There goes 18 years of fame

Gidgegannup ‘super hilly’ time trial, 40k, 700hm

I had been here before. Somewhere in December, during a very long ride on a very warm day.

“You want to do a long ride?”, Cameron asked. Try Death Valley; that will give you everything. The name sufficed for me. Death Valley, yes I’ll take on Death Valley.

The Death Valley loop is everything but flat. The scenery is breath taking, 40 kilometers long. It’s got long gradual ascents, some steep bits, 700m height difference in total and some great descents. The only nuisance is the road condition in some parts. Blurred by the heat, every rough patch is annoying and makes the ascents even more painful in parts. Roger, Mike, Florentien and I were exhausted when we finally found a petrol station where we could refill our water bottles.

Just imagine what it would be like to have a time trial organised on this loop. Now that is madness.

Start 8:50, that means leaving home at 6:45, if I want to have a proper and relaxed warm up. I am surprised by how much I want to ride, considering yesterday’s Crit and training ride afterwards. It all comes down to one-hour intensive exercise, which I know I am capable of. The thought alone vents off all pressure of the necessity to do well: I am just going to have fun.

After a quick finish inspection, I do my warm up, and am off to the starting line. Alf and his wife are keen spectators and I am even in the mood to talk, minutes before the start. We chatted about the weather, but it could have been about the global financial crisis. It almost feels like I am reinventing myself every week.

From that moment onwards, things get patchy. In my memory the first 11k was down hill, and thought to have done them in just over 11 minutes. That’s 60k/h, and during the race I even believed that was the case. Intermediate timing revealed 16:33, which basically means: hills. Obviously I suppressed the first couple of hills, right after the start, only to retain the fact that after that I steadied above 70k/h for a while. ‘This is the best TT-course I have ever ridden’, not having reached the bad roads yet.

The pain starts, as it were orchestrated, after passing a small bridge. From there onwards it is uphill for a good 25 minutes, with some small descents in-between. Keeping the power output as constant as possible requires a lot of gear shifting. And that reveals clearly that my bike is in need of some serious service. At least the little used lower gears are not well adjusted. I can’t recall having used the small chain ring ever in a race on this bike.

“Change gear!”, I yell when I pass a competitor on a ascent. He is grinding on, stuck in some crazy big gear that leaves him going slower by the second, while I am passing him spinning on the small chain ring. It reminds me of a guy in the first Marmotte I ever did. I would pass him in the descents, but he would pass me by on the climbs in a huge gear, defying all the theory that comes with human muscle behaviour. He would have done so much better spinning at least a little lighter.

In the descents I rely on the speed signs in the turns. I don’t have a lot of course knowledge. I don’t know how long the climbs are and certainly don’t know the turns where you could go flat out. But some common sense and the signs along the road do tell where a car should pay attention. It is a fair assumption that if a car can make a turn with 70 or 55, a human-powered device like a bike can handle the turn with little breaking. If the sign shows 30, you know some hairpin shape is coming up. The most motivating moment is when I need to break in a turn uphill. The feeling of making such a sharp turn ascending is the best tap on the back to keep going.

a time trial course with everything. Scenery, climbs, descents, hair pins but unfortunately also bad ‘n rough road condition

When I am approaching Toodyay road, I still believe I can manage breaking the hour. Not knowing that the stretch is way longer than expected and going up for most of it. In front of me an ERC jersey appear, which pushes me to shift to bigger gears. It’s Jesse, nibbling away from the bag pack of pain. With the hour passed I make myself up for the last acceleration and finish in 1:04. “That wasn’t too bad.” All the descents made it much easier than anticipated. With a little more course insight, the climbing definitely can be quicker. As for the descents, I’m not so sure…

It turns out I’ve beaten the course record, which stood since 1991. Again it shows: have fun and you’ll be surprised.

Results can be found here.

Supporters all over the place. Exhaustion as well. photos: © Jim Eu