Rob Lotter

I'm guessing you don't live in a windy place. A gust of wind will easily blow a bike over the wall on Chappies, which is less than a metre high.

No license needed for rides less than 20 or 15 km, I'm not too sure which. In any event the 10 km you intend doing is below the cut-off.

The strange thing is that cyclists in particular are pushed relentlessly by CSA and the general media into this mind set of joining clubs where again the "discounted" idea is further enforced by incentives like discounted club kit, free magazine subscriptions, discounts in certain stores etc. The prominent/big "clubs" are in fact no more clubs than the Pope is Jewish. They too are purely businesses, the club idea is a marketing tool and all those "members" have merely signed up as a captive market.

Careful - distributors bandying about retail prices could be construed to be price fixing?

Perhaps it's time cyclists in general accept that no event organizer is obliged to offer an event that everyone considers "affordable". As with any business there are calculated risks, analysis of demand and supply, etc, and it is the organizer's perogative to price as he sees fit, in HIS interests, not the cycling community's. There exists a club mentality amongst cyclists that expects everybody to provide goods and services at rates and in ways that are "good for the sport" WAKE UP! Your sport is their BUSINESS. And no, I'm not an event organizer or related to one.