All happening

Time to break radio silence

Its Wednesday and to me wednesday is a nothing day, it is the day in the middle of space and time, where you make the transition between reminising about the last and looking forward too the weekend. So I thought in my infinate boredom to use this in the form of an Email.

Last weekend was a weekend of mixed results, Saturday involved some average road surfaces, covered in empty beer bottles, really big trucks, alot of gutter time and the wind.

Jonathon Lacey brought comment to this with the below quote;

"Now those who have read the CSV report on saturday would of noticed they have come up with a new definition of the word "moderate". "Tivers clocked two hours, 20 minutes, 31 seconds in moderately windy conditions." And al-Qa'ida is a moderate Islamic organization. Or were we in different races?"

This sums it up pretty well, it was above the realm of moderate wind.

Unfortunately I dont have a full picture of what happened on the road, because lets face it, after two puntures and a random offering me a lend of a set of 909's I was in the Sag wagon, or in this case Sag Coachliner. I think the driver was given a couple of bags of lollies to hand out to riders as they got on bored, although I witnessed quite the opposite, the driver demolished at least 3 bags while I was there.

Alas Alack

Sunday was a Different Story

Lets Face it....I was still fresh......and I was pissed off.

To the point I was out there at 9am for a 12pm TT start. The boss is back. I rode parts of the course, checked conditions, i was hungry, hungry like someone who lives in a third world country who hasnt tasted food before, but that doesnt stop them from wanting it.

After my installation ride I could confirm that conditions were shit.

TT suit up

After numerous taughting from other clubs and compeditors during the week I was amped. St Kilda in my mind possed the biggest threat, containing 3 Prime Estate Riders and a Former Exceptional Triathlete. Not often you get to race directly against your teammates, its showdown time.

Not to mention riders like Aussie World ITT Rep Tom Leaper, Miles Watson, Melb-Brat winner Brett Tivers etc. It was going to be an epic day.

Research is great for amping up, I knew all the winning times in the last 5 years, and had an Idea of the conditions for all of them. Only once had teams gone under 1 hour 30 minutes and that was in perfect conditions, netherless I was driven to break it, breaking it would give us the win. In a race like this its important to be even, not to blow up early or leave to much in the tank. So Sub 45mins was burnt into my brain for that first lap, do that and we'll have a chance.

For the First time since I broke my wrists I was on fire, its hard to describe, sometimes you just have those on days, where nothing can stop you. This also has its down side, perphaps I started a bit fast, I set the tempo for the first km or so to get everyone settled, though I didnt have a speedo, and every said wow you guys started fast!

With Damo onboard I knew we had a good engine for the tailwind, but his engine would be comprimised into the head wind, so I pulled the mega turns in to the headwind, once again a couple of times a little to hard, and with Rhys pulled the mega turns through the crosswind.

And this was the way it went, yelling encouragement, yelling instructions and chewing bartape for 64km. In the final stretch we forced the issue, I was in the 53t x 11t and spinning, hit the final corner full pace and sprinted to the line. I looked at my watch, wow, 1:26, holy crap, we might of won this.

We rolled back to the car were all our family and friends were and in the meantime they'd announced it.

Awesome

State Champion yes....

Get Angry and Stuff Happens

How things have changed form wise in the past 3 weeks....

Unfortunately through all this I was unable to get my new TT bike ready in time


Its going to be awesome, just need some spacers for the seat mast and a chain.

Thats all for now,

Tour time

DT

And the Road starts going up....

Well my usual winter training stint at Bright has begun, and wow how good is the weather. Coming from a couple of weeks solid in Ballarat it feels like summer, even if its minus 3 at 1500 metres, at least the suns out!

Tales from Day One:

With beth on the back end of the flu and Cal on a recovery day the day started with a light trundle out one of my favourite winerys, Boytons Feathertop.

It has one of the Best views going around, and it kind of makes you want to sit there all day. Above is the view from our table. But we had to leave and it was time to get serious, we came back into town over the Man Maker (tip road), it's a half dirt - half sealed road that runs up the backside of Mount Porepunkah reaching 25% at times.

It was then time to drop Beth and Cal off and hit some serious climbing, and what a day for it.



This is the road up to falls and If you look carefully you can see bogong hiding at the end of the valley,

And back over the gap to bright, a quick photo and time to put some warm gear on, and back to bright we go.

The next day saw an epic ride, First up to Hotham then over to Mt Beauty and back to bright. Another sensational day on the bike too. Although there was a trade off, the higher we got the colder it got, at least it was still sunny!


Beth joined Cal and I for the Hotham Section, doesnt she look like shes having fun. Better outline what she was wearing to earn the michelin man award for the day

- 2x PE Thermal Winter Jerseys
- 1x PE Short Sleeve
- 1x Windvest
- Arm Warmers
- Undershirt

At least she was toastie on the descent.


As For me, I cracked out old faithful. the Vredstien Cannondale Winter Jacket.Unfortunately you cant ride every road during winter, By memory I think cam attempted to ride this road last year and he hasnt been able to clip his feet back in since due to the amount of ice that encompassed his cleats. Made for an interesting descent anyway.

What else is news
- I have 8 overdue library books, and i mean really overdue
- Aaron Smith is now the President of Alpine CC taking the mantle from Rosco "GPS" Walker, congrats
- Hair is almost at Doctor Who length, although unfortunately there is about to be a new doctor and my dreams are shattered
- I need to shave

Whats coming up for the rest of the month
- Melb-Brat
- Club TTT Championships
- BBN TT series race 2
- Tour of Gippsland
- No Sleep due to "Le Tour" training (if you watch it in your knicks its considered chamois time, hence training)

Good times

DT

Bringing my A game

First week of holidays down, and a solid week of training involving dirt roads, 70kph winds and torrential rain.

Lets work backwards

Today I raced out at Little River, I was originally intending to go out to Eildon with Jono Lovelock for the 100km road race blackburn, but instead I voted to minimise the commute and head to the 80km race held by footscray cc. Needless to say we got there with only minutes to spare, kit on, roll away. Charles had a race in D grade, and has definately made an improvement over last year. Footscray has a very strong club, they dont have many riders that regularly compete at opens which means they have all these superstrong dudes, that are there every week, which means for awesome racing. I went into the race with the basic training instructions if the race isn't hard make it hard and that I did. Wind were gusting at about 45-60kph constistantly, and the way the 15 or so kilometres per loop worked out meant it had about 12km of strong crosswinds.

The selection were being made straight away, it reminded me alot of when I drove the car in the motorcade at Tour of colleraine on the third stage. The pace was rocketed over one of the small climbs into the crosswind and what resulted was echelons of 5-10 riders 10 metres apart for as far as the eye could see, it was a day I was glad to be driving the car playing Director Sportief. Anyway back to the race, on the first crosswind section people were going everywhere, one of those things where the road is only so wide and fits only so many riders across and the rest are in the gutter on the limit trying to push up into the rolling turns for protection, Jono Thompson was one of these unlucky dudes, who at the end of the day wasnt enough of a barsted to push in. By the time we hit the second section there were bodys flying everywhere, ofcourse I spend the tailwind section having a nap at the back, and when I looked up the Bunch had split and we were 20 metres off fanned across the road. With a bit of a dodgy move through the dirt I made the bridge to the lead group, which then over the space of the next 20km widdled down to about 7 riders. For the first time since breaking my wrists I was starting to feel a bit like my old self, I looked around at these guys and they were all showing the strain of the wind and the pace, but I was fine, cadence was good, HR was less than 130bpm, I was back! Unfortunately I think the others in this bunch realised the relative ease i was riding with and decided to leave me on the front at the end of the head wind section, usually I would sit up but not today, I attacked into the corner leading onto the crosswind section gapped them through the corner, and then drove it up the gutter, this put alot of people on the limit after a couple of kms driving a rolled off, with Chris Fry (RACE/SRT) and "Butch"(De Grandi) rolling through to keep the pressure on. The rest of the riders tried to swing across on to my wheel, now missing turns in a selection is not something I like, so I sat up and let those to guys go, the others guys just looked at me with that "don't you want to win this look", so I sat on for a couple of seconds waited for the duo to get 50 metres up the road and I attacked my group up the gutter, this time only taking one other with me.

We worked pretty well until the last 10km, when some action started to happen, "Butch" from De Grandi was the first to light it up with a big gutter drive, then Graeme Carlson attacked gaining about 20metres, we sort of looked at each other and had a chat deciding to leave him 20metres off the front until the final straight. Once we reached that straight it was a 6km straight crosswinded drag with a bit of a grind to the base of the You Yangs at the end. "Butch" from De grandi was the first to go, he rocketed off, with Chris Fry his Clubmate from Geelong as I soon found out just looking at us to do something, I got on the front and brought it back to a bridgable distance and looked at the others, Carlo then pointed out that this dude was his clubmate and he wasnt going to chase, so I counter attacked myself, looked back to see no reaction/confussion. I quickly closed the gap to the leader and luckily he was in drive mode.

Now drive mode is that zone of focus you get in when you have one goal, its that finish line you can see 4km ahead and you dont notice anything else, its just zoned all into there.

Luckily for me it wasn't till about 1km to go when he realised I was just sitting on enjoying a good draft, although i was thinking tactically, this guy was big and ripped!! I was trying to recover as much as I could because he looked like he could sprint, so with 1km to go he realised I was there and tried to get me to roll through, Now I'd been on the raw end of this deal before, I'd been on the front in a two man break with dan braunsteins about 10 months ago, so I was ready to religate my draft spot and I new he'd be thinking 1st or 2nd is better than a possible fourth, at the base of the hill he looked at me and I went, he responsed and then sat up as I blasted away.

Last time I raced this course I hunger flated on the last lap in a break and survived to get 2nd by about a metre, so it was good to return with a win. And on a good note the first person to come up and congratulate me at the end was Ben O'Leary, great sign of sportsmanship, Ben and I have abit of a Friendly Rivalry, last year it was always him and I at the pointy end, and that sort of competiveness drives you to train a little harder. So thanks to him for the congratulations.

Anyway My batteries almost flat and I'm almost at ballarat on the train. 4 hours with threshold climbs tomorrow, after a late night watching the tour, might hide on a bunch ride first.

More Soon

DT

check out the race report for today 4/7
http://tinyurl.com/l44sra

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