Lessons in keeping the bike upright!

Australian Cycling Grand Prix Time Trial, Ballarat, Vic.
Friday 15th August
27.4km loop course with lots of corners
Raining, windy and cold!

I was so excited about this race! I had learnt my lessons from the disaster a couple of weeks ago, had had a pretty stress-free week at work and had been stomping through my training. And, more than anything else I was going to enjoy this race no matter what! OK, that sounds a little nuts, but I don't think there is really any other way to approach a race.

The flight down to Melbourne was good and uneventful, I even managed to get a little more sleep. A slight hiccup with the rental car saw us end up with a Fairlane Ghia in place of the lost Corolla- we weren't complaining, this thing was plush :) . Unfortunately we had miscalculated how long it would take to get from Melbourne to Learmonth, and were a little later arriving than expected. That was OK, Matt and I are approaching "well oiled machine" status when it comes to pre-race prep. There was a downside though, I had a rather truncated warm-up which was not ideal in the bitter conditions.

After a bit of a wobble down the ramp I was away as number 7, somewhere in the middle of the field. The aim today was to stay relaxed and ride as well as I could. Conditions were tough out on the course. It had stopped raining by the time I started, but there was still that horrid drizzle around that covers your glasses and makes it very hard to see. In hindsight I possibly should have made better use of the tail wind in the first part of the course, and I should have been more conservative in my gearing for the hill about 2/3 of the way through, and maybe I could have been more aggressive in the second half of the course, but it is always easy to say that now, and these are definitely things to remember for the next race. Apart from over-gearing on the hill, the toughest part of this race was the wind. The amount of energy I spent trying to hold my bike vertical was unbelievable. Apart from causing me to almost kiss the road a number of times, the wind made it really difficult for me to find a good rhythm to power home, especially when there were 2 or 3 riders within passing distance! I got one of them, but frustratingly couldn't get the next (the other had a technical problem, and had to withdraw).

At the end of the day I was 6th, which, given the last couple of months, I was pretty happy with. Since this was only the 4th competitive time trial I have done I had no expectations going in to this race, the plan was to have a better ride than NSW titles, and that was what I did. From a development perspective there is plenty to improve, and that is enough to keep me looking forward to the next race and get me through training.

Full results and report can be found at cycling news: well done to Bridie on a sensational ride and the other podium finishers, Stephanie and Davina.

Special thanks to the people behind getting me ready for this event (and all the others)- John Forrest (Pothole), coach and Dean Redzic, strength and conditioning coach. You guys do an awesome job and certainly makes my job on race day a bit easier! Thanks :D

Thanks for reading, catch you next time :)

Puncture repaired!

TVCC Uriarra Scratch Race 37.7km with C Grade Men and a few hills...
Sunday 3rd August

After spending the week feeling sorry for myself after the poor race I had in Gosford and then sucking it up and getting on with it, I headed out for a local club race on Sunday. I had very few expectations going into this race- it was going to be hilly and I have done very little work on the road, let alone in the hills in recent times (I'll let you figure out why that would be the case...) I had hoped that there would be some other A grade women out for the race, but knew the odds were in favour of me being the only one. The race director gave me the option of racing with B grade women or with C grade men, knowing I needed some intensity before the GP Crit in Ballarat next weekend I opted for the C grade men.

The race was pretty straight forward. Team Bike Culture had a guy away and controlled the pace- actually kept the pace down to pedestrian. This cracked me so I had a bit o a dig off the front, didn't get away (never thought I would), but at least lifted the pace so B grade women didn't overtake us! Got reminded of how important it is to a) be near the front for a hairpin turn & b) pay attention so as to not get stuck behind a slow wheel if an attack goes!

In the end I stuck with guys until the climb over Condor, just didn't quite have enough to hang on going up hill- no surprise there! But I was able to keep going without going too far backwards from them- a couple of minutes down on the first bunch, but that is OK. On the whole I was pretty happy with how this all went. I got up and over all the hills pretty comfortably and on the whole managed the changes of pace pretty well, which is really what I wanted from today.

I was a little frustrated by the Team Bike Culture approach. It is all well and good to have your team and be organised to race together, but it makes it a little biased if you are the only team there and you number about 1/3 to 1/2 the bunch! I know their argument will be that others should get themselves organised and that is fair enough. Just to my mind seems a little unnecessary to be the only team for a club race with 16 starters! (Alright, that is my rant as the lone female in the bunch!)

After this weekend's efforts- motorpacing on Saturday and a long 115km with a race in the middle on Sunday- I am feeling more confident that what happened last weekend was really just a bad day and there is nothing to be seriously concerned about. One more hard week of training, followed by some recovery and then off to Ballarat to redeem my TT pride and have a stab at this crit!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!