as yourself! Handlebars, for frames between 51 and 55cm should be about 38 or 39cm wide, but shouldn’t cramp you or spread your arms too widely. Shoulders vary in width, but generally speaking arms should comfortably fall onto the drops without any serious effort. You shouldn’t feel ‘splayed’ when you tuck down into the drops of the handlebars. Your own dimensions are vital, but I lean towards stem extensions of about 9 or 10cm. You used to be able to buy goosenecks that allowed variation, and some modern examples exist, but are less common. Cranks are usually about 170cm, however you may prefer the leverage of a longer crank, especially for road racing or timetrialling. Riders taller than myself tend towards longer cranks, and lengths from 172.5 up to 180cm are options; but you will find that you lose the suppleness of your spin and may tend towards grovelling in a big gear. Nothing worse, really. There are formulas to determine the supposed optimum, but trial and error is OK too, as long as you don't go to extremes and injure yourself. |
Shorter cranks are suited to track bikes and criteriums, where touching a pedal on the banking or in a corner is not a good idea. I was once racing on a street circuit where we were sharing the road with the local Sunday morning traffic. I broke away from the bunch up a short, short rise and put a bit of distance into them. So when I arrived at the next left-turn I was alone, without the benefit of a big, highly visible bunch. Ahead of me was a car about to turn right across my path. Many times have I been in this situation – will that car give way, or won’t it? Well, it did, but not before I was distracted enough to turn into the corner a bit late, sharpening the bend. I was riding my road bike, a Colnago, rather than my regular criterium bike and I completely forgot about the longer cranks and lower bottom bracket. In an instant, at bottom dead centre of the left-hand crank rotation, my pedal struck the road and levered my rear wheel into the air. The bike went up and sideways in one motion, before settling. I didn’t come off but I lost time getting my balance back and found myself heading for the median strip. Rather than turn harder to the left and try to miss it, I went over it, or tried to, anyway. When I landed I was flat on my back, the bike was up the road and I had (luckily) somersaulted a post and a small bush, to end up facing from whence I had come. The bike was in one piece, just a few scratches and nothing broken. No damage to the rider, just stunned embarrassment. Wheely interesting stuff Wheels come in many types these days, with designs varying from the standard spoked style, the aero rim, the carbon fibre bladed ‘spoke’, the carbon or kevlar disc or a combination of these materials and designs. You should consider strength, lightness and susceptibility to crosswinds, and again fit the choice to your intended use. Timetriallers may find the poor crosswind performance of a disc wheel acceptable given the excellent stiffness and power delivery of a disc wheel. Road racers may prefer a compromise, or simply stay with the proven spoked wheel. Rims come in two basic designs, singles or high pressures. A ‘single’ or ‘tubular’ style, where the tyres are all sewn into one piece and the tyre is glued into place is a traditional high performance racing setup, for road or track; whilst the ‘high pressure’ beaded tyre, like a conventional car tyre, has come to dominate in recent times. Singles rims are very light yet inherently strong, but the u-shaped high pressure rim has improved in strength and weight, whilst offering the easier repair and convenience of a modular design. Singles are probably still preferred at an elite level, but you need to contemplate the added initial expense, the need to carry complete spare tyres with you rather than just spare tubes, and the risks involved in rolling a poorly glued single off the rim. Yes, I’ve seen it done. Once in a criterium held on Sydney’s scenic Mrs Macquarie’s Rd, where the almost-180 degree bottom corner is taken quite fast, and the poorly-glued tyre came straight off. Another time a fall on the track caused a front wheel to twist hard right in a instant. In the first case the rider got away with just bruises; in the second example, despite the tyre not causing the fall, the rider received a suspension from racing, courtesy of the Cycling Federation. Such is life. Even if you aren’t racing, even a simple puncture whilst training will result in a spare single being slipped on, and it won’t be glued on quite like the one you just punctured… Spokes are still used in the standard wheel and offer a good compromise between cost and performance. If you are light enough you could consider using fewer spokes. The 36-spoke wheel is strong and will withstand potholes and kerbs better than a 32, 28 or a 24 spoke wheel. If the roads you race and train on are fairly smooth and acne-free, and if you are 70kgs or less, 32 spoke wheels are fine. Even 28 is OK, but will require more frequent truing of the wheel. 
Track wheels can have fewer spokes because the velodrome is usually pretty bump-free. Also, a track rim will be lighter because it is unlikely to encounter a pothole or a kerb. You can mix and match wheels, of course, with different types of rim front and rear (stronger at the rear, because more of your weight and all of your power go through that wheel). Because the wheels rotate, they generate both a gyroscopic effect and a forward (or backward, as the case may be) momentum that keeps the whole show on the road. Heavy wheels may not exactly assist you in moving off from rest, or in climbing a hill, but they will be very stable and, as the weight is concentrated at the rim, will tend to assist in conserving your momentum. Or so I like to tell myself! You may deduce from the preceding paragraph two things; one, that light wheels are a good idea when climbing hills or accelerating and two, that I will go to great lengths to justify my use of (relatively) heavy wheels. Correct on both counts. My lightest wheels (24 spoke singles) go out of true or even break spokes after just two or three hundred kays. I proved this by road racing my 24 spokers on rough country NSW roads one weekend and snapping spokes the very next time I went training. Why I went training on them I don’t know, but I’m glad they didn’t let go during a race! 24 spoke wheels are too flexy to use on my regular criterium circuit, as well. They feel like mush when cornered at speed. But they are nice to look at and are invaluable as spares to my 32-spoke high pressures! Spoked wheels are fun. They are an intellectual challenge, like chess. It starts with the number of spokes you want, the type of spoke (round, flat, double-butted?) and the type of rim. Then, how to build it? Radial spoking – no crossing spokes at all – look cool and are stiff, making good front wheels for lighter riders. Or one cross, as a compromise? Crossing four is not as stiff as 3-cross but will last longer. No matter what style, they all need to be kept straight and true, whilst also being round. They have to be stiff, so that power is delivered with effect, whilst compliant enough that spokes don’t break. Maybe those carbon-bladed wheels are worth the price after all! If you go with spokes, buy yourself a spoke key so that you can make those minor adjustments yourself. And carry it with you, so that you can take a minor bend out of your rim when the inevitable happens and you break a spoke. Hubs are cool too. Did I mention that you need to choose hubs? Yep, sealed bearings or normal cup and ball bearings. Lightweight or robust. Small flange (the ends, where the spoke holes are) for less weight, less cost and more comfort, or large flange for stiffness. Track hubs are usually large flange. Rims? Don’t get me started… |
||
|
|
||||
|
Weighty matters. Moving on from wheels to think of the bike overall, the all up weight of a reasonable road bike will fall within a range of 8.5 to 10.5 kilograms, wheels and all. The all up weight of a similarly good track bike will be less: say, 6 to 8 kilograms. The lighter, the more expensive, of course. And remember that there may be a loss of strength as well. Buy the best bike you can afford and get it set up as comfortable as possible. Now with road bikes, as with all competition bikes, the lighter the better is a good starting point. But don't get hung up on it. Sealed bearings may weigh more but they'll last longer and need less adjustment. A heavier frame may be a burden but it may be more rigid as well, which is good for sprinting. Irish Tour de France star of the 80's Sean Kelly used to ride a flexy but light aluminium frame up the mountain passes but swap to something stiffer and better handling for the descent. You need to decide your budget and your needs. Kelly was a big man who, as a matter of honour sprinted in huge gears (like 53x12) all the time. He needed a strong, stiff frame that transmitted that power. A lighter-built climber can get away with a flexy but superlight frame, fewer spokes in the wheels and so on. Can you? If you are a sprinter, in my experience you need a stiff bike with a slightly cramped riding position, stiff wheels and as light as you dare. (That’s me, I like to be uncomfortable, but fast. Well, as fast as I can be, anyway.) Everything depends… you need to think about the races you will be entering and what will suit. If you are on a budget and will only have one bike, strike a compromise. I used to have a selection of wheels, some stronger, some lighter. And then choose the tyres, some light and fast, others more puncture-resistant, to suit the purpose. Part of the fun of this sport is the calculation, the selection of components to suit both your body and the race in prospect. It’s just like Formula 1 motor racing, except a lot cheaper. Hand me those slicks, I think the track is drying! 
Of course it's no good racing a super stiff frame if you get dropped on a hill, or for that matter trying to sprint when the bike is flexing all over the place. It's your budget, you know your riding style: your call! And if you have the budget, try all the options, so that you get to know what works best… it’s only money, after all. Most importantly, get properly fitted to whatever bike you use, and try to keep all your bikes as close to identical in setup as you can. For shorter events you can make compromises, but as I said before, big differences can equal big pain. Injuries occur all too easily. Caution – rules are made to be broken! Cautiously, in the manner of a bike rider on slick tyres approaching a manhole cover, and with the intention only to share an opinion, I do have some basic rules of thumb, setup wise. There are many theories, many body shapes and no one answer. So firstly, I recommend that you give your local expert a go, before you experiment too much. Try your local bike shops or the coach at your local racing club. Read lots of books, or try the ‘fit kit’ approach. But if you want, and can accept that these are not carved-in-stone rules, here are my tips. One of my personal rules of thumb is attributed to American cycling hero, shotgun victim and multiple Tour de France winner Greg Lemond, and comes with my apologies to Greg if I have got this all wrong. It works like this for me, anyway! Basically, get yourself comfortable on the bike in the crouched, on the drops riding position. Look down to the wheel and if the hub of the front wheel is obscured by the handlebars, you have a good compromise between comfort and handling. If the hub is in front of the bars then you either need a longer top tube or a longer stem. And vice versa. Or you have very straight or very bent forks! It's not very scientific, but it works for me. Remember, everyone is different, and your preference may be totally different to mine. What I am suggesting is that you should be aware of the options, and the effect that subtle changes in position will make. Long road races demand a comfortable position and by making the appropriate adjustments I have found that an uncomfortable bike can be turned into a wonder machine that just floats. For me, that was a flatter back, stretched out a little more. It meant a lot less pain and tiredness after a 200km ride! And no, that's not how I set up my criterium bike! Another rule of thumb (actually a few rules rolled into one) concerns saddle height. Most people set the saddle height by placing your (shoed) foot on top of the pedal and rotating to bottom dead centre. The knee should 'almost' lock. I've stuck by that, with the following variations that work (with care) in different circumstances.  |
It has been said that the lower the saddle the better the spin, and that
sits well with the idea of spinning smaller gears; I prefer small gears
mostly, and have used this setup on my criterium bike. Shorter cranks also
favour spinning, by the way. On the other hand the higher the saddle the
more potential leverage, which is good for bigger gear ratios. There was
a trend to a higher saddle in the 80's which saw many riders complain about
their knees, or the pain emanating from said patellae. Another Tour winner,
France’s Laurent Fignon, was reputed to have acquired a knee injury – that
kept him off the road during the Tour de France, by the way - by following
this high-set saddle fad! But if you don't go too far with the idea, and you have long cranks as well to maximise leverage, it's worth a try. It's much more of a road setup, where you want to lope along without care or concern for all the sharp corners and sudden accelerations of a criterium. It's how I'd set up my road bike, if it wasn't in pieces at the moment. You’ll find yourself seated further back on the saddle when you are loping along in a big gear, whereas you’ll come forward (to spin) on the saddle on a track or criterium bike. In fact, at times you will slide back and forth according to need. That’s OK. Just be aware of what you are doing, consider whether you should be doing something to counteract it, and ask yourself whether that strange injury you just received was related to an inappropriate setup. Saddles should be flat, i.e. horizontal, although small variations in either direction (up or down – not sideways!) may suit you better. If your saddle slopes downwards towards the front you will find yourself sliding down the saddle as well – which may be OK if you are pushing back, riding a big gear, or riding a short distance. With longer rides you will find that your weight is going through your arms, into the wrists and hands, causing numbness and fatigue. That’s not a good idea. You don’t want the distraction. And if the saddle points upwards at the tip you may find that you suffer numbness in the nether regions. Studies suggest that males can suffer from impotence due to that sort of setup. I know that when I first took up riding my saddle was ‘falling backwards’ and it was quite a surprising source of pain. You can get plenty of pain out of a bike anyway, so don’t look for trouble. Balance should be your goal in setting up the bike. Experts are the ones to consult, and they can usually be found via good books, good websites or good racing bike shops. Don’t stint on seeking advice. Pedalling in the round explained If you can imagine this, let me tell you that the most effective pedaling action is one where you are applying force at right angles to the crank. World Road Champ and Tour de France winner Greg Lemond once described his technique as "wiping mud off your shoe". So when you get to the bottom of your stroke, or just before, you are imagining doing just that – pushing down and then across, finally lifting the foot off the mat and leaving that mud – or something worse – behind. Easy. Now you try it! And remember to balance the effort of your left and right legs… And count those rotations (or fit a cadence measuring device) as well, to make sure that you keep the revs around 100 per minute. That’s why you’ve got gears, actually. Don’t labour at a slow rate, drop it down a gear and pick up a larger rear cog or a smaller front ring. Don’t miss out a whole lot of gear ratios, just choose the next gear and spin a bit more. In fact, whilst 100 RPM is probably your most efficient cadence (that’s what it’s called, folks), anything between 60 and 150 is likely at times. Below 60 is grovelling and beyond 150 is for training only! Correct shoe set-up is vital, too, and difficult to make any hard-and-fast rules about. I think you need to experiment a bit, but a cleat which is positioned under the ball of the foot, such that you can imagine a line of force passing straight down from the knee to the pedal, is a good start. Move it (the cleat) a bit forward and see if that’s better. Too far back and energy is wasted by flexing at the ankle. Too far forward and it hurts the tootsies. Between 60 and 90 RPM you will get good power from a foot that lifts at the toe at top dead centre, and drops at the toe at the bottom of the stroke. So the heel is down at the top of the stroke and up at bottom dead centre. However between 90 and 110 RPM the foot should be horizontal, or slightly dropped at the toe. And above 110 the toe will be pointing downwards at all times. Or so goes the theory. In practice I find myself dropping the heel below horizontal around the 100 RPM mark. I also have trouble remembering all of this in the heat of a race, but it’s something to practice on the indoor trainer, isn’t it? |
|||
|
|
||||
 Your guide to the GTVeloce Bike Racing Pages Part 1 of 'A Guide to Bike Racing for the non-elite rider!' Part 2 - more general racing info, including tactics Part 3 - the track events and track tips Part 4 - Sydney's velodromes, past and present Part 5 - What do the lines mean? |
||||
If you like what we do at this site please show your support by buying a t-shirt, postcard or coffee mug, or perhaps an image. Or even simply search for a book from Amazon! They are good quality items from excellent providers that I use myself. Cheers, Rob.
The content of this site is assumed to be interesting, varied and to appeal to a general audience of (human-powered!) bike racing enthusiasts. Some parts are solely the work of the author and remain the author's property. You are free to use that content if you simply give credit. There may be some public domain images and content as well.
QuickLinks: Addicted2Wheels Autoexpo 2000 Sustainable Business Blog GTVeloce Automotive Gallery GTVeloce.com GTVeloce Image Library Fort Street High School Class of 75 All purpose Chatroom Userplane Chat Fortian Image Gallery 1975 Flora Gallery Miscellaneous Image Gallery Bike Racing Gallery Airliner Gallery Airline Postcard Gallery Gerry's Gallery GTVeloce rave on Alfa Romeos Alfa Gallery Automotive How-to Index Staying Alive Handling 101 Handling 102 Handling 103 Tyrepressures Camber Toe Caster Polar Moment Roll Oversteer Understeer Weight transfer Coil springs Wheels and Tyres Pitch Heel and Toe Double Declutch Offset Rollbars BMEP calculator Cornering load calculator GTVeloce Blog Offline Blog Out Out Damned Blog Addicted2Wheels Blog The Spiel on business MBA Resources HR Resources KM Reframed Bike Racing forum KlausenRussell Com-munity Chain Chatter Unofficial RBCC info Official RBCC info Unofficial CCCC info Official CCCC info Rob's Guide to Road, Crit and Track Racing Rob's Guide, part 2 Track race tips Sydney's Velodromes What do those lines mean? Automobile links Mustknow links Philosophy links Music Links Images of the Russell, Matthews, O'Brien and Brown families in Australia Rob's Amateur Art Gallery The GTVeloce GiftShop The GTVeloce Shopfront Images at Image Tank
    |
Copyright 2008 Robert K. Russell; updated July 6, 2006. Many of the images on this site
are for sale, including at higher resolutions more suitable for printing. They
may be purchased and downloaded from my shopfront.
Other items such as special-edition clothing and coffee mugs may be purchased
from the giftshop.
