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The Legend of the Salopians
Enthusiastically blogging about us on his yachting site, Mike made mention that we were known as the 'Old Salopians'. Whilst this was news to all concerned, we quickly realised Mike's rationale. None of us had been to Shrewsbury, the traditional home of Salopians, so was he just geographically challenged? Was he confusing Melbourne, Australia with Melbourne, England - but that is in Derbyshire and conspicuously devoid of Salopians.
The clue to Mike's thinking lay in his admission that he was not, in fact, a Pom as we had thought, but a Scot. Knowing the long held hatred of Sassenachs that burns in every Scottish heart, we looked to their ancient ally, the French. 'Salop' in French translates as 'bastard'. In French Creole it means "nasty" or "promiscuous" and indeed many of us have had love affairs with Cannondale or Giant, only to forsake them for a Colnago, Pinarello, or Baum.
Finally, in St. Lucien, 'salop' is an exclamation - typically shouted out when something bad has happened - particularly when someone has fallen over when going too fast.
As ever, we acknowledge the wisdom of our patron, Mike, and embrace our status as 'Old Salopians'. Yes we are old, promiscuous with our bikes, and sometimes fall off when going too fast.
We encourage other cyclists to embrace their inner Old Salopian and join us for a ride, a coffee and the opportunity to engage in uplifting conversation and discourse untroubled by facts.
For more than 25 years a motley group of Melbourne cyclists have been riding together. Riders have come and gone, routes have changed, but still, somehow, a group of aging coodabeens has continued to pedal on.
Who are they? you might ask- or more probably not. Indeed it is a question that has occurred to us from time to time. For a while, we rejoiced under the identity of "Team Caffeine". Later we partially merged with a similar (and better organised) group of venerable cyclists -The Moorhouse Marauders.
It took a series of email errors for us to find our true identity as 'Old Salopians'. Somehow in our chaotic email distribution list, we came to include a man whose links with cycling are nothing, if not non-existent. One Mike Poole, a prominent member of the British sailing community, somehow became part of our email distribution list and then made the mistake of declining an invitation to join one of our rides, on the grounds of not knowing us, not cycling and living on the other side of the planet.
This was clearly one of the weaker excuses we had heard - up there with Rowan's 20 year virus. A series of stern emails ensued, particularly from Noel, an expat Pom, who has devoted the last decade to having parts of him removed, simply to increase his power to weight ratio.
However, it was not until the awarding of the inaugural Mike Poole Trophy for non-attendance, to Zoltan Bodvai, in 2012 (Zoltan managed to restrict himself to one ride in 12 months), that Mike came to his senses and accepted his role as patron of our cycling group.
Peter Bertelsen -Our Danish import on the podium at the 2016 UCI Gran Fondo Championships
OLD SALOPIANS
The Future of Cycling .... The Mike Poole Way!
