As the series won't be starting up again until October 2008, this site will be a bit quiet until probably July or August.  We'll be setting up all the old results & photos into year by year archives so they'll always be available, and we will probably also move the site from Plone 2.5 to Plone 3.1 at some time mid-year when the blogging plugin, Quills, works with Plone 3.1 so we can migrate the current blog entries across.

So until then, a bit of peace & quiet here.  If you're interested in training for the series in summer '08-'09, feel free to contact us at www.aboc.com.au for guidance.

The TSSS for 2007-2008 is done.  It's been a fantastic experience and a lot of fun, and a lot of work!  We've learned heaps about how to make these races run smoothly, we've been a bit lucky (no crashes, no major race incidents, only lost one day due to weather), we've had some minor mistakes we've learned from and we'll be back next summer with improvements and we very much hope an enthusiastic and passionate team of people to run the series and to race it.  I'll have a race report online tomorrow (Mon 7^th). 

I got a real thrill from being part of it, and watching riders achieve things they didn't think they could, have a try at something they'd never done, and perform at their best under pressure.  Handing the T1 frame to Big Jeremy today was a great experience, and watching Dino pull off an incredible day's racing today was icing on the cake.

On the whole the series is, I think, a success, but we cannot sit back and say "we're perfect", we can do better, we can make the draw less error prone, we can promote the series better.  We can make our riders feel more welcome and we can give better information to spectators. Please, if you're reading this and you care about the series for next season, have a think about how you can help improve it.  We need your ideas and suggestions and if you want more match sprinting, we need your input.

Last night we went out to Mark Gardiner's warehouse in Langwarrin to pick up the Trek tent and some more banners to put around the track, the camera batteries are fully charged, we're ready to go for round 6.

See you at the velodrome! The weather is perfect, sunny, light breeze ... it's all good.

Firstly, a special thanks to Bev, who has made lunches (ripper salad rolls!) for everyone who's helped at the series! When we're busy trying to make sure everything's set up, everyone's where they should be etc we don't have time to look after ourselves much, and having food and drinks handy is a great help.  Bev's donated more than her fair share of time and money to the series and we owe her a big thankyou.

What's been going on? I've been pestering Trek for the series prize, and we now have a box with a frame in it ready to present to our series winner. It's a 56cm frame, if that's the wrong size we can swap it.

We're also talking with Trek about the next series and if they're willing to support us again. I hope so, I think the series is worth supporting, but that's Trek's decision and we have to make sure that it makes sense for them to be involved. They want to sell bikes, and this has to help get their name out there and that's something we can't afford to forget. I've done the best I can this season to promote the series, but the job is far from complete and I know we can do better next year with more experience and hopefully our enthusiastic competitors will help spread the word far and wide.

One thing we have no say on is the weather, and the forecast for Sunday is ideal, a pleasant 21 degrees. Eddie Wilson asked for a cool day and we've done our best, but he can't make it to the final round because of an injury. Next series Ed ... We will miss you for this one, you're a true gentleman of the sport and the example you set to the other riders is a very good one indeed.

We've made no further changes to the rules and way we run the races for this round.

I've invited many people to the post-race BBQ including Lorraine Collings and Mal Sawford from Carnegie Caulfield, who I hope will come along and maybe Mal will race the series next summer. We've also invited all the Blackburn people who've been involved in the summer track racing program, they all deserve a thankyou and this is my chance to thank them.

Lastly, we're (as usual) hoping that we'll get a healthy turn out of riders. We've done a heap of work to make this all happen all summer and all the feedback we've had has been positive and encouraging, we need YOU to show up and race with us!  The weather's going to be good, the racing runs smoothly and you get lots of chances to match it with riders that will challenge you.  Come and race with us!