Australian
National Road Championships, Ballarat, 6th – 10th January
2010
A
week of cycling indulgence: The Australian National Road Championships in
Ballarat, with on Wednesday the 6th the time trial (39k), on
Thursday the 7th the Criterium and on Sunday the 10th the
road race (162k). Aussie Crates has given Logan and me the opportunity to be
here, and we took it. Initially I was going to do all three disciplines, but
already before the time trial I decided not to do the Criterium. If I wanted to
have a serious go at finishing the road race, which was the objective (together
with doing well in the time trial), I shouldn’t do the Crit, something I don’t
like doing (yet) anyway. I’m staying in an apartment with Logan, Michael and Freddy
and the accommodation is breathing cycling. You could call it a mess with a
gathering of bikes, pumps, tools, wheels, helmets, bike boxes, bottles and bag
packs, but for us it is the furniture.
“It
is really a mess around here”, Freddy complains: ”They charge a pretty high
rate, so I expect some service in return.”
He
is not talking about the bikes and gear lying around, but about the floor being
unclean and the towels and blankets not being replaced. Fair point I must
admit. A vacuum cleaner tries to hide in a cupboard, but when I discover that
the dust bag is full and the suction power is zero, I give up.
Logan has an injury, showing the backward behaviour that some, and far too
many, have in Australia: He has been hit by a plastic water bottle thrown out a
cashed-up bogan-car (some Holden Commodore) in a descent around Roleystone,
purposely trying to hit him. What kind of behaviour is that? The European in me
can only feel sorry for these bogans: Holden still just is Opel. In Europe it
is really not cool to drive an Opel. Why would you spend all your money on
upgrading your Opel? That is something we did in the ‘70s and it was called an
Opel Manta. Moustache required. And then purposely trying to hit someone while
– probably drunk – driving, that is really backward behaviour. Logan’s eye will
turn purple in the next few days. We laugh about it. Just gently lower your
glasses a bit, Logan, and look Robbie in the eye: the ideal way to send shivers
down McEwen’s spine just before the sprint.
A
week in Ballarat: Bikes and healthy food
5th
of January: Pasta à la Nonna.
Course
inspection: tougher than expected. A 100+m hill straight from the
start at 6%, flattening to 3,5% at the top, and a 23k false flat or more,
uphill. The tough section I recon is the false flat section Westward towards
Ballarat, with the headwind. With the time trial half way through it will be do
or die: here you will gain or lose a lot of time.
We
register at the town hall. Michael is starting at 10:24 am for the Under-23, I
am starting at 14:14. We are in real luck that it is going to be relatively
cool with 24 degrees, possibly even with some cloud cover. A commissar checks
my bike set-up. The 5cm from the bracket is met. And the bars do not extend
more than 80cm from the saddle. The big worry are the aero bars themselves: the
Zipp VukaAero does not meet the 3:1 rule, where three times the width is at
least the length of the bike part. Same holds for the seat post: the Cervélo
seat stem is too thin. This would give a too high of a drafting advantage. It
was giving a lot of confusing when the UCI was introducing this rule in 2009
with the entire triathlon and time trial world on Cervélo bikes…
“Just
adjust it with adding some layers of tape, and you’ll be ok”.
I’m
stunned: at the moment they are willing to dodge the rules by allowing cyclists
to put some tape on their handlebars (wrap a plastic shopping bag over your
bars to create some initial thickness…). And the 1mm that the seat post is too
thin is considered as ‘allowed’. However, soon, very soon, winging these
measures will not be tolerated anymore. In other words, I need to get myself
some new aero bars, and hope that Cervélo will replace my seat post free of
charge. For the record: the Zipp VukaAero sells at a €1000, -…
Freddy,
current double Australian Road Champion in the age category 55-59, will be our
‘nonna’ this week. Besides his ever flowing knowledge on bikes and nutrition,
he is willing to cook for us. I’m a humble, hungry listener. He’s all good with
this description; however, he would like the adjective ‘Fast’ to be added. Fast
Freddy will make us our Pasta à la nonna.
6th
of January: National Time trial Championship, 39k. 17th, 55’18”
It’s
great if you can enjoy the morning on D-day, as it is a normal day. You have
your normal breakfast, read a bit of news paper and listen to some music. None
of that freaked out pressure that used to be there. It could be a sign of
finally getting comfortable with the artificial pressure I put on myself. Or it
is a sign of not really being ready – knowing this is not top form. Either way,
for one of the first times, I like the pre warm-up time.
Michael
has been living towards this day slightly differently: he is determined to
really kill himself in the 28k under-23 race. He ends 5th, and
delivers a very constant, almost perfect race: in the red zone for the full
28k, but not blowing up on the first hill. Something that almost everyone else
does do.
The
Freddy’s rollers are giving me the creeps. They are some genius lightweight
invention, allowing you to transport them as hand luggage. There was no way I
could get my wind trainer on the plain, already being 18kg in excess of the
allowed 23kg (which cost me Aus$180). But when I try to shift gears my steering
movements are too sudden and my front wheel rolls off the front roller. I’m
surprised by the soft impact and that the bike does not go anywhere, but it
does show that I am not used to this kind of warm-up. The big advantage of
rollers is that your set up is race ready: the aluminium rollers don’t create
the artificial resistance that a wind trainer create, so it does not wreck your
tires, which makes it possible to have your disc in there already. Michael
holds my seat post, which gives me a bit more confidence but I am only able to
focus my eyes on the front roller, as if that will keep me on the rollers.
“Steer
with your ass, not with your hands”, Michael advises.
I
try to ‘steer’ with my hips, and hey, that does work! But the idea that I will
be doing my warm-up on these rollers, including high-cadence spinning and tempo
intervals is not comforting. Let alone that Michael will need to hold my seat
post for the next 45 minutes.
“Just
let me know, when you want to change gear, I’ll do it for you”, Freddy is
standing aside of me.
My
warm-up is becoming a three-man routine, and with Logan being a committed
supporter, it looks like this is my first time trial ever. I really was looking
forward to a warm-up on the rhythms of my new i-tunes play list. But with two
people needed to keep me stable and shift gears, I can’t have my earphones in.
I had compiled the most awful echo-cathedral-rock of the 80s, just plain
painful to the developed ear and mind of a connoisseur. Starship, George
Michael, Cher, Communards, Europe, yes, all the big names you really don’t want
to admit you like when you try to make an impression. But it simply makes me
happy, remembering the innocent times. It also takes the pressure away,
something I have no problem with enforcing upon myself.
I’m
sweating like a pig, without having done a lot of work. Fully hydrated: a good
sign. When I’m sort of ready to do a first tempo interval I cut the roller warm
up short.
“I’m
going to do my intervals on the road”.
‘There is no down side of doing your warm up on the road; I have done it
so many times.’ But when I am on the road, I realize that I am riding on my racing
wheels already. ‘Except getting a flat of course.’
If
I get a flat now, that is the end of my time trial, before I have even started.
How do all these other teams do that? How do you get all your gear including
spares here, if you have to travel by plain? I suddenly realize what logistical
nightmare the Pro-Tour races, or the Tour de France for that matter, must be.
My
first tempo interval reveals lazy legs. I’ve been here before, and accept it.
There is little you can do about it. You can try to wake them up with short
power burst, but that is about it, as far as I know. If they are tired for
whatever reason, they are tired. With my heartbeat reaching 162 after a tempo
block trying to get to my anaerobic threshold, it just indicates that my legs
aren’t fresh. I do another power burst and another tempo block and ride back to
the starting line.
Freddy
and Logan will follow me in the car with my spares, being Zipp 202’s. Not aero
of course, but it will get me to the finish in the worst case.
At
the starting line the commentator tries to identify what number I am. “Number
71”, as I turn my back towards him. “Number 71, so what is your story?” This is
the introduction he will share with the crowd. “From WA, team Aussie Crates, 35
years, Dutch”, as if I was drilled a thousand times before to do this. Then,
since I was still racing my time trials in my Gaul! Cycling for Warchild
skinsuit, I add: “And cycling for charity, Warchild”. There is no time to
explain what Warchild actually is, but he’s got plenty of information to go
with. “Now here is a bit of story for you with our next rider coming up…” I
shut myself off, taking me back to the Nationals last year, where I felt like a
pressure cooker at the start, ready to burst. Now it is almost the opposite:
knowing I am not in top form yet, it is the experience that counts. For the
result the pressure cooker is probably better, but this is the way it is, at
the moment.
Ten
seconds to go. I look at my hand position and discover that my gloves are still
on. That is definitely not aero. Five seconds. I should take them off. Where
would I put them? I take a couple of short deep breaths, go.
The
only picture of my time trial: in the newspaper.
I
ride off the start block, sprint to the roundabout, chuck a left, and the 2,7k
hill climb stares me in the face. I see the rider who started in front of me
half way up the hill. Don’t go over the threshold; keep your cool. My heartbeat
stabilises at 166, and I’m pretty happy. I feel like Ulrich in such an insane
big gear, but if the heartbeat is happy with it, it can’t hurt now can it? At
the top of the hill, after just over 2k, I have closed in considerably on the
rider. Did I go out too hard? But as my heartbeat is still under the anaerobic
threshold I dismiss that though directly. At the top I’m getting out of the
saddle to accelerate but my legs don’t do what they should be doing. For some
reason I already lack the power to accelerate as I would like to. As my Polar
has trouble picking up the speed sensor due to the big 1080 rims, I have to
rely on heartbeat. I’m in the dark why my body is behaving as it is, and it is
an indication of a very frustrating time trial. My lungs and heart say I can go
harder, but the legs say no. A great moment for some man-to-man body
discussion, impeccable timing! I hear a horn in the back, which keeps horning.
Freddy really wants me to go faster, just like I do, but for some reason I
can’t. I shake my head, indicating that I hear the horn, but that I can’t go
faster, as that would blow my threshold already. But he keeps thumping the
horn. This is getting annoying.
A
truck passes by and literally drags me forward: free power! It gets me very
close to the rider in front of me. The second hill is a short one, with a steep
bottom section. I catch my first bate and pass him on the climb. The top of the
climb is hidden, and again it is very easy to blow up. At the top Freddy starts
horning again, and I try to accelerate but it seems an agonizingly slow
acceleration. I have no idea how fast I’m going. The speed does pick up and I
seem to get into some sort of rhythm. Finally, that took way too long.
I
grind to the railway line. This right hand turn was covered with molten bitumen
yesterday, so I take the inside and try to hold the inside. I still see molten
patches and my mind gets the pictures back from a crashing Beloki in the Tour
of 2003.
He
broke almost everything that you can break, and his career was over. Rob Waller
from the ERC bike shop was at the Worlds in the 80s in Stuttgart on the top of
his form. The course ran through the city centre on a section with tram rails.
In the present day that is unthinkable. And with a bunch roaring itself down
the streets, with you in the middle of it, how the hell are you supposed to
know that you will be all right? The only thing you can do is to follow the
others. When the bunch broke he tried to get across with a Korean. In the
descent at 90k/u the Korean suddenly swirled aside for no reason, taking out
Rob’s wheel. His career was over, and still he does not know why the guy did
it. His point was: “do it, go for it, some day it wíll be over. You just
don’t know when. In the mean time, go for it.” I got a very warm feeling
about the remark.
The
5 following kilometres are demoralising. It is one straight road topped up with
some undulation, which take the end out of sight. It is just a question of
grind on. Behind me Freddy is slamming the horn again. This ís the
section where I need to step up with some 20k to go. Here the 170’s should come
in sight. But the legs still are not going anywhere. My breathing is quite
regular, but I am not able to push. Freddy does not stop horning. The next
moment I see Logan hanging out of the window yelling something. I sit up, wave
my arm and yell:” Shut up, I’m trying!” I am getting demoralised: this just is
not my day. Despite that, I am not going to release myself: I am going to
continue like this to the finish. Twice two small steep rises break the rhythm
on the false flat. In the training they looked like power hills, but now they
are plainly annoying and painful. I hear the horn again, but do not react
anymore. I never thought that that could be so frustrating. The backstretch is
long and I long for the left hand turn, to be cut loose from these cross winds.
That would take me to the last real part of the time trial; the right and
following left hand turns were merely downhill. This was the tough section, as
identified on the training ride, but I am loosing time, rather than gaining.
Of
course the left turn does come, together with a nice head cross wind. I really
am getting angry: there is nothing on this course that gets you in a rhythm.
The more than gentle rise drops the speed to a dubious low level. I crave for a
descend, and so does my disc. This is not an honourable speed for a disc?!
Freddy hits the horn again, and does not stop until I get out of the saddle.
The right turn into Gear Avenue is getting close now. I should have been far
above my threshold by now, but I am not. Moreover, there is no way I could
raise my rhythm; the lungs are fine with it, but the legs aren’t. I attack the
last hill, after that it is really over: the last 4k are almost flat out
downhill.
The
first bit of the descent isn’t fun at all: it is so steep, that I lose
confidence in my time trial position hitting 80k/h. The 1080 starts swirling
and my mind sees me cleaning the bitumen. I grab the normal handlebars and try
to stay as low as possible. In hind side nothing was going to happen, you can’t
crash just like that if you keep your hands on the bars. The last part of the
descent is a Cancellara descent: you need to steer around some corners but they
are pretty gentle: 54x11 as fast as possible to the finish. I get to 17th,
55’18” (42,3km/h). Cameron Meyer, current World Champion points’ race and
racing for Garmin in the Giro in 2010, wins it in 50’52” (45,9km/h). I can only
bow deeply for that.
I
didn’t feel as a good time trial, there was more in there, cardio-vascular it
showed there was more in there, but the legs just didn’t go with it. I
apologize to Freddy and Logan for the yelling, but they are fine with it. My
speed picked up, and that is what counted. The possible answers came
afterwards: grinding up the hill in 54x19 or whatever it was, keeps the
heartbeat somewhat down, but wears out the muscles completely. The time to
recover from that eats into the false flat descent. Secondly, the amount of
training above anaerobic threshold has been minimal over the last weeks. Don’t
expect to be able to hit red numbers in an hour time trial then. And thirdly,
my seat it probably 20 to 25mm too low. The new setup takes my seat post to
very dangerous frontiers: there is hardly 6cm left in the frame. Will the P3
sustain that? (Cervélo: Minimal insertion 65mm)
2010 Elite Men's Time Trial
Results
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|
Place |
Rider |
Name |
|
State |
|
|
Speed |
Time |
|
|
1 |
13 |
Cameron MEYER |
|
WA |
|
|
45.99 |
50:52.74 |
|
|
2 |
56 |
John ANDERSON |
|
QLD |
|
|
45.57 |
51:21.04 |
|
|
3 |
14 |
Luke ROBERTS |
|
SA |
|
|
45.50 |
51:25.68 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 |
24 |
William CLARKE |
|
TAS |
|
|
44.89 |
52:07.51 |
|
|
5 |
19 |
Travis MEYER |
|
WA |
|
|
44.61 |
52:27.46 |
|
|
6 |
26 |
Drew GINN |
|
VIC |
|
|
44.44 |
52:39.62 |
|
|
7 |
55 |
Peter MILOSTIC |
|
NSW |
|
|
44.29 |
52:50.17 |
|
|
8 |
34 |
Dylan NEWELL |
|
VIC |
|
|
44.02 |
53:09.15 |
|
|
9 |
22 |
Darren ROLFE |
|
QLD |
|
|
43.79 |
53:25.93 |
|
|
10 |
40 |
Damien TURNER |
|
VIC |
|
|
43.31 |
54:02.09 |
|
|
11 |
59 |
John CORNISH |
|
VIC |
|
|
43.07 |
54:20.02 |
|
|
12 |
48 |
Andrew ROE |
|
SA |
|
|
43.05 |
54:21.09 |
|
|
13 |
37 |
Peter HERZIG |
|
QLD |
|
|
42.99 |
54:25.85 |
|
|
14 |
81 |
Clayton FETTELL |
|
NSW |
|
|
42.94 |
54:29.50 |
|
|
15 |
61 |
Mark FENNER |
|
NSW |
|
|
42.81 |
54:39.90 |
|
|
16 |
64 |
Peter DENNIS |
|
VIC |
|
|
42.61 |
54:54.99 |
|
|
17 |
71 |
Dimitri LAFLEUR |
|
WA |
|
|
42.31 |
55:18.24 |
|
|
18 |
57 |
Robert HODGSON |
|
NSW |
|
|
42.21 |
55:26.24 |
|
|
19 |
73 |
Nicholas WOOD |
|
SA |
|
|
42.17 |
55:29.47 |
|
|
20 |
83 |
Andrew NAYLOR |
|
VIC |
|
|
41.59 |
56:15.95 |
|
|
21 |
65 |
Jared ROWNEY |
|
QLD |
|
|
41.51 |
56:22.49 |
|
|
22 |
68 |
Riki LANYON |
|
QLD |
|
|
41.11 |
56:55.51 |
|
|
23 |
62 |
Samuel RIX |
|
VIC |
|
|
40.63 |
57:35.33 |
|
|
24 |
76 |
Mark HEWAT |
|
VIC |
|
|
40.62 |
57:36.50 |
|
|
25 |
80 |
Christopher NEWMAN |
|
VIC |
|
|
39.86 |
58:42.22 |
|
|
26 |
74 |
Steele VON HOFF |
|
VIC |
|
|
39.84 |
58:44.22 |
|
|
27 |
66 |
Erik MELLEGERS |
|
WA |
|
|
39.84 |
58:44.43 |
|
|
28 |
67 |
Nicholas SHIPP |
|
VIC |
|
|
39.67 |
58:58.89 |
|
|
29 |
72 |
Giuseppe CIRELLA |
|
QLD |
|
|
39.12 |
59:48.92 |
|
|
30 |
63 |
Stephen TREE |
|
NSW |
|
|
38.60 |
1:00:36.99 |
|
|
31 |
69 |
Wayne GEBERT |
|
VIC |
|
|
38.32 |
1:01:03.79 |
|
|
32 |
82 |
Reece-Emerson VAN BEEK |
|
VIC |
|
|
36.36 |
1:04:21.23 |
|
|
33 |
70 |
Peter COULSON |
|
VIC |
|
|
29.78 |
1:18:34.20 |
|
|
34 |
75 |
Leigh KIEWIET |
|
WA |
|
|
29.55 |
1:19:11.67 |
|
|
35 |
84 |
Brett COTTEE |
|
NSW |
|
|
29.48 |
1:19:22.88 |
|
|
DNS |
58 |
Bradeley HALL |
|
WA |
|
|
|
DNS |
|
|
DNS |
60 |
James IBRAHIM |
|
VIC |
|
|
|
DNS |
|
|
DNS |
77 |
Simon MCCARROLL |
|
NSW |
|
|
|
DNS |
|
|
DNS |
78 |
David FAIRBURN |
|
VIC |
|
|
|
DNS |
|
|
DNS |
79 |
Paul YOUNAN |
|
QLD |
|
|
|
DNS |