Tour of Bright - I'm not superstitious, but doesn't bad luck in threes?
After months of early morning
structured training, weekends with double hard days, bike prep, nutrition prep
and targeted tapering, I was ready for my version of a grand final, the Tour of
Bright. The Tour of Bright is the biggest multi-stage bike race in
Australia, with over 400 riders contesting, 10 categories, across three stages
over two days. Throw in the criterium on the night before and you have
yourself an unofficial four stage event. This is as big as it gets for
club cyclists in Australia.
By 10:30am on Friday morning, the
car was packed. My wife, Paula and I were ready to hit the road. Across
the road, we observe our neighbours, Michael and Jude rescuing ducklings from
the storm water drain in front of their house. We do the neighbourly
thing and offer to help. We corralled the rescued ducklings toward the
mother duck and her brood of ducklings in the hope they can be reunited and
make their way safely back to Merri Creek. One duckling low on a sense of
direction back to its mother, manages to cross the road and fall into another
storm water drain. We move our car forward so that we can lift the grate
that covers the drain. Finally, all 10 ducklings are reunited with their
mother. Meanwhile the tradie working on the house next door proceeds to
reverse his ute into the front of our car. There's a lot to be said about
looking where you are going. Fortunately, the damage is minor. An apology
is forthcoming, details are exchanged, and we are on our way.
It's a beautiful day, but the forecast for the weekend is ominous. Rain, rain and more rain, from Friday night to Sunday morning. We arrive at our accommodation, and I notice an exceptionally high carport in front of our unit. With Paula at the wheel, I declare the bike on the roof will fit under there. Seconds later, there is a crunch, followed by a few choice expletives. My spatial awareness is not as good as I thought. As I've already said once in this post, there's a lot to be said about looking where you are going! The hoods on the bike have been caught on the entrance to the carport. I deflate the tyres and remove the bike from the roof rack. Given the low speed impact, the damage looks minimal. I pump up the tyres and take the bike for a spin. The gears on the back cassette are not changing. While the front derailleur is working.
Time to enact plan B. Find a
local bike shop with a bike in my size. CyclePath bike shop delivers, with a Giant TCR, 11
speed, which is good enough for me. I swap over my seat, power pedals and
computer mount. To get the bike fit as right as possible, I refer to the
measurements I have stored in my phone. (Reach: distance from the tip of the
saddle to the centre of the handlebars and Drop: distance between the top of
the saddle and the centre of the pedal at the 6 o’clock position) I did this
after hiring a bike overseas last year and recommend that you do this for all
your bikes.
Meanwhile Paula and I run through
all the woulda, coulda, shoulda scenarios, but the fact is that it happened,
it’s my fault and I need to learn from this and put it behind me. Who knows,
maybe one day I might even laugh about it. I jokingly remark that I’m not
superstitious but what else is going to go wrong this weekend?
 |
| Men's Masters C |
Despite the rain and incessant
spray from wheels in front, the Masters C peloton cover the first 30 km to the
Ovens turnoff onto the Happy Valley Rd in just under 41km/hr. The lead car is
now out of sight. The corner marshal gives us a time call gap of 2 minutes. The
screen on my Garmin resembles a small swimming pool and I lock the touch screen,
so it doesn't flick between screens unnecessarily. My head unit survives the
experience, but I did hear a few stories about some becoming waterlogged and
failing. The next point of significance is the 38km Sprint point
which it turns out is not worth contesting although a few riders do. Once
we get onto the Rosewhite Gap climb, the field thins out a bit, as the pure
climbers exert their pressure on the bunch. Once over the climb, we are
on a wet descent. I’ve already encountered enough misfortune in the last
24hrs to last me a year, so I back off and take things easy. Before too
long, the bunch comes back together and stays that way until we are onto the
Kiewa Valley Hwy.
Even though I have a team mate up
the road, I still feel the need to be involved in an attack to possibly get
some time up on the climbers. A few of us manage to get some separation but not
enough to make it stick. Ultimately, it’s Shane Kirby from Seymour-Broadford CC
who manages to get away on his own. His was probably a good wheel to
follow. Following the second sprint point at 84km where I'm
probably 6th overall, we pick up Fergus who has been dropped by his two well
credentialed breakaway compatriots. Fergus has at least picked up some
valuable sprint points, which will net him some cash and prizes.
Behind me, my Brunswick team
mates Paul Attard and Andrew Gannon keep their legs fresh for the final climb.
Even though we are no entered as a team, it's good to know that you have other
riders you know and can comfortably sit on their wheel.
Taking the right hand turn up to
Tawonga Gap, the time gap is now 7 minutes. A bunch of about 15 stays
close as the group gathers pace and riders are shelled one by one, including
myself. I hear Andrew Gannon behind me mutter words to the effect of, "too
hard, too soon and they will pay for that later". I settle into my own
rhythm with the aim of picking up a few in front of me, which I do. My mate Shane
Kirby is one of those riders whom I catch about a third the way up the climb.
He has done his best to get a lead when he could. Well played. I finish the stage by riding the climb almost three
minutes faster than 2022, which I’m very happy with. Paula meets me at the top
of Tawonga Gap, which is great because it gives me a chance to get out of the
wet kit and start my recovery immediately, rather than having to make the 19km
ride back to Bright. Sitting 18th on GC out of 48 starters, I am happy
with my efforts of a PB on a borrowed bike.
Stage 2 is the 17.8km Individual
Time Trial held on the rolling terrain of the Buckland Valley Road only four
hours after finishing stage one. I prep my vintage TT bike for the
occasion and discover that my timing chip is no longer on my hired bike. It
seems that the Velcro strap I used must have come off the hired bike while in
transit. More expletives are expressed as my run of bad luck or more
likely poor preparation continues. I'm going to have to wear that one as
well. I arrive at the start well ahead of schedule to pick up a new
transponder, zip tie it to the fork and warm up. With James Hosking lined up
behind me on his Pinarello TT bike, I know it's only going to be a matter of
time before I am caught. It's still raining. I stick to my plan, ride
conservatively and take the turnaround point ever so carefully, finishing in
22nd place, 3:42 behind James Hosking, who takes the stage by a massive 1:10 to
his nearest rival.
Now I have two wet kits and two soaking pairs of riding shoes. The unit resembles a makeshift laundry, while I do my best to dry the kit out. I stuff my shoes with newspaper to dry them out. Paula notes the oven has a defrost setting, which will be useful for drying out the shoes. At least I don't have to worry about getting trench foot tomorrow.
Stage 3 is the Queen stage, from
Bright to the Dingo Dell carpark atop Mt Buffalo. The event has taken its
toll on riders and the grade has thinned out to 43 riders. The weather
has cleared, but for how long? As the peloton rolls out of Bright, the
sprinters almost cling to the lead car and once the flag goes down, we are
racing for the only sprint points of the day, just past the Buckland River
bridge. Fergus finds a nice alley up the left hand side of the bunch and
takes second place.
Once on the climb, I do my best
to hang with the lead group for about 2.5km, when I realise that the pace is
just not sustainable for me. As I go "out the back" I look for
some similarly shelled riders, who might become my new companions for the next
hour or so. Andrew Gannon, Liam O'Dea (Canberra CC) and Nick Kenwright (Alpine
CC) become my new buddies as we share the pace making duties of staying on pace
without blowing up. There's also a headwind to contend with, so any reprieve
from that is most welcome. Meanwhile the riders who have finished their stage
are descending on wet roads and the leading A graders are ascending. There's a
close call for a head on collision between these riders, at Mackey's Lookout on
the tightest hairpin bend of the course. Fortunately, riders had just
enough time to evade a potential collision.
About two thirds the way up Buffalo, Fergus has recovered from his sprint effort and has bridged across to Andrew and myself, making a Brunswick posse. We work together as best we can to maintain threshold pace and keep the rubber side down. As we crest over the KoM point with 4kms to go, the speed picks up as we get some reprieve from the 1000 vertical metres we have just climbed. It's a short downhill before some false flat and more climbing. Even though we are well out of the placings, each rider is giving it their absolute best effort. With less than 2km to go Andrew Gannon puts in a surge and I go to respond. My right adductor muscle has other ideas and cramps up, leaving me no option but to get out of the saddle for much of the remainder of the climb. I squeeze the last remaining contents from my gels into my mouth and hold it there for 20 seconds, hoping that mouth absorption will do the trick in directing more energy to where it's needed faster. The combination of the two seems to work and I resume my effort to the line, until the last 200m, where I go for an all-out effort. Job done, 19th place on the stage and 20th overall on GC. In the process I have bettered my time on the climb from 2022 by two minutes and my PB by a minute. True to recent form, Paul Attard my other Brunswick team mate has finished an impressive 5th on the stage and 8th on GC. Unfortunately for Fergus, he had a puncture with 2km to go and lost 10min while he changed it. By finishing the race, Fergus claimed 3rd place in the Sprint category. Chapeau to everyone who finished this challenging tour.
Older, faster and on a borrowed
bike. It's not exactly how I expected things to turn out, but I'm happy with
what I made of the Tour of Bright. My preparation was good, and I managed
to ride consistently and improve on my 21st place on GC in 2022, which is all I
could ask for. I want to thank Paula for joining me for the weekend, the
first time we have gone away together on a cycling weekend. Being picked
up after stages 1 and 3 allowed me to focus on my recovery sooner and I would
never have thought to put my shoes in the oven. Having the support of a person who knows the
effort that you have put into the event and what it means to you is incredibly
important and not to be taken for granted. No, I'm not superstitious, but
two of those mistakes were my own and could have been avoided. Hopefully
if you are reading this, you too will have also learned something and will get
out of the car first to check the height of that carport and use zip ties to affix
your transponder to your bike. You will
also have the knowledge of how to dry your shoes out when the humidity makes it
impossible. Just don’t forget to set a
timer!
Congrats to all our riders who competed in challenging conditions.
Tour of Bright Results
#tourofbright
#AlpineCyclingClub
#brunswickcyslingclub
#brunswickcc
#canberracyslingclub
#cyclepath
#brightbrewery
Comments
Post a Comment