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Here is the news - some new, some old - and various other tid bits which don't belong anywhere else: Vale The Marauders Friday ride 1994-2023 It is with great sadness that we bring you news of the passing of the Marauders Friday ride. From the humble beginings of a few residents of Moorhouse street wishing to evade home duties pottering around the streets of Camberwell on rickety penny farthings it grew incremently over the years picking up stray souls looking for companianship light hearted abuse and the prospect of the pranger bike being cemented into their front garden or receiving the 1950's hairdryer as a christmas present. During the teenage years of the 21st century it had gathered a fearsome reputation with upwards of 30+ riders including Phil Anderson at one stage hurtling through the darkened streets of Camberwell, Ivanhoe and Richmond at a hectic pace, and was regularly scaring the innocent locals wishing to obtain a quiet coffee and tea cake at Laurent in Camberwell as songs were sung and bawdy jokes echoed off the walls. Sadly, the decline started just before the Pandemic curtailed all activity in Victoria - numerous prangs, medical issues and old age were ravaging the ranks. A chronic malaise infected many Marauders during those Covid times with pursuits such as pocket billiards, sour dough baking and mindfulness taking hold of many. And unfortunely these distractions with a terminal case of apathy to get out of bed at 5am to pedal a bike has seen the ride in more recent times attended by less than 1 member. Even the attraction of Laurent's newest idea of sprinkling icing sugar on an escargot has not been enough to generate new members or even stimulate past riders to return. A quorum of committee members; Grandpa wearing his famed track pants to contain his errant bladder, John Locke who voiced considerable dismay at the proceedings and the ever decreasing size of his brioche, Buzz who declared he isn't white but doesn't want the voice to Parliament to succeed, Wocka who has developed a quite concerning fear of cars with trailers and Noel who is looking forward to having his prostate irradiated, met this morning and after reading the rides Do Not Resuscitate form decided that the application of debfrilliator paddles to ressucitate the ride was considered inappropriate and we let it quietly and peacefully slip away. Flowers and old bicycles can be left outside Laurent at 610 Burke Road Camberwell to celebrate the ride that was. METHODS TO TAKE OFF YOUR CYCLING TOP - December 2022 There's a number of methods you can use to take off your top after a ride. There's the time-honoured "undo the zip" method .... But here's Paul trying out a new one. Its called the "pretty girl with scissors" method.
GRANDPA KILBORN - January 2022 Who'd have thought we'd ever see this? Our embedded photographer caught this image of the newly-minted 'Grandpa Kilborn' doing his duty. (Now that he's engaged, maybe he's practising for things to come.)
LAURENT 25TH ANNIVERSARY - Friday 26th October 2018 Today marks 25 years to the day since the first Laurent shop opened, and to mark the occasion the great man himself, Laurent Boillon, joined the boys for the morning sojurn around the Boulevard, and then for breakfast in the cafe. It must be said, too, that he gave a very good account of himself despite having not had much time on the bike in the last couple of years.
AFL Season launch - March 2018
Attila and the Gnome were at the launch of the 2018 footy season this week. Essendon were scouting the crowd for a ruckman, and only three hands went up - our two guys and some bloke called Daniher. Both our boys missed out - must have been too old I suppose.
NEW LAURENT CAFE - Friday 4th November 2016 (words & photography by Mike Sabey)
After working our bums off for over 21 years to wear out/destroy/drive customers away from the original Camberwell Laurent Café, history was made on Friday November 4 th 2016, when Mr Laurent moved us into his famous patisserie a few doors up Burke Road. The new, much bigger cafe features many more tables, heaps of comfy nooks, large light shades over the tables, a new and vastly improved espresso machine and best of all, a Unisex LH – handicapped dunny on the ground floor. In fact the WC's very first customer was none other than Marauder Noel wanting to relieve himself. But whilst tentatively stepping inside was he loudly hunted out by the café's annoyed manager, much to the delight of those in the photo above. From those Marauders not attending the opening, the following Apologies were received: Bike security out front of the new Laurent might be an issue for some riders. The committee is looking at parking our bikes inside at the rear, and or acquiring a combination lock with a special Marauders Code, to provide a means to secure bikes outside for peace of mind. MAKING LOVE TO YOUR BIKE BY GORDO – Lesson 1: Do you love your bike so much that you want to take it to the next level? Then here are some tips from “The bicyle cassanova”
Lesson 1: Don't just “hop on” – foreplay is important, every bike needs to be “warmed up.” Gordo says “try some facial action and make sure you get into those hard to get at places.”
Lesson 2: When you're hopping on try the “Missionary Position” first. Straddle her gently and ride her carefully before getting into the more technical positions. This way the bike will never say no. Next week Gordo's lesson is called “Now let's really pump those tyres.” OUR VERY OWN DWARF-THROWING CHAMPION - January 2015
The gnome was so pleased with his victory in the National Dwarf throwing competition that he has had a statue made depicting the winning throw, the unveiling was a huge success. GREGORY CASANOVA TILLEY'S "LOVEMAKING FOR DUMMIES" - SEDUCTION 1.01 - October 2014 The DOs and DON'Ts of seducing your wife: DO gather up all the candles in the house before she gets home, arrange them beautifully in the bedroom, light them, and close the door. DO have a bottle of the very best champagne ready on ice. DO greet her lovingly at the door when she arrives home. DO tell her how beautiful she looks today. DO pour her a glass of champagne, sit her down and ask how her day went. DO lead her to the boudoir after a suitable number of bubbles, fling the door open, and reveal the romantic scene....
.... but DON'T include the smokey anti-mozzie candle from outside which burns with a huge flame and LOTS of smoke - it rather kills off the moment! UNUSUAL EXCHANGE OF ELECTRICAL GOODS - September 2014 Kilborn arrived home from Europe to find his backyard festooned with flags, balloons, amplifiers, TV sets, and, of course, those bloody yellow clock radios. Without a second's hesitation he was pointing the finger at Foster, but its hard to imagine that Foster was the culprit as he doesn't have a key to Kilborn's house - if Foster were to blame he would have had to climb over the high back fence seen in this photo. A bloke of Foster's size would need a very long ladder for something like that ....
... and as amazing as it seems, a whole bunch of VERY similar items turned up outside and inside Foster's parked and locked car a few days later. As you might expect, Foster was thinking that Kilborn had a hand in this deed, but of course Kilborn doesn't have a key to Foster's car so the whole thing is a mystery that may never be solved. SPECIAL DEAL FROM LAWRENCIA - April 2014 Marauders might be interested to know that Lawrencia Cycles is running a special at the moment - a complimentary handlebar basket with every major service..... Fitted free!!!! It's not every day you get a deal like this....
"RESPONSIBLE BOATING" MEETING - March 2014 We all know that concerned citizen Mike Sabey has been active in seeking increased regulation of hoon behaviour on jet skis (in particular, such things as drinking and driving, not wearing life jackets, and the like). A concerned group of fellow Marauders recently met to show their solidarity:
TILLEY SETS NEW TREND IN BIKE KNICKS Always at the cutting edge of fashion, Greg Tilley turned up for the regular Wednesday morning ride with the padding on the OUTSIDE of his knicks. He made a feeble reference to it being dark when he put them on, but then tried to convince everyone it was a good idea by saying how easily they slipped on. Its yet to catch on.
THE GNOME IMMORTALISED AS FATHER CHRISTMAS ON A BESPOKED BIKE - July '11 Have you ever been asked to do someone a favour and you live to regret saying yes? Well imagine how the Gnome feels now? A struggling artist says something like “you have a wonderful expressive face and I want to paint you and submit my portrait of you in the Archibald Prize.” How flattering, what's the worst thing that can happen, you think? That is until you see the finished product and you have been made to look like an 80 year old, over weight pudding on a very expensive bike. But it doesn't stop there, because now Pinnarello want to sue you for making their bike look like an aboriginal got hold of it and painted it and your Marauder mates are furious because all of their logo's got left off the Marauders cycling top. That is all after the artist made you look like you need a good visit to the dentist! Oh dear, you then end up on display at the Hilton Hotel with Japanese tourists laughing at you. As Confucius once said, if picture says 1000 words, choose your words carefully………
KILBORN WITH HIS CONCUBINES (or perhaps they're the concubines' mothers) - Sept '09 Here's Kilborn relaxing in the bath with his hand maidens taking no notice of his empty glass. Damn its hard to get the staff to attend to these important matters. (Remember the old days, Kilborn, when you could pull the youngies?? Those days seem so long ago ....)
"C" HILL LANDMARK SIGN - late 08 You've really arrived as a cycling club when the local council erects a sign denoting an important landmark in your regular Friday ride. Well that didn't happen to us, so Tulloch took the matter into his own hands.
THE GREAT WEIGHT LOSS WAGER - Nov 08 Foster and Gordo had a bet about losing weight - Gordo had to lose 9kg and Foster 4kg by a certain date - Gordo achieved his goal (with ounces to spare), and you would have thought that Foster would have made his target easily, especially as it was less than half of Gordo's. Luckily the club photographer was there to capture this snap of Foster striding confidently to the weigh-in - unfortunately he crushed the scales, but its generally held that he lost the bet.
KINDNESS FOR KILBORN - Aug 08 Kilborn's away in Canada not getting any excercise - well not on the bike anyway. So the lads kindly decided to help him out by making sure that the club excercise bike is ready and waiting for his return - firmly set in cement in his front garden.
...and as soon as the job was completed they thought it all looked so good they popped the place on the market. The auction is set for the day before Kilborn gets back.
GIRO d'ITALIA - May 2008 Here's our fearless team leader, flanked by his domestiques, grinning with anticipation. "Lets get amongst those mountains, boys."
A few minutes later, however, and our hero has a coming together with a small Italian car.
Despite not looking his absolute best, our hero declares "Don't worry boys - I'm tough - I'll be back on the bike in the morning..."
.... just as soon as I resolve a few small problems with the bike.
S H E R R Y . . .
By pure chance the Moorhouse Marauders discovered the valuable properties of sherry in the group's early days. After trying many different brands and styles, it was decided that the most beneficial is McWilliams Sweet Cream Sherry (although it must be reported that since the introduction of the GST the price has jumped up to $5.99 a bottle - it works out a bit cheaper, though, if you buy it by the flagon). These photos were taken on the Great Ocean Road one rainy day, and show riders taking on generous quantities of this performance enhancing elixir.
The Great White Leader turned 58 at breakfast one Friday in June 03 - just two years away from a Senior's Card. He and Gus made a pact to ride the tram together in 2005.
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