Throw In Throw Down

FGA played their first official bikepolo tournament last week, click here to read a report! Thanks to bikepolo.com.au for organising the event!

Melbourne

Aah, Melbourne, what a city! People all over the country told us we’d love Melbourne.. and they were right! There’s bikes everywhere, from flashy fixies to classy singlespeeds, everyone seems to own a nice ride in this town.

It’s not a surprise that there’s a big bike community and people are organising heaps of rides and polo nights on a weekly basis.

The fist night in town we went on the Wednesday nightride. 30 km of going all out, through the Docklands and straight to a velodrome.

Most of the Melbourne poloteams play on freewheel mountainbikes, but the courierpolo on Sunday is fixed. We met a ton of great dudes, hung out and played until the sun set, as it should be. The night ended in the hospital after Chris got a mallet to the mouth, but it wasn’t something a few stitches couldn’t fix. For the record, Antwerp beat Melbourne 5-0!

Captain Polo

Mine fixed Erika

Mine magazine is the latest publication to run the obligatory article on “the fixed gear phenomenon”. They do get credit for contacting the right people and linking everybody. And for running an interview with our favorite ginger Erika Van Tielen. Anyway, here’s the article with a not so correct quote from our very own Tom Struyf and your chance to win a Cinelli bike!

adelaide bike art

Pretty awesome wheatpaste posters seen all over the city.

Lance Armstrong Adelaide Twitter ride

As in Dublin last year, Lance Armstrong used his Twitter to invite the people from Adelaide to go for a ride. Word spread fast and before we knew it, the three of us and the Adelaide Fixed crew were swimming in a sea of lycra. Thousands of cyclists showed up on Saturday morning (10 000 according to the local newspaper) and after a brief word from Lance we hit the road to reclaim the streets of Adelaide!

Here’s Lance’s speech:

And Nicky & Chris with “arguably Australia’s greatest sprinter ever” Robbie McEwen:

Adelaide polo

A citytrip wouldn’t be complete without a game of polo with the locals. The boys (and girl) from the Adelaide Bicycle Polo Club were nice enough to host 2 games while we were in town. The first one was on Wednesday in a parking lot in Chinatown. Chris was on an unlucky streak and ran a flat on arriving, but Tom & Nicky had fun playing. We got a bit of a shakedown though, those guys didn’t finish 5th in the nationals for nothing!

The sun was out on Sunday and 14 people showed up to play at the Wakefield tenniscourts. Everyone had a blast and things got pretty hectic playing 7 on 7! The last game was for the official intercontinental polocup and sadly Belgium lost 5-3 to Australia We met heaps of nice dudes and had fun playing, thanks for everything and we hope to beat you guys in Belgium someday!

CUNT!

Every Tuesday the Adelaide Fixed boys organise a ride through town. This week 20 dudes showed up and we went for a fun ride through the CBD, past a bottleshop, to the velodrome and finishing things off with a burger and a beer. Good times!

Retro Vélo

In conjunction with the Tour Down Under, the Adelaide Hilton hosts a beautiful vintage bike expo in the hotel lobby. With lots of Belgian and Italian cycle history on show it’s well worth a visit. The copper Malvern Star track frame definitely was the show stopper!

Radelaide

After spending a couple weeks in the Great Southern and crossing the Nullabor desert, we finally made it to Adelaide. Nicky’s new bike arrived in the mail and a heatwave caught us by surprise, but we rode our bikes nonetheless. Here’s a couple shot from our first couple days in Radelaide!