Hannos - The first sucker to join from NSW

Hannos and I know each other pretty well, we email each other almost daily, I complain and he listens diligently and tells me that my ideas are awesome, hence the reason for this cycling team... a good idea according to Hannos. I'm sure I have an email around here that backs up that last statement, I will provide it if required.

This is Hannos, to the right, he says and I quote, "I don't take very good self portraits."

I have to be honest, I bullied the man into signing up for the Alpine Classics, told him it would be great fun, a piece of cake, there is ONLY 4 climbs.

Hannos has never done 200km not even on the flat, so to add some mountains into it could be a whole different effect; Hannos also runs and swims so his overall fitness is going to be better than mine.

The big thing and big issue at the moment is that I got hit by a car before Christmas and wrote of a bike, I'm waiting on a replacement and some money from an insurance company, so until then I'm swimming and running and I'm trying to eat better.

Hannos has told me to HTFU (Harden The F*ck Up) and I'm going to HTFU, I don't want to let them down. It was my encouragement that got us all here and my encouragement that got people who I really don't know (face to face) to come to Bright and ride together as a team that would always wait at the top of every mountain; climb at your own pace.

Hannos is essential to this team and its the team that will get a few of us whose health and ability actually sucks at the moment.

POMA - Prisoner of Missy's Adventures

Once upon a time, I came up with a stupid idea, one of those moments you look back on and say, "it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Sure, it was partially a good idea because I got to meet POMA. 

The first member I'd like to introduce is POMA, POMA gets the honour of being the first because he is in fact one of the originals, he did the Death by Missy Adventure (DBMA) on Melbourne Cup Day back in 2009, that was the hardest ride I'd ever done, we all look back on it now and know that we could do it rather easily. We've gotten better, we're stronger riders and we have more mental strength than we did when we started this ride.

We pulled out of the Kelly Country Classic at the 130km mark and went to a cafe and proteined it up, we climbed the magnificent Mt Hotham on the same day, he's a million years older than me and rides faster uphill... go figure. POMA and I have had many adventures together, we've ridden Don and Donna on Saturdays and attempted Kinglake on the Sunday.

POMA is the sort of bloke who says, "almost there, only a couple more hills to go." Make no mistake, when he says this you are more likely than not, still going to be 40km from home and realistically you hit the wall 20km ago and the only reason you keep going is because you don't actually know how to stop.

I've since then learnt when to pull out of a ride and when to keep going, but that being said, POMA featured in this picture (showing his talent for photography) is probably one of the awesomest people I've ever ridden with.

I was going to cover up part of his face in this picture, but realised that its such a bad photo hardly anyone will recognise him anyway.

Older people tend to be much more patient about getting to the end, consequently POMA is going to do one of the Audax Oppy's, where he has to ride about 400km in 24 hours... I was invited and promptly said, "No."

I'm happy to play support for him and his team of sick sick people who think that riding 400km is 24 hours is fun, the worst thing is, I think they will totally kick butt and be really awesome!

Worst thing about being POMA is that one day I'm gonna come up with another 'bad' idea and he's gonna say, "sure, I'm in." Then he has to listen to me complain for the last 50km.

The First Cap

The idea came about when I decided that I wanted something to commemorate the 2011 Alpine Classics team that I had put together. I wanted something that was inexpensive that we could all afford and with the cost of good quality Lycra these days being on par with a good pair of Italian shoes I thought caps would be the go.

The designer is Susan from http://www.rocketfuel.net.au/, I gave her my ideas and she bought them to life

The cap has the name of our team on the side HackPRO Cycling Team and our sponsor, Clenbuterol and Spanish Beef, big thanks to Clenbuterol and the Spanish Beef Industry for keeping us going.

On the right hand side we have 2011, to commemorate the ride in 2011.

All the caps have each persons name underneath the brim, as you can see from this picture my name is Missy.

I look forward to introducing you to the members of the team as we have our first rides together, most people are going to stay anonymous and use different names, we are after all just a bunch of Professional Hack who like riding... some of them also like swimming and running.

The only person I have so far promised not to take the piss out of is Madgan, he promised to stop kicking my arse on Beach Road if I didn't take the piss out of him.

Champ, well, we discussed his name last night on the phone, he'd been telling me how he met Richie Porte in Launceston the other night and he said he wanted to be called Bear, after that dude with the TV show. He also mentioned that he once had a Care Bear called Champ, so instead of totally humiliating him with the name Care Bear, I had considered it, but I do value our friendship so I'll call him Champ.

I posted all the caps out yesterday at lunchtime, everyone should recieve them today and I look forward to hearing some feedback.... Oooooo red caps!