Local Profile: Soup Boys
Photo credit: Aaron Lau
1. When was soup boys / soup baes group founded?
Soup Boys was founded back in the middle of 2013, while the Soup Bæs was conjured up over the summer of ʼ16/17.
2. How did the concept evolve?
Soup Boys began as a way for us to make friends in a new city (Melbourne) for the three founders. We wanted to create a bit of a weird and unique community of likeminded people who shared similar interests outside of cycling; music, food, motorsports, the study of the #arts. Since then itʼs bloomed into a space where we document our cycling scene no matter how mundane or farfetched. With a keenness for racing and having fun in the process, Soup Bæs has been an evolution of our mission, this time recruiting some awesome people to ride under our banner in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. Despite the minor name change the concept still holds true, we exist for the simple purpose of fostering a community and encouraging people to get stoked on riding, racing cyclocross or whatever else.
Photo credit: Lana Adams
3. How often do you ride together?
Theres a weekly ride that we do in our neighbourhood every Wednesday, and if weʼre not all together then generally we manage to go for a cruise every fortnight. If we ever need to make up for lost time theres always TDU where we have the chance to combined the unique powers of our Melbourne and Adelaide squads together to create a supermassive black hole where we get to ride together for a week and roast the shit out of one another. As a race team generally weʼre together every few weeks, but often arrange to commute as a group, catch up after work or hit some trails for a few hours during the latter part of weekends.
4. How many riders are there in your group?
The Soup Bæs are a squad of 9, with 6 from Melbourne, 2 from Adelaide and 1 from Sydney. The Soup Boys crew as a whole is a bit over 15, a bulk of which is here in Melbourne, but our Adelaide division is always strengthening. All on his lonesome is Ben in Albury/Wodonga, feel free to approach him with an application to join the #squad – NRS experience desirable.
5. Do you participate in team events?
Some of us race, while some are totally into Gran Fondoʼs or more bare bones adventure riding. Outside of racing road, cx and track we have done events like the RoadNats Gran Fondo, the Rapha Dirty 130 and our own $80 bike challenge for Melburn Roobaix.
6. What's your favourite local loop?
If you were to ask this question to us as a collective youʼd get vastly different answers, but our favourite loops would be around our own neighbourhood here in north west Melbourne, in the Adelaide Hills and in our spiritual home of the Kiewa and Alpine valleys.
7. What's your favourite Pedla garment and why?
Our Pedla jerseys have been around for a while now and have certainly stood the test of time. Some have survived crashes, frequent race number pinning and thousands of kilometres through the Australian summer. Theyʼve actually stood up to the task so well that we get asked if weʼd gotten new ones as the fit, the colour and the details are the same as they were on day one
