The John Collier Memorial Handicap - Race Report

In the absence of most of the road riding events over the past two years, my mate Jason and myself from the Brunswick Cycling Club decided to head to Kingston, a tiny hamlet between Ballarat and Daylesford, with a school, a church, a pub and a showground with a grandstand that had a touch of the Field of Dreams about it. “Build it and they will come” and so we did. 48 riders signed on the John Collier Memorial Handicap on Saturday 27^th November. The race consisted of 3, 28km laps course before finishing on a slight rise in the main street of Kingston.  In what was a race of attrition, only 22 of those 48 finished. 

 

In a fitting touch to the initial race sponsor, John Collier, the starting commissaire mentioned that this race had been held since 1972 and that John put money into the event to help promote cycling in the area in the hope that it might help unearth some future Olympians. It’s a great story and one of the many about John told at the presentations by his 92 year old mate.

 

from left Bob, Darren and myself

In conditions best described as WAF, Strava clearly under reported saying South easterly winds of 21km/h and 10 degrees. The limit group including my mate Jason headed off shortly after 9am. Next was the 10min group of Ballarat locals Darren, Luke, Bob and myself, with probably 40 years or more age range between us I reckon, but that’s the beauty of handicap racing. If the handicapper does their job well, we should all be about equal and so it turned out to be.

 

The fact that we started off 10min was testament to the quality of the local cycling talent, many of whom had already ridden out to the event as part of their warmup.

 

The Ballarat boys set a cracking pace and a few kilometres in I thought to myself how am I going to sustain this pace. Gradually the nervous excitement died down and we settled into a rhythm.  Luke assumed the role of captain calling the shots. Rolling echelons for the cross winds, single file for the head wind and rolling turns on the downwind sections, where we hit speeds of 65km/h. Those of us on 50mm wheels doing the customary lean into the cross wind just to stay upright. Lap 1 saw us average 34.5km/h, not bad considering the conditions.

Lap two was more of the same, averaging 33.1 km/h, with no riders in sight in front or behind. Could the limit group be hanging tough together and be having the ride of the day? Darren and Luke, the two power riders of our bunch were punching a huge hole into the wind.  Bob and myself, didn’t offer as much cover, but we continued to pull through to take our turns and occasionally gap the bigger riders on the hills.  Regardless of our strengths, we all needed each other to share the load and the group first mentality saw us do the right thing by each other.

 

Starting lap 3 with an air of confidence from our good form and consistent riding, the bunch pushed on like there was no tomorrow.  Could we stay away? How far in front was the limit bunch? Like Scotty from Marketing, no one was telling us anything.  The compliments amongst the bunch were contagious: nice turn: good one: keep it going: we can do this.  Every little bit of encouragement lifting each other to stay the course and finish together, no matter how many times I felt myself falling off the back after a turn, only to have to dig a little deeper to stay with the bunch.  One by one we caught the limit riders, each one trying to hang on, but struggling to ride our pace.  Halfway around the last lap we caught my mate Jason, who jumped on and started doing a few turns only to surge off the front.  Before too long he was cooked from the effort and dropped off the pace.  With about 10km to go the lead rider car appeared in the distance.  We closed in on Sharron Boyd, the female race leader who was in the process of individually time-trialling her way to be the first woman across the line.  Meanwhile the wind felt like it was getting stronger, and a speed of 20km/h said so.  We were spurred on by the prospect of a victory and kept the pressure on the pedals the whole way home.  With a few kilometres to go, the talk of the “chop” went around the bunch and we all agreed, for this had been a team effort and each rider deserved an even share of the spoils of victory. 

 

As we rounded the last bend of the race, Darren and Bob took off, Luke failed to fire in the sprint, while cramp got the better of him and I was in pursuit of the other two.  The two locals read the finish well, with Darren taking line honours just ahead of Bob in second.  Average speed for the race 33.4km/h.  If not the Field of Dreams, it was the Road of Dreams, the one that every cyclist who pins a number on their back hopes for that perhaps today will be their day, to at least take a place on the podium.

 

The awesome foursome in middle Rob, Darren, myself and Luke, flanked by Sharron Boyd 5th and first female and Liam White the fastest rider.

It was a great turnout at the presentations, with a huge spread of lunch awaiting the riders thanks to a local hotel sponsor. Country hospitality at its best. Thanks to the Ballarat Sebastopol Cycling Club for putting on a great event and I hope that in the future we will see a few more riders from our clubs participating in each other’s events. Jason and I packed up the car and hit the road to the tune of UB40’s Kingston Town, a fitting tune to wrap up the day.

 

After complimenting Dean Wells on his write up of the “Fred” last week, the last thing I expected was to be writing up a report for the John Collier Memorial Handicap. I was going to add a comment on Facebook about asking for a favourable handicap in return, but that would be going too far. I look forward to getting back for the Fred Icke next year, I hear it has real hills.