RIP Shiv 2012-2013 :(

After a few days in the carbon ICU at Luescher Teknik, we made the executive decision to switch off life support to the Shiv. The fall that should have been a standard 'brush yourself off son and get on with it' scenario. It wasn't that at all. I'd pretty much WWF slammed the frame sideways into the ground at 47km/h. Not exactly what it was designed for. Neither was my clavicle, that is another story. I'm just lucky the finish line on the day was only 200m up the road, one small bump and I'd have been riding it into the ground rodeo style!

After 1000s of training k's, 1000s more on the ergo, and chasing TTs all over the place - I'm a bit down about parting ways with my trusty friend. Yeah, it is only bike. I'm sure all riders will relate with the statement - "but we've been through so much".

I thought I'd trawl though my race logs for some stats for a tribute to the Shiv..... a TTribute.... for lack of a better word. I know it isn't all about the bike, but this is hands down the one I've had the most success on. If the next rig I'm on is 1/2 as successful as this one was, it'll have a pretty hard good life too. :)

Stats from the last 14 months:
 
- 32 TT events raced.
- 28 wins.
- 31 podiums.
- 10th at the Elite Nationals.
- 700km race kms on the rivet!
- Championship wins across three states.
- Numerous course records.
- A few sneaky Strava KOMs.
- One on course lay down.... :(
- Not one DNF! Rock solid equipment!

2012:
June 6 Wangaratta Tour 2012 - Stage 2 TT A Grade 1st Place
June 10 Blackburn CC Kew ITT - A Grade 1st Place.
June 16 Coburg CC ITT Wildwood - A Grade 1st Palace
June 23 Northern Combine ITT Champs - 1st Place
June 30 Cycling Victoria Paraparap ITT Open Elite - 1st Place
July 14 Cycling Victoria Phillip Island ITT Open Elite - 1st Place
August 8 Cycling Victoria Masters State ITT Champs - 1st Place MMAS1/Fastest Time.
August 11 Ballarat-Sebas CC ITT 1st Place A Grade.
Sept 8 NSW State Masters ITT Champs - 1st Place MMAS1/Fastest Time.
Sept 15 Geelong CC ITT - 1st Place A Grade
Oct 3 Cycling Australia Masters Nationals ITT Champs - 1st Place MMAS1/Fastest Time.
Nov 17 Coburg CC ITT in Bright - 1st Place
Nov 19 Alpine CC ITT - 1st Place
Dec 1 Tour of Bright. Stage 2 ITT. 1st Place MMAS1/2/3
Dec 18 Seymour Broadford CC Tuesday Night TT - 1st Place
2013:
Jan 9 Cycling Australia National TT Championships. 10th place Elite.
Jan 23 SA Vets Woodchsester - 1st Place MMAS2/Fastest Time.
Feb 16 Horsham Tri - Fastest TT leg.
March 3 Northen Cycling ITT Champs - 1st Place/Fastest Time.
March 30 South Pacific and Vic State Vets ITT Championships - 1st Place MMAS2/Fastest Time.
April 21 Blackburn CC Kew ITT - 1st Place A Grade
April 27 Tour of the Southwest. Stage 2 ITT. 1st Place Masters A.
May 5 Cycling South Australia Masters State ITT Champs. 1st Place MMAS2/Fastest Time.
May 19 Blackburn CC Kew ITT - 1st Place A Grade
May 25 Cycling Victoria Paraparap ITT Open Elite - 1st Place
June 6 Wangaratta Tour 2013 - Stage 2 TT A Grade 1st Place
June 16 Blackburn CC Kew ITT - 2nd Place A Grade
June 23 Cycling Victoria Castlemaine Elite Open ITT - 1st Place.
June 29 Geelong CC ITT - 1st Place A Grade
July 13 Cycling Victoria Phillip Island ITT Open Elite - 1st Place
July 28 Cycling Victoria State Clubs Teams TTT Champs - 2nd place Elite.
Aug 3 Cycling Victoria Wangaratta ITT Open Elite - 3rd place.... including a crash... and RIP Shiv.

Specialized Australia HQ - A Quick Tour

Von and I had the opportunity this week to drop past Specialized Australia HQ in Port Melbourne. I've seen snippets of what they do behind the scenes on Le Tour Prologue, seeing it all in person was something else!

Specialized are unique in the industry as they not only sell bikes across all ranges, they also cover gear (helmets, shoes, clothes), equipment (saddles, tyres, etc), and offer professional bike fit services (Body Geometry) - and on top of this they run Specialized Bicycles Component University (SBCU) to train the masses who'll be selling and servicing their gear. I had to explain that to put the photos in context - They do A LOT!

Best smile I could crack while freshly broken.

Training area - Retail shop and workshop fit out. Very impressive!

Lunch with bikes. My kind of lunch room.

Training session on hold... they were all out riding.

Body Geometry Sunbeds. (A good tan is a MUST when it comes to correct bike fit)

Dual fridge configuration. The one on the left is for UCI certified 3:1 food.

Mmmmmm S-Works McLaren TT lid. I drooled like Tony Martin over this.

Behind glass - Police line up. This bike looked like the culprit.

Melburn Roobaix corporate infiltration! It is the new Fight Club!

One thing that stood out for me today was that everyone I met was truly passionate about cycling. The staff bike parking area was FULL! A little birdy even tells me their Sports Marketing Specialist has just entered the Noosa Triathlon in November. (Good luck Emily!)

If you're not on a Specialized bike then maybe their shoes, helmets, or butt-measured-for-perfect-fit saddle is the item on your shopping list to make your bike time more enjoyable. (I have to confess, when Skinny Luke at Total Rush loaned me a Romin saddle a few years back he was unable to pry it from underneath me.... and I'm still riding it!)

I could have taken a billion more photos of everyone involved behind the scenes - It was a busy operation keeping one of the world's biggest bike brands ticking along in Australia. So next time you're in at Total Rush, Bike Gallery, Bike'n'Bean, or any Specialized dealer in Australia, you'll know the people you're dealing with are skilled up, well fed, and have had a blast ripping around on the latest Specialized bikes between training sessions. They know the gear inside out.

Huge thanks to Dave and the crew at Specialized for their ongoing support and offering to show us their HQ.

Cycling Victoria: Wangaratta ITT August 3rd 2013.

The 5th round of the CV Masters ITT series was the final event of the day after the Junior State TT titles were run and won. The seniors were doing the full 19km course the as the U19 riders. Even with these events open to all Elite riders, A Grade was a pretty low-key affair with the numbers only just nudging double digits. Dave Kelly (Total Rush) was an early withdrawal, still recovering from his slip'n'slide at Kew. The two Charter Mason Drapac riders Matt Clark and Jason Spencer had bumped up the depth of the field, along with Kosdown team mates SLane and Lyster.

After a magnificent breakfast and coffee at Château de Reeckman, Von and I headed into town to catch up with Wes at the local bike shop, onto Cafe Derailleur, then out to the sale yards to watch the young snappers battle it out against the clock for their state titles.

I was last off with #1 number on the bike. My pre-race warm up was as good as it gets on a freezing cold drizzly day. I hit the start line feeling good and got into a standard rhythm early on. From the 6km u-turn onwards I had to fight a little harder than normal, the rhythm was gone, the wind was up, and so was my minute man, Matt Clark. He was having a flyer! At the turn into the final 3km there was only about 10 seconds separating us against the clock. With a sold tail/crosswind to the line I buried it to the final turn to the sale yards, 200m from the line. I sat up from the TT bars, touched the brakes to get a feel of where they were, picked my line, planted my outside leg... I gave myself plenty of run-off room, almost clipping the inside witches hat marker.

Then I was weightless.

What......? Smack. I lost the front end and ate shit. Nothing pretty about it. I rolled around on the road pretty unhappy with myself for a few seconds before getting up. I wasn't going to DNF so close to the line. The marshals were soon there helping me get moving while I gathered my chain back on the big ring and scampered across the line.... surprisingly still in 3rd place only 17 seconds off 1st place Matt Clark. On the podium, in the money, and wrapping up the CV Masters TT Aggregate - celebrations on the back burner for now. I'd broken a few things and myself in the process.

A Grade Full Results:

1		Matthew Clark	Wangaratta Cycling Club INC	25:09.2
2		Jason Spencer	Blackburn Cycling Club INC	25:11.9	2.758
3		Shane Miller	St Kilda Cycling Club INC	25:26.8	17.609
4		Stephen Lane	Coburg Cycling Club INC	26:02.5	53.302
5		Tully Lyster	Wangaratta Cycling Club INC	26:29.4	01:20.2
6		David Sturt	Carnegie Caulfield CC	26:31.3	01:22.2
7		James Timmer-Arends	Latrobe City Cycling Club	26:46.0	01:36.9
8		Sam Fuhrmeister	Seymour Broadford Cycling Club	26:48.0	01:38.8
9		Gerard Donnelly	Carnegie Caulfield CC	26:56.0	01:46.9
10		Harry Hanley	Carnegie Caulfield CC	26:58.0	01:48.8

Full results all grades

I rolled around to the car park and headed straight to the car to get warm. There was a some bark off my arm and leg, and that oh-so-common feeling in my right arm. If you've done a collarbone, you'll know what I mean. With the now-on-scene ambos unwilling to give me a green whistle, Von drove me to the Wang Hospital Emergency for x-rays. As a frequent faller in the area I was already on file. Bonus!

Ever wonder what happens when you break a collarbone with a pin in it? This:

My 4th collarbone break. With the help of a few good people we were back in Melbourne on Sunday morning. By 2pm Monday I had the referrals, specialist review, training program updated by the coach, bike dropped off at the carbon wizard, and I was kicking back on the couch watching the cycling on Eurosport. The one thing I can't fast-track is the time it takes to heal. Actually, they will if in 10 days the bone isn't healing, it'll be plated up.

I didn't just crash my bike on the weekend. I lit a fire of motivation. I am now more focused than ever with my push for the Masters Nationals TT up in NSW. With the people, support, and sponsors I'm fortunate enough to have behind me, 8 weeks is more than enough time to bounce back. Watch this space.

Victorian Club Teams Time Trial Championships - SKCC Elite Men. July 2013

This event was not even on my radar for 2013. I'd switched my Cycling Australia club membership over to St Kilda CC only a week prior, and I was only going to be in Ballarat supporting Super Von who was riding in the Masters Women's TTT category. Typically there is a 'prove your worth' period when you're new at a club. You have to race X number of events to represent them, or donate a cow and three magic beans to the club. After some intense discussions, SKCC accepted my offer of a llama and a few re-tweets, so I was in!




SKCC Elite Men:

Nick Bensley -  StayTrue. 7th in the Elite Nationals this year. TT stomper.
David Kelly - Total Rush. Sun Tour Prologue podium'er. Leg ham smuggler.
Andy Naylor  - O2.  Ex pro. Has a mention in David Millar's autobiography!
Shane Miller - Kosdown. Loves a TT.... or twenty in a season.

Typical Ballarat weather in the middle of winter. Windy as hell, as cold as ice. Our team preparation was everything short of what Team Sky would do. This involved a few emails and an agreement we'd all meet there on the day. Dave even stepped it up a notch and threw himself off his bike and into an ambulance at the Kew TT a week prior. Every stone was left unturned in our prep! :)

Our race plan was put into action as soon as the clock started... "roll turns!" And that we did. The first few kms were FAST. The first 25km was 53km/h fast! Unfortunately we'd dagged Kelly around the 12km mark who'd succumbed to his injuries from the previous week. This put Naylor in the box seat with Bensley and I.... or maybe just the box. We had to finish with three riders so without Kelly, Naylor was our man! The poor bugger suffered like nothing else for the following 38km while we did our best at punching a hole into a 40km/h head wind.

We knew the Blackburn CC team were on a stomping ride at the turn. They made the 2 minute gap on us about 200m from the line. Without Kelly (aka Hamsy McBrickwall) helping us into the head wind we thought our chances of being on the podium were gone. Not so! We ended up taking out 2nd place 13 seconds ahead of a solid CCCC/VIS Elite team!

Regardless of how many kms we each did on the front, that 13 second gap was the work of all four SKCC starters. Busted Dave rolled in 16 mins down, in the rain, after a long solo 38km, he was every part of the result we were rewarded with at the end, and the fight Naylor put up to make sure he was with us in the end was nothing short of epic.

Huge thanks to the crew at SKCC for their work behind the scenes on the day. Team rego, club jersey, lolly snakes..... next year we'll ride faster to be back in time for the banana bread!

Elite Men 50km
1. Blackburn CC        1h08:53.2
2. St Kilda  CC        1h11:05.0 +2:11.8
3. Carnegie Caulfield  1h11:18.1 +2:24.9
4. Sunbury CC          1h18:51.1 +9:57.9
5. Brunswick CC        1h19:26.8 +10:33.6

Full Results