Time off....

So, as you might remember from my last post, I was about to take a 2 week break after the Tour of Coleraine finished. I did that - and I think I really needed it.

After this break, I started riding again. I did just relatively light training rides, for a couple of weeks. And then, two weekends ago, I went mountain biking and managed to have a rather nasty incident. At the top of a tricky rocky climb, I lost control and ended up rolling 18m down the side of the hill, after going headfirst into a rock. Luckily a conveniently placed prickle bush was there to stop my fall.


My helmet worked beautifully (see above), but my back and neck have been quite sore. I also had to have 5 stitches just under my nose. Thankfully, I am on the mend! On Monday I rode around the block, and yesterday and today I've commuted to uni via bike, which has been nice. I know that the more I ride and stay active, the better everything will feel, as long as I don't push it too far. I'm hoping to do some easy 'proper' riding this weekend. Also, in the midst of all that I managed to get a cold, but I'm over that too!

After all of that.... I have no idea what my fitness is like!! Probably pretty crap. I'm going to ride some more for a couple of weeks and then do a MAP test to see where I am at.

I am not sure how my road racing season will pan out now. We'll see.

Race Report: Tour of Coleraine

Okay, here is my Tour of Coleraine race report -- finally!!

The Tour of Coleraine was last weekend. Its a three stage race: two on Saturday and one on Sunday. Coleraine is a town about 500km from Adelaide, just inside the Victorian border and south of the Grampians.

Stage 1: 94km road stage

After an epic pasta feast on Friday night (cooked by 'Magic Man' Merlin and Lachie), we awoke to a very damp looking Saturday morning. To add to the fun, there were 50km/h winds forecast for the area. Fun times were definitely ahead.


There were just over 50 of us at the C-grade start line. We received an interesting pre-race briefing: "Okay C-grade. Every year you guys crash on this stage. This year, try not doing that." Hmmm.

The stage started with a fairly long climb out of town, but this was done under control behind the lead car. So we rode at a nice steady pace. At the top of the hill the flag went up, and we were racing.

Remember that race briefing? Yeah. Literally two minutes into the stage and BANG! Six guys on the ground, bikes in the air. Swear words all around. Me riding on the dirt to avoid the carnage. Okay, well that was our crash out of the way, I suppose.

The group came back together again, and things felt pretty easy. I was feeling optimistic.

We hit the base of the first K.O.M. at about 15 kms elapsed distance. Here was my thought process: Okay they are going pretty quick. Surely they will let up soon. I'm drifting back. Okay now they are going faster. Oh shit!!!

About five of us found ourselves off the back already! We hammered it after the top of the climb and managed to get back on. All good.

So the next few short and sharp climbs repeated this process, until I found myself well and truly off the back of the lead group. I was in a pretty fast chase group, and then they really put the hammer down and I was out the back of that group too.

I caught up with an A-grader who had been dropped on the first climb of the day, and we chatted for a while. He was apparently off to Belgium in a week's time to race kermesses, and much preferred a good hearty cross wind to anything resembling a hill.

The last chase group on the course finally caught up to me, and we worked together for a while over the second KOM, but there were only three of us together at the top. There was a nasty section of roaring crosswind and horizontal rain, and one of the guys fell off the back. Two of us remained.

We worked together most of the rest of the way, including over the final KOM. I did lose him by accident in the last couple of kms. I finished in about 3 hrs, an unknown amount of time behind the lead group (short story: the time keeping was very unreliable, to say the least).

Stage 2: 36 km (20 lap) criterium

After finishing so far down in the first stage, I decided it was time to act like a non-contender and make a doomed, suicidal, move.

We did one practice lap of the criterium course, and when the flag went down, I attacked as hard as I could. After two corners I glanced back: a gap! Of course, I had no chance at all, but I was off the front.

After one lap I was still clear, and then a rider broke clear of the field and came across to me -- the guy in the yellow jersey. It was at this point that my legs said 'Um, sorry, we're done', and I exploded spectacularly, just managing to latch onto the very rear end of the field as it came streaming past.

I sat there at the back, grovelling. Every five laps there were intermediate sprints for time bonuses. So on lap nine, the pace really ramped up, and without even realising it, I suddenly had a bit of a gap in front of me, and it wasn't getting any smaller! Oh crap.


I was in the offthebackistan again. I rode solo for another three or four laps before the field lapped me and I got pulled off the course. That's okay. In the criterium, any riders that get pulled off just receive the same time as the slowest finisher.

I was pretty disappointed that I was dropped, but thoroughly enjoyed my two minutes of idiocy off the front.

Stage 3: 71 km road stage

Just 71 kms and it would all be over! Unfortunately that's all I could think of on the start line.

The stage started again with a neutralised climb out of town, and then we were on our own. This time, there were no crashes. We started off on a long, straight stretch of highway, with bit of a crosswind.

I found myself towards the back end of the field again, and decided I'd go take a look up front, just to see what it was like. I moved up, using another rider for a bit of a draft on the way. I managed to slot into fifth wheel -- it felt like a nice place to be!! I felt much more at home towards the pointier end of the pack.

One thing I noticed. The guy in the yellow jersey had four or five teammates, and they were all sitting around him. Seriously. It felt like USPS controlling the Tour de France. Later on, I was told that they were an A-grade team in Melbourne... so at least I know why the pace was so hardcore the day beforehand.

My time near the front ended when someone attacked, and sure enough, one of the teammates jumped after him. The pack kind of swarmed around me and I drifted towards my rightful place at the back.

At about 30 kms in, we negotiated a fast descent, which was followed a few kilometres later by the first KOM of the day. It was like a wall. You can probably guess what happened next.

I won't go into the details of the rest of the stage. But suffice to say, it seemed long, boring, and painful. I finished a long way back, and that was it. I finished.


The good bits

I had a really good weekend away with six mates. We talked about pretty much nothing but racing, and watched Tour de France DVDs over ridiculous amounts of food. Great stuff.

The course was fantastic. Although there was the occasional foray onto main roads, the bulk of the racing was done on sealed, single lane, back roads. We could use the full width of the road (we didn't have a choice -- they were literally one car wide) and the scenery really was beautiful.

The criterium course was also great -- it was a six turn layout, but the turns were very wide and there was no need to stop pedalling at any point when you could use the full width of the completely closed circuit.

I learned that my form is not anywhere near where it was a couple of months ago. This was confirmed from the power data. I think this is due to a few things -- but I think recent lack of motivation has played a big factor. The simple fact is that I need a bit of break. So with that, I decided to take two weeks off the bike. I'm one week in already, and its been very refreshing!

I'm not sure if I'll be back for Coleraine next year, but I now know this: you must be in very good form to be competitive in this race, even just in C-grade. Because A-grade is really an elite level competition, the 'regular' A-graders filter down into B and C grade. And although A-grade is the only official teams competition, both B and C grade appeared to have strong teams controlling the race.

Thanks for reading -- there may not be any race reports in the near future, but you will hear from me eventually!

(PS: Photos thanks to Andrew Crowe and Tom Altree)

Cobbles and Kangarilla

I really do love the Tour of Flanders. Last night I stayed up watching a Eurosport feed with dutch commentary. I saw the first decisive moment when Cancellara and Boonen got away, but managed to fall asleep with about 30 kms remaining, only to wake up in time to see the sprint for 56th place or so. Cancellara was probably already showered and doing press conferences.

This year, PACC had representatives in both the men's and women's editions of the race: Stuart O'Grady and Carly Light, respectively.

But let's not forget your humble author's days as a cyclist on the cobbles of Belgium:

You can see that I ran a rather 'unique' setup for the spring classics, opting for 'reverse drop' handlebars, mudguards, and a luggage rack to assist with domestique duties. Also note the headlight, just in case the driving rain became too intense to see. I also chose to defy UCI rules and ride sans-helmet.

My teammate, Danny, in a solo breakaway:

Ahem.

These were taken in Brugge in 2006, the starting location for the Tour of Flanders - and yes, we did see the start of the race! We then watched the rest of it in a bar full of chain smoking Belgians, who went absolutely crazy when Tom Boonen won. Fun times.

Anyway, back to reality...

There was a certainly a big turn out on Saturday for the road race of the season. There were roughly 40 entrants for C-grade, about double what I would usually expect to see!

The race was four laps of the 17 km circuit. Rather than a blow-by-blow account of the whole race, I'll sum up some of the defining moments for me:

• On the second lap, a rider tried to exist in a space where there was no space, and almost went down -- right in front of me. Somehow he held it up though, a maneuver which involved putting his foot on the ground while still in motion. I don't know how he did it!
  
• My Times-7 transponder attempted to go into the spokes on the descent on the third lap. I had to pull over, tear of the mount, and then chase for 10 minutes to get back to the pack.
  
• On the same descent, fourth lap, young Alex King's front tyre blew out. I was sitting a couple of bikes back, and the ensuing chaos saw me riding in the gravel at 40 km/h for a short stretch. It was a little hair raising!

So after all of this, I was quite happy to finish with the bunch! The race finished together, with a bunch sprint for the remaining 20 or 30 riders. I tried a last minute attack but had no legs left, and frankly, even with good legs I don't know if it would've succeeded. The field was strong. I ended up leading the bunch into the final corner, sprinted for all of 100m and then promptly exploded while everyone went around me.

Very happy to be racing road again. Very very worried about the Tour of Coleraine which is coming up in three weeks time....

Last two crits of the season

Time for a couple of very brief race reports!

The last two criteriums for the 'season' have passed, and the first road race of the year is in just two days time -- woohoo!

The second-to-last crit was at Whitmore square, two weekends ago. C-grade was a pretty big field, about 30 or so. I attacked from the gun and managed to stay out for a few laps. After that I sat on the back for a while recovering, and attacked again with about five minutes remaining. Unfortunately the pack weren't having any of my nonsense and I couldn't get away.

On the last lap I wasn't in a position to sprint, so I sat up coming into the last two corners. Unfortunately there was a crash on the final corner, with three guys going down and people diverting down side streets to avoid the carnage! Happy to finish upright for that one.

Later in the afternoon at Whitmore square, I had a go at the consolation wheelrace -- a three lap handicap smash fest. I started off 180m. I managed to sit on the bunch in front of me for the first lap and a bit, and then a bunch of us went around and started hunting after the front markers. We probably didn't do this soon enough, and the folks up the front stayed away to take out the placings.

The final crit for the season was on Sunday just gone, at Regency Park -- seeing all of those trucks brought back memories. It was a pretty drizzly morning, and so it wasn't surprising to see all of seven entrants for C-grade.

We got the whistle for a preme sprint after just 7 minutes, which Clayton Marsland managed to win. I stayed just behind him and kept going after the finish line. I yelled at Clayton to jump on and we worked together off the front for a lap or so. Things came together not long after this, and I sat in the bunch until we got the bell for the final lap.

I tried for a last minute effort - just after the first corner, without a bit over a kilometre remaining. I got a small gap but Colnago-man (I'm not sure of his name) pulled me in and then drove it hard to the finish line. I had nothing left in the legs, and rolled in for 6th place.

Seventh place was taken out by Clayton - who had crashed earlier on one of the corners, gotten up and done a solo time trial for the last 10 minutes or so of the race! Solid effort.

We hung around for the presentations, and after they had concluded, the skies really decided to open up, and I ended up with a pretty grotty ride home in the rain!

So that's it for another summer season. Winter approaches, and brings with it the suffering and pain of road racing -- bring it on!!

This weekend is the Allan Smith memorial race at Kangarilla: four laps for C-grade, 62 kms in total. There are three short but steep hills every lap which can really split the bunch up. Its always a very interesting race course, and a good race of attrition.

The weekend after that is State time trial championships, which I have entered. Of course, I don't have a chance against the big guns that will be there (e.g. Chris Martin, who probably has an FTP of something like 450W), but its a good chance to see how I go against the clock. At 50kms long, its not going to be pretty...

Race Report: Pursuiting at the State Champs

Okay, so one of the main reasons that I've been doing a bit of track lately is that I wanted to ride the pursuit at the state championships. Which I did on the weekend.

I have been thinking about this for a while -- I did the pursuit at the last state champs in December 2008, and was a bit disappointed with the time that I set. I was on a borrowed bike that was too big for me (a rarity in itself) and didn't pace myself very well.

What is a pursuit? Its a 4000m race, with two riders starting on opposite sides of the track. If you catch the other rider you win. If no one catches anyone, then the fastest time wins. The distance is long enough that you can't rely on sprint power to get you through, but short enough that you can't just settle into 'TT' pace (i.e. lactate threshold). You need to use your total aerobic capacity, in order to do well. What does that mean? Suffering!

From my previous experience, and from talking to others, I knew the following: the first few laps should feel easy, the middle laps feel pretty horrible, and the last kilometre absolute torture. That's how it should feel if you maintain a constant pace for the whole thing.

The fun started on Friday night with the qualifying rides. Basically, the fastest two riders would go through to a final race for gold or silver, and the third and fourth fastest riders would race each other in the final for bronze.

There were a grand total of four of us riding (five entered, but one didn't show up - Logan!), so we were all guaranteed a spot in the finals, our qualifying times would just determine what medals we were racing for.

The other competitors were Will Dickeson (very PRO dude: former Savings & Loans rider, and has just signed with Jelly Belly in the US), Dave Miller (kick-arse sprinter and Star Wars fanatic) and Pete Davis (strong rider who signed up for the pursuit but didn't realise it, and was really just at the track to do the kilo earlier in the night!).

Dave and Pete went up first. Dave qualified faster, riding a time of 5:11.722 (those decimal points will become important later, trust me!). Will and I were riding next. I knew Will would probably do a better time than all of us, so I just had to ride a faster time than Dave in order to make to the silver-gold final.

Marky G, still on a high from winning the Masters4 750m TT, was kind enough to lend me his very cool retro Zipps for the occasion. He also lent me his teardrop aero-helmet. Here's a shot of my bike just before the race:


Gemma K was kind enough to offer to 'pace' me, by standing at the start/finish line and indicating each lap whether I should go faster or slower in order to set a given time. I had her pacing me to a 5:10 schedule - this was about the time that I thought I could do: 19 seconds per lap, and a 25 second first lap to account for the standing start. Incidentally, if I could keep to that schedule I would just beat Dave's time. I assumed that Gemma would not lead me astray, despite the fact that Dave is in fact her husband!

One of the cool things about racing at state champs is that they get out the electronic starting gates and timer, complete with a beeping countdown and synthesized starting 'gun': BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP PKSH!

Off we went! I started out right on schedule, and the next couple of laps were a little bit up on schedule. The pain had not set in yet. However, gradually it did. After a few laps I was right on schedule, and then I started to full a little bit behind. Will passed me with about 6 laps to go, but we both kept going because it was qualifying, so we had to set times.

Sure enough, with a kilometre to go the pain was really setting in! I recall trying not to drool on the track. My breath felt hoarse. I could taste a bit of blood! Then it was over. I looked up at the clock.

5:11.895

It couldn't have been much closer! I'd qualified about 0.2 of a second slower than Dave, so it was off to the bronze medal final for me!

A couple of days passed (seriously, the finals were on Sunday morning). Off to the track again.

I was riding against Pete for the final. Although his qualifying time was not spectacular, there were many reasons for that: he had just gotten off a plane, didn't know he was doing a pursuit, and had just done a kilo! He also didn't have aerobars on for qualifying, which is probably the most important bit of go-faster equipment for these sort of events.

On Sunday Pete was looking much better rested and he managed to procure some aerobars (from the source of all loaner equipment -- Marky G of course!). I was actually a little worried that he might put in a full on sprint effort at the start and catch me before I could even get started! Pete is a much faster sprinter than I am.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP PKSH! Off we went again. This time Gemma was pacing me to a 5:05 schedule as I thought that I may as well try and beat my earlier time. I tried to ride a much tighter line on the corners, as I'd been told that I was a bit high on the track in my qualifying rides. Stay on the black line!

Sure enough, the pain set in about half way through. I was up on schedule! At this time I managed to get far enough ahead that I could see Pete. This was good inspiration, and I lifted the pace a little, and managed to get past him. Unfortunately this probably put me a bit into arrears, and my pace dropped off rather rapidly in the final kilometre. Final time: 5:11, again! (not sure of the last few digits, but they weren't as relevant this time!)

Yay, I got a medal! We even got to do the whole podium presentation thing, although I had no idea what was going on (for future reference, I believe its: drop head for medal, shake hands, get on podium and look humble, get onto top step with winner, join hands and raise them for photo, shake hands with other podium getters, jump off).

I was happy with the times I rode, and I beat my December 2008 time by 25 seconds. Oh, and it turns out I wasn't just 0.2 seconds off silver, but 0.2 seconds off gold, as Will didn't race in the finals!

My goal for the next state champs will be to go under 5 minutes. With more training, and a bit more track-specific work, I'm pretty sure it can be done.

I encourage everyone to do a pursuit sometime - horribly painful, but very rewarding!

Race Report: inter-club track at Edwardstown

I went to Edwardstown again today for the inter-club track day put on by South Coast Cycling Club. What a great event!

Things didn't look good initially, it was a drizzling a bit when we arrived and most of us were thinking that it would get called off due to the weather. Luckily things didn't go the same way as the Bendigo madison, and the racing got under way, despite a slightly damp track.

The day started off with a one-lap (485m) TT. I rode this on my 'warmup' gear of 86", mainly because my start seems to be my weakness in these sort of events. As a result, I started fairly quick but I might have spun out a little bit towards the end. But all good. After this I switched over to 92.6", which I used of the rest of the day.

Next up was the teams sprint, club vs. club. Teams sprint is three riders per team, each rider does half a lap at the front and then peels off on the straight. So the first rider does half a lap, the second rider one lap, and the third rider the full one and a half laps - their finishing time is the time for the team.

I got to do three of these! I rode with Ben & Richard for the first team sprint. I was the first rider, then Richard, then Ben. We got off to a bit of a messy start but pulled it together and managed to beat the guys on the other side of the track.

Shortly after finishing I lined up again to be second rider with Marky G and Logan. Marky G has a very quick start, and I lost his wheel initially. He waited up for me, then really wound things up once I was on his wheel. I was definitely in the hurt box by the time I finished my turn, and Logan finished things off nicely. I think we won that one as well -- I can't remember! It was only the times that counted though.

Ben, Richard and I had done well enough with our first attempt to ride in the final for 3rd place. This time we swapped Ben and Richard around, so that Richard would be finishing. I started again. We started together a bit better this time, and managed to win the race for 3rd place.

Next up was the team pursuit - 6 laps of pain, 4 riders per team. I rode with Ben, Bec and Logan (in that order, with me starting at the back). We started off well, maybe a little too hard -- perhaps we were still in team sprint mode! Logan put in a big one-lap turn at the front for his first turn. The rest of us rolled through doing half-lap turns. Unfortunately Logan faded a little on his second turn, and then dropped off the back with one lap to go - we kept going without him as the time is taken from the third rider across the line. Our team finished pretty well - although we were beaten by the Central Districts CC team on the opposite side of the track (who were all rather strong riders). I would really like to do team pursuits more often, there is a lot to them in terms of pacing and keeping the team together. I think they're an excellent challenge.

I'm getting tired just writing all of this up!

Okay, so the race after that was a graded scratch race, nice and simple. B-grade was a big field. About 2 or 3 laps in I put in an attack which helped launch Ben off the front of the group. Shortly after doing so my legs said to me 'Sorry, we're done' and I was spent! Ben managed to stay away out the front, but was beaten by Rob Laing from Fatboys CC who managed to bridge over to him.

Finally we did the 'Adelaide Cup on Wheels' -- a two-lap (roughly 1km) handicap, with a round of heats for each grade, and then an all-in final.

For the B-grade heat I was given a rather generous handicap of 75m -- I was starting off at the front of the race! I started okay and lead the race out until the very end when 3 or 4 riders who had been sitting on came around me. The top six of us went through to the final.

In the final I was given 120m, not a huge gap given that there was some serious A-grade talent lined up behind me (including Matt Glaetzer off scratch.. famous for his negative-angle aero tuck). Dallas Z from PACC was just 5m behind me, and as the gun went he got off to a much better start, and I slotted in behind him.

Dallas ramped things up - he was out of the saddle accelerating hard for the first half a lap! We quickly passed the front markers after the first lap, and then we were at the front of the race. On the final corner I came around him, I was the leading.... my legs had barely anything left in them but the finish line was within sight! With about 100m to go Mick Young and Kyle Franson got past me for 1st and 2nd. I came in 3rd place. Can't be too sad about that! Dallas gave us all an awesome lead out.

Suffice to say, I'm rather stuffed after all of that!

Central Districts CC managed to take out the club contest - I think that their impressive amount of junior riders helped them with that! Port Adelaide CC came in second place, with South Coast CC coming in third.

It was good to get some track riding in as I'm signed up for the individual pursuit at the track state champs this weekend. Suffice to say, my time will not be amazing, but I'm doing it for the experience and 'fun' of it! Looking forward to it.

Power data from last weekend's crit

A few people have asked about seeing power data from last weekend's crit. Its not a secret, but its also not particularly interesting!

Here it is:


Pretty uninteresting! There's a surge at the start, and then I settled in. The little bumps are due to varying my effort with the wind. You can see the speed and power are inversely related. the little drop-off midway is when A-grade passed me and I sat up a bit to let them go past.

Average power for the 41 minute race was 313W. From this I would estimate that my FTP (1hr maximal power) is about 305-310W.

I'm quite happy with this, given that I estimated my FTP at around 265W back in October when I first tested it (although I suspect it was a bit higher in September towards the end of road season, and then I had a break from training 'properly' for a month or so). Since then I've been structuring my training mostly around raising FTP, with a mix of long road rides, tempo rides, and intervals done at TT pace - mostly 2x20s.

One of the really cool things about using a power meter is being able to track improvements in such an objective way.