Human-Cycle Power in Victoria Park

On the last weekend in July I attended a ‘Pedal Prix’ event for the first time, now named the UniSA Australian HPV Super Series (yes, my Uni has recently signed on as major sponsor, following through on support for the Tour Down Under). The event was the second round of the year’s championship, held in Victoria Park under cloudy skies.

I showed up about an hour after the race start on Sunday morning - for a 9 hour event there’s not a huge rush to see every single minute! I was immediately struck by the huge number of tents, “pit crews”, parents and kids ringing the circuit – reminiscent of a big rowing regatta in my home town of Ballarat. The second thing that strikes you about the PP is the sheer number of petite vehicles whizzing around the circuit – over 150 entries for this race.

All the vehicles were colourful and interestingly styled, most prominently displaying the name of the school or group supporting them. There was a large variety of forms – some fully faired, some open, some aerodynamically shaped like a Japanese bullet train, and some reminiscent of amphibious landing vehicles. A closer look revealed most of the drivers to be school-aged – surely a good proportion of the schools in SA had entered a team, including many from the ‘bush’. Sprinkled amongst them were a few adult-manned teams who were squeezed into the trim & light machines.

Given the range of teams from primary school to semi-professional outfits, not surprisingly there was a big range in speeds. Watching the faster teams (Tru-Blu racing, TafeSA’s BlueShift, and Ozone-Ballistic) weaving past dozens of the more sedate ones every lap was quite hair-raising, especially through the hairpin corners. The overall effect is somewhat like watching dodgem-cars on speed! Still, everyone seemed to be having fun, and apparently there are many different race categories so the school teams have a chance of winning their own category.

Aside from providing a fun day out, it seems to me the Pedal Prix is something that should be celebrated by all SA cyclists. Clearly the kids who participate would gain practical mechanical, design and teamwork skills. But beyond that, the Pedal Prix is clearly promoting a culture based on cycling and human rather than oil-power, a small but important effort amidst the glamourising of car ownership that young people are bombarded with daily in advertisements. In parts of Europe, the kind of vehicles in the Pedal Prix are build for the road and known as “Velomobiles” – making up upwards of 2% of all vehicles on the road in some parts of Holland (check out e.g. http://www.velomobiling.com/). Perhaps one day we can dream of it being practical and safe to ride them throughout South Australia, not just on the race track.

All in all it seems like a great event – as a former resident of Melbourne, l’d be happy for them to keep the F1 GP and let’s keep our own, human-powered version in SA. The final Pedal Prix event of this year will be the 24 hour International Pedal Prix on during 17-20 September at Murray Bridge.