2013 Road Season Part 2

I haven't been cycling much over the past week other than the commute to work and back, so I thought it would be a good time to reflect and re-live the road races I've done over the last few months since the Warburton Road Race at the end of March.

Baw Baw Classic
April 7, 2013
Held in the same area of Victoria as the Warburton Road race, this was definitely a race suited to the hill-climbers. The race started in Warragul and followed some hilly and scenic roads through Neerim, Noojee, Vespers Hill, Icy Creek, Tanjil Bren and finishing with the 6 km climb to the top of Mt Baw Baw after around 100 km or racing.

Terrain map and profile of the 2013 Baw Baw Classic.

Clive and I were representing the team, with support from John Prince who drove us up and back (thanks John!)

I had raced the Baw Baw Classic in B grade in 2012 and won by eight minutes, so I was definitely racing A grade this time around. The Baw Baw Classic is one of my favourite races, despite how difficult and tough the climb is. With this in mind, I decided it would be prudent to sit in the bunch and try to conserve as much energy as possible until the climb. Clive, on the other hand, was determined to get into the break, and he successfully achieved this, getting into a break with another half a dozen guys. However the group caught him before Neerim South as the size of the break dwindled.
The descent out of Neerim South is beauty, and being a confident descender I led the peloton down it. According to my Garmin, I reached a speed of 105 km/h, which is the fastest I can remember going on a bicycle.

Vespers Hill was the first real test, and the peloton hit it hard, as expected. Half way up I found myself riding at about my limit, and then gradually slipping places, until I was at the back of the group, and then a small gap as a few of us dropped off the back as we neared the apex. I wasn't too worried because I expected to be able to get back on over the other side, which is what happened as myself and a Budget Forklifts rider bridged back across.
Riding through the areas of Icy Creek and Tanjil Bren before the base of Baw Baw was my favourite part of the climb. I worked my way up to the front of the peloton again, and said g'day to Matt Clark who was my pick for the race, after his impressive performance at the Mt Buller Road Race.
While being conscious of expending energy needlessly, I also like to take descents at my own speed so I took the lead here again and found I was easily able to gap all the riders behind me, seemingly without even trying. This gave me (satisfaction) and a head-start on the next ascent to Tanjil Bren. I rode off  the front again down the next descent too, and built up a sizable gap before ascending again. I knew I'd be caught before Baw Baw so I took it easy until another group caught up to me, but nobody wanted to work to maintain that little break, and we were soon caught by the peloton. It was a surprisingly large group by the base of the climb, I'd guess around thirty riders.
As always, the climb was a killer, particularly painful. There's not much you can do but ride at your own pace, according to the amount of strength and energy you have left. I figured I was in about 20th place at the start of the climb, and was able to gradually overtake a handful of riders throughout the climb. I started cramping a few kilometres before the finish and was completely exhausted and was so glad when I crossed the line!

Near the top of Mt Baw Baw, about to overtake this Budget Forklifts rider.

At the top of the climb just before the finish-line.

I was quite happy with my performance, finishing 12th over-all, six and a half minutes down on Matt Clark who won by almost a minute!
A description of the Baw Baw climb can be found on the Cycle Atlas - it's an impressive little website and well worth a look.
Check out my Strava file here, and my stats below:

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	19°C	--
Speed	30.1km/h	104.7km/h
Cadence	87	--
Heartrate	166bpm	193bpm
Power	265W	988W
Elapsed Time	03:28:09

Tour of the South West
April 27-28, 2013
The next race on the calendar was the Tour of the South West down in Warrnambool. I'd also raced it in 2012 in its first year, and there were over 400 entries across all grades this year, due to a successful inaugural event and strong promotion.
Five riders from Melbourne Unibicycles were competing, with support again from John Prince (thanks John!) and Hamish Middleton, and we'd booked a few cabins in the caravan park to stay during the weekend.

The Big4 Caravan Park in Warrnambool.

The first stage was the road race in Wangoom, six laps of a 17 km course, 102 km in total.
The weather was sunny and reasonably warm, but it was so windy, blowing a gale!

John Prince and Calum Middleton under the Melbourne Uni marquee for the road race.

A few of the bikes resting up before the road race.

Calum Middleton and Tom Christie before the start of the road race.

2013 Tour of the South West Stage 1 - road race course.

The A grade race had 109 entries, and the start was quite a shambles. We were all lined in on the driveway of the Wangoom Recreation Reserve, and after the gun went, riders were scrambling to get out of the driveway and onto the road. I heard one guy got a puncture in the gravel right there. I was stuck towards the back so by the time I got onto the road, the front riders were a few hundred metres up the road - there was no control vehicle like there should have been! It took a lot of energy just to catch up to the peloton, and since I was sitting on the back, I missed the break which inevitably formed in the cross-winds. I was in the second group with a bunch of other strong riders, rolling turns, and after about four laps, we were only about a minute down on the lead group. Unfortunately for me, just coming into the fifth lap, I found myself in the gutter without protection from the wind, a small gap formed, and despite my efforts to close it, it kept growing, and that was it. I was dropped with another rider on my wheel, Dan Nelson from the African Wildlife Safaris team.
Dan and I continued on and picked up another rider from Search2Retain (Angus Tobin), and the three of us rode the final two laps on our own, managing to hold off the third chasing bunch by a minute and a half, but losing eight minutes on the second group we'd been dropped from. I finished in 36th place, over 11 minutes down on the winner, Eric Sheppard, a fellow Melbourne Uni alumni and an excellent cyclist. I was quite disappointed about being dropped so early in the race and being beaten by riders I can normally keep up with/beat.
You can see my Strava file here and clearly see the point about two hours in where my power drops.

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	27°C	--
Speed	36.6km/h	58.7km/h
Cadence	97	--
Heartrate	174bpm	193bpm
Power	262W	1,179W
Elapsed Time	02:47:35

The same afternoon on the Saturday was stage 2, a 12.7 km individual time-trial also around Wangoom.

2013 Tour of the South West Stage 2 - individual time trial course.

I was impressed by how many flashy time-trial bikes there were around - obviously plenty of guys with a lot of cash to splash! I also had my own time-trial bike to race on (but not a very flashy one). I consider myself a reasonably good time-trialist, regularly heading out to Kew Boulevard on my TT bike and, most importantly, holding some of the KOM's on Strava.
I finished 25th in the time-trial, a minute and twenty seconds down on the winner, which was an improvement on my result from stage 1 so I was reasonably happy with the result. You can see the Strava file here and my race stats below:

Time	00:17:10
Elapsed Time	00:17:10
Avg Temp	26°C
Max Speed	69.5km/h
Avg Speed	43.5km/h
Average Heart Rate	182 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate	188 bpm

Chris Zucchet crashing haphazardly in the bed after an exhausting day of racing.

Stage 3 was held on Sunday and was a one-hour criterium around the Warrnambool Cemetery. 

2013 Tour of the South West Stage 3 - criterium course.

Before we raced, however, we had to wait for all of the other grades to race, so we had the whole morning to kill. We cruised around and ate lunch with a beautiful view of the coast. I'd like to give a special mention here to Chris Zucchet who provided lunch for us at his own cost. He's widely known to be fairly tight with money and generally frugal. If I can relate an anecdote here, I heard from another friend, Dan, that Chris allegedly accidentally left his wallet behind in Tom's glove-box that weekend, and it wasn't until six days later that he actually realised he was wallet-less...which goes to shoe he doesn't take his wallet out too often!

Chris Zucchet and Tom Christie relaxing on the coast near Warrnambool

Chris Zucchet and Tom Christie eating lunch on the Warrnambool coastline.

A view of the coast.

A view of the beach.

Tom and I went for a half hour warm-up and got back to the start of the race with about 5 minutes to spare. My legs were fairly tired from the previous day of racing, and I wasn't able to make much of an impression on the race. I was on the front for about half a lap, long enough for the commentator to call out my name and team at least. I crossed the line mid-field. 

You can find my Strava file here and some stats below.

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	19°C	--
Speed	42.3km/h	65.9km/h
Cadence	95	--
Heartrate	169bpm	185bpm
Power	298W	1,127W
Elapsed Time	01:02:56

2013 Tour of the South West A grade criterium

A little team photo after the criterium: Chris Zucchet, Clive Silcock, Ned Powell and Tom Christie.

Chris Zucchet looking cool before the criterium.

Sarah Mortley, another Melbourne Uni Cycling Club member, relaxing after racing earlier in the morning.

It was a long weekend and the team achieved only lackluster results. I was the top finisher for the team in 34th place, 12:10 down on the winner, Eric Sheppard. 

Following (and during) the tour, there was a fair amount of criticism directed at the organisers after the issues at the start of the road race, with the delayed release of results, with inaccurate results (it appeared their timing system wasn't working), and with the criterium program meaning that we couldn't leave Warrnambool to drive back to Melbourne until about 4 pm. It appeared the race was a victim of it's own success, with the 400 odd racers. I rather enjoyed the weekend despite my poor results, but I'm guessing there won't be as many people back again for the race next year.

Phillip Island Gran Prix
May 11, 2013

The Phillip Island Gran Prix was a rather more successful outing for me and the team, which consisted of me, Daniel Braunsteins, Clive Silcock, Chris Zucchet and Calum Middleton, with John Prince, Rod Warnecke, Michael Krybolder and Thomas Madden coming along to support the team (thanks guys!). The race was held on the smooth-as-butter Gran Prix circuit, 25 laps of the 4.44 km course, totaling 110 km.

2013 Phillip Island Gran Prix course.

There were around 90 riders on the A grade start-list, but we were also racing with the other grades so the peloton was Tour de France sized, but with much less collective skill. This became evident when there was a large pile-up in only the second lap. Word on the street is that an African Wildlife Safaris rider was caught out on the rumble strip around the bend at the bottom of the straight (where we were doing around 60 km/h), he realised the rumble strip was terminating and veered back into the bunch, but no-one had made space for him, so a few of the riders were knocked down and they collected a bunch of guys behind them. I was about 10 metres behind when the crash occurred, and it was one of those moments where you know you're going to crash but you can't do anything about it. Time went into slow motion, I hit the anchors and tried to swerve around the pile of bikes and cyclists, but to no avail - I collided with the jumble in front of me and flew over the handlebars, landing on the road ahead. The bloke behind me tumbled down onto my bike. 

A graph of my speed surrounding the crash in the second lap - a sudden drop from 60 km/h to 0 km/h!

I wasted no time pulling my bike back out and hopped straight back on in pursuit of the peloton, but they were a fair way ahead already, and I was expending plenty of energy in the wind. I then realised that my brake pads were maligned and rubbing on my front wheel, making matters worse obviously. Then I discovered both of my bottles had escaped their cages.

As we continued to chase, a commissaire on a motorbike rode up beside us and allowed us a lap out, which I was quite grateful for! This meant we could just cruise around to the pit lane and wait for the peloton to come around again. I took the opportunity to seek some more bidons. Rod only had a couple of screw-capped standard bottled water, which was of course better than no water, but just a little difficult to unscrew while racing.

It was as though everyone had forgotten how to ride a bike, because there was another crash in the third lap, as well as some other sketchy moments.

Back in the bunch, and later in the race, Chris and Dan set me up for one of the KOM's (see the photo below). They led me up to the top of the climb and I was about to sprint to finish it off but left is slightly too late as I got boxed in by another couple of riders coming past on either side. It was a well-executed set-up so I was disappointed not to have finished it off. Especially since Chris crashed out later on in the race, knocked himself out and was rushed to the Dandenong Hospital.

2013 Phillip Island Grand Prix: Chris Zucchet, Daniel Braunsteins and Ned Powell on the front of the peloton. 

Over-all the race was quite easy, and the lack of wind and large field meant it was fast and fairly easy to sit in and save energy. I was still feeling quite good at the end, managed to position myself up towards the front before the sprint. It was a messy sprint though, with many riders contesting, and I got cut off and had to stop pedaling, but still finished in 7th place which I was quite happy with. .

2013 Phillip Island Gran Prix sprint finish.

You can see me in this video taken from Shannon Johnson's bike, who was the race favourite and winner. Melbourne Unibicycles finished fifth in the teams category, and my 7th place was the first top-ten placing in a Victorian Road Series event for the team.
Strava file can be found here, and some race stats below.

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	24°C	--
Speed	42.7km/h	69.8km/h
Cadence	94	--
Heartrate	161bpm	197bpm
Power	288W	1,244W
Elapsed Time	02:32:30

We stopped in at San Remo after the race and Rod Warnecke (manager of Melbourne University Sport) kindly sponsored lunch for us.

The support crew: Michael Krybolder, Thomas Madden, Rod Warnecke and John Prince.

We also stopped in at the Dandenong Hospital to check in on Chris. He was in the emergency ward with a cut above his eye and grazes on his body and leg. He was suspected of having a broken collarbone, but luckily this turned out to be a false assessment after the X-ray.

We also spoke to a woman out the front who told us her son was also in the hospital after crashing in the race, and remarked there were several others cyclist from the race in there too. Quite unfortunate, but that's bike racing I guess.

Metro Championships
May 18, 2013
A week later was the Metro Championships. The timing of the event wasn't great for me because I had an Australian Water Association dinner the night before, with food and drinks provided. Wanting to make the most of the dinner, I'd consumed a number of beverages and cycled home from St Kilda to Northcote at about 1 am. I got about four hours sleep before getting up to meet Clive and drive out to Harcourt for the race.
The race consisted of two laps of a 56 km circuit, totaling 112 km and finishing in Harcourt. I wasn't feeling the best, and at times it was a struggle not to fall asleep as I was riding, and to remain focussed, lest I cause an accident! I remained in the bunch throughout the race. Clive helped me out, taking me up towards the front before the last major climb. The peloton split over the top of this climb, and then regrouped during the descent. With 15 km to go, there were a lot of riders attempting to ride off the front, but every move was getting chased down. I just kept following wheels trying to avoid doing any work in the wind.
The approach to the finish-line was a long descent; I chose a few good wheels to follow (Joel Strachan from Target-Trek and an African Wildlife Safaris rider, who inadvertently took me up towards the front before I'd seen any wind. I then sprinted around him but the finish-line came up all too quickly and I crossed it in 4th place. I may have been on the podium if I'd gone a little earlier, but considering I don't consider myself a sprinter, I was quite happy with the result.

2013 Metro Championships sprint finish.

You can see my Strava file here and some stats below:

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	12°C	--
Speed	40.3km/h	74.2km/h
Cadence	93	--
Heartrate	151bpm	192bpm
Power	250W	1,222W
Elapsed Time	02:44:28

Fred Icke Handicap
The Fred Icke Handicap was held in Creswick, 30 km from where I grew up so I felt like I had a home-ground advantage. I missed the race last year because I missed the entry deadline.
As the name of the race suggests, riders are allocated into groups of equal capability, with the group of slowest riders leaving first and the fastest riders setting off last. In this case, the first group started 36 minutes before the final (scratch) group.
Melbourne Unibicycles was represented by Oli le Grice riding from the 20 minute mark, and Clive Silcock and myself riding from second scratch (the three minute mark).
Like the Metro Championships, I didn't have the ideal preparation the previous night. This time I was at my sister Rachel's housewarming, which I wasn't going to stay long at, but as usual, time had gotten away from me and I didn't get home until 3 am.
Also the weather was miserable, it had rained all night in Melbourne, with about 50 mm overnight, and there was some flooding around the place.

The swollen Merri Creek (from St Georges Rd bridge) on the way to meet Clive to drive to Creswick.

The weather during the race was also wet and cold, but thankfully not too windy. My group was caught by scratch half-way through the first lap, and the size of the group subsequently grew as we gradually collected more groups up the road.
With about 10 km to go, the leaders riding from the 36 minute group were still 4 minutes up the road, and it was going to be close! The peloton kept chasing but in the end they just managed to stay ahead of the main bunch, with the two blokes crossing the line less than 20 seconds ahead.
I caught a bit too much wind approaching the finish trying to maintain a position near the front, and crossed the line in 10th place, although I was later bumped up to 9th place after Liam White was disqualified for making an illegal wheel-change.
I had initially assumed I wasn't in the top ten so I left straight after the race and rode home to Mt Franklin for the night and was delighted to later find I had in fact finished in the top ten. The race paid down to tenth place, so Cycling Victoria kindly sent me a cheque in the mail.

2013 Fred Icke Handicap: riding up the hill out of Creswick on the Midland Highway.

2013 Fred Icke Handicap: riding up the hill out of Creswick on the Midland Highway.

2013 Fred Icke Handicap: sprint finish.

2013 Fred Icke Handicap: sprint finish, and me with a face of desperation, exertion and pain.

Here is my Strava file and below are some race stats:

	AVG	MAX
Temperature	13°C	--
Speed	43.9km/h	69.8km/h
Cadence	97	--
Heartrate	157bpm	189bpm
Power	275W	1,258W
Elapsed Time	02:59:54

So that wraps up the racing I've done to date. I've been taking a bit of a break from training without any races coming up to train for. I'll miss the Preston Mountain Classic because I'm off for a little holiday in New Zealand for a week with my sisters. I think the next race for me will be the Dirty Deeds Round 1 Cyclo-cross race in Brunswick, can't wait!