Coburg CC - Evolution Cycles IRTT Series - Round Three. March 4th 2012.

Humevale road surface.

Coburg are banging out TTs faster than Bakers Delight bangs out their Hot Cross Buns after Christmas..... Round 3. Humevale. 2.5km flat then 7km of bone shaking hill. Not a very steep hill, big ring all the way, the 'gotcha' is the dodgy road surface. Calling it "rough as guts" doesn't do it justice.

It'd been a while since I'd ridden the course so I was out there last Wednesday for a roll around. 37 Watts more up the hill and 28 seconds slower than my PB back in 2010. I was hoping the go-fast bits on race day would help out.

The competition: Jono Lovelock (Genesys) was a notable absentee with team commitments over in Tasmania (Mt Wellington Challenge). Stephen Lane (Kosdown) was exited to be on a goat-ish course that suited his skinnyarse stature. 1988 Australian Ironman winner, Gerard Donnelly (Giant-Celtic) is defying the age gods and keeping us honest. Gerard brought along team mate BIG John Cain to flatten out the bumps on the road before we raced up it. Nathan "E DOG" Elliott (Charter Mason Drapac) was a last minute entry in the non-aero category, making that field a little nervous.

The pre-race pit stop in Whittlesea was amusing. It looked like someone had murdered a Ninja Turtle in the public toilets. I've no idea what this was and holy hell it smelt bad.

WTseriousF is that!? I can still smell it now. #upchuck

Not many people out on course for a warm up. I rode my warm up with James Singleton who'd come out to the event to see what it was all about before taking the plunge and becoming a CA member so he can enter some TTs and test himself against the clock (and his power meter). That was a good 20 minutes of chatting and cleaning sticks and junk off the road (not only was the surface bad, there was crap all over it too!). A few others were doing the same further up the climb.

The race: I'd opted for the road bike with clip-ons. A gamble between lightweight, being somewhat aero, and dealing with the rough surface and corners. I'm still not sure this is the optimal choice. With little variation in the course it was a case of pegging the watts to a number and holding on! All went to plan for the first 10 minutes then I dipped a little. With no sign of my minute man I lifted the effort a few % in the final km and managed the win. SLane had his best TT yet, coming in 2nd place. Simon Welsh (Kosdown) stomped to the line making it a full Kosdown podium in the aero category!

Aero Category:
1  Shane Miller    17.54
2  Stephen Lane    18.18  +0:24
3  Simon Welsh     19.03  +1:09
4  Gerard Donnelly 19.36  +1:42
5  Stephen Bick    19.47  +1:53
6  Jose Areta      20.06  +2:12
7  Tom Donald      20.17  +2:23
8  Martin Lama     20.50  +2:56
9  John Cain       20.54  +3:00
10 Von Micich (F)  24.58  +7:04
11 Gavin Wright    25.10  +7:16

Full Results: Coburg CC Facbook Page. E DOG took out the non-aero category with a storming 19:00.

Pics thanks to Mrs Rod Upton (again):

BIG John Cain.

E DOG putting out the massiffff power.

Simon Welsh after a catch and release.

Finish line cheer squad. Good turnout.

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And in other news...

"Cycling Victoria Announce the Club Teams Premiership" - Linky

A yearly three-round series for all Victorian clubs to participate in. Two track events, one road event. A nice way to help promote club event participation. An incentive for clubs to enter teams for these CV events. A good thing all around..... 

BUT

There is always a 'but'. This was announced a week AFTER the first two events had already been run! Clubs who didn't participate in the State Teams Track events are out of the running for 2012 already. Not exactly fair on all of the clubs under the Cycling Victoria banner is it? You just can't invent something as prestigious as a "Premiership" series after 2/3rds of the events have already been run. In the inaugural year of the premiership, the value of the win is watered down. Not ideal.

The solution? They should have kept this one under wraps until November. Announce it for the 2013 season onwards just as the track season was getting underway for 2012-2013, giving clubs enough time to inform their members, pick teams, train, and enter.

Coburg CC - Evolution Cycles IRTT Series - Round Two. Feb 26th 2012.

Third TT for the year already. 24km from Cottlesbridge to Strathewan. Out and back. This is only a club TT, so rock up on the day and just ride hard? Yeah right. Lovelock had me in his sights chasing revenge from Round #1. I had some pacing and form demons I had to slay.

This isn't just a club TT. This is war in skinsuits!




Race prep:

• Course recon two weeks ago on the road bike. Mapping distance, elevation, corners, power. Getting familiar with the course landmarks, lines around corners, and road surface...... And guess who I spotted doing the same? The enemy. Lovelock.

• I created a course segment on Strava (linky) and uploaded my time. This was subsequently smashed by a few others, including Stephen Lane on his TT bike knocking 4 minutes off. (The Strava segment is a little shorter than the official course to stop the stationary start/auto pause problem.)
• More study of the course profile to work out the best pacing to use.
• Back out to the course a week later on the TT bike for recon #2. Time was around 6 minutes faster (also 50W more power). Course study worked.

Both attempts done with a 15km/h southerly. The hot 25km/h northerly on race day was something we all had to factor in at the last minute.

The roller coaster.

After arriving early enough for a good warm-up, I was again chasing Lovelock 30 seconds up the road. Everything went pretty well. It was too hard to calculate the time gap at the turnaround. At 19kms in I could see the little whippet and calculate a rough time check, I was 10 seconds up. Same gap at 21.5kms and with only the final 2km downhill to the line coming, I knew it'd be another close one. It was.

Aero Category:
Pos  Name            Time  
1    Shane Miller    34.34
2    Jono Lovelock   34.46 +0:12
3    Gerard Donnelly 36.46 +2:12
4    Thomas Donald   38.20 +3:46
5    Stephen Lane    38.39 +4:05
6    Daniel Hopper   38.45 +4:11
7    Richard Harvey  38.47 +4:13
8    Jose Areta      39.03 +4:29
9    Stephen Bick    39.16 +4:42
10   Wayne Gebert    40.24 +5:50
11   James Love      42.40 +8:06
Full Results Linky

The battle has been won. The war is never over.

Round #3 this Sunday at Humevale. 2kms flat, 7km up. The preparation for that? I stopped eating two weeks ago. :)

Pics thanks to Mrs Rod Upton:

SLane looking good while getting Shiv'ed by a bad pacing strategy.

Me... looking very un-aero at the top of the last climb.

Rod Upton and his non-aero category mates slogging up the final climb.

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Random Visuals

Giant Celtic Racing Team TT helmet vs Hilux modification. Non UCI legal! 

lol!

2012 Horsham Tri & Coburg CC ITT series kicks off.

We headed back to Horsham last weekend to defend our mixed team long course win from last year. Same team again this year, my midget sister in the run and her boss in the pool, me on the bike. It was well over 30°C when the race got underway. The teams were in the second wave of starters so by the time our swimmer, Mark, got to transition I had a lot of targets up the road on the bike leg.

920W for the first 20 seconds is never a good way to start a TT. I had too much adrenalin ripping past (and almost into!) the spectators on the first corner. By the time I'd sat back down into the TT position I was cooked. I was forced quickly back into TT economy mode and weaving my way through the field.

Von had spent the morning preparing posters with my little nephews to hold up at the race. I told her to have a full drink bottle waiting for me on the first lap. Coming around the corner to finish the first lap I spotted where she and the family were at the last second. I pulled over, dropped down onto my top tube, took her hand, and asked her to marry me. There was a fair amount of noise coming from the crowd, it was hard to hear her response, "Well?". "Of course I will!". "Right, well I have a race to finish here, so I'll go get that done". With that she pushed me off and I went and TTed another 14kms before handing the timing strap to my sister.

Back to work......!

Yeah, I was pretty happy.

The beautiful Von.

Ripping the final corner.

My awesome little midgy sister on the run leg.

Back out on the course I had a great battle with young local Kieran Schneider who was doing his best to keep me from closing on his wheel. He was in a different category and had set off a lot earlier than I did, but there is always a game of fastest bike split to be won! I was catching him early on lap one before my stop, it took until the final 3kms for the catch and release after that. I'll be keeping an eye on the results sheets this season, he'll be up there.

Oh, we won the Mixed Teams long course again too.
(btw - she isn't really a midget, honest.)

By chance a photographer from the Wimmera Mail-Times was there, he captured some great shots that I've posted above. We were lucky enough to get a whole back page article on Monday! Mail-Times Online Article

Full Team Results

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The Coburg CC ITT series race #1 is done and dusted. One lap of Wildwood (Strava Segment) after a shocker of a warm-up and it was a very close call. Jono Lovelock (Genesys) was my 30 second man and I'd only pulled back 2 seconds in the end for the win. First TT for the season and probably the worst I've ever felt during one. So much so I gambled on a pacing strategy that really didn't work. Well, it did, but only just.

Round #2 (Strava Segment) is better suited to the goat-like Lovelock, so I've been out on that course trying to work out how to limit my losses. I'm just getting into the long season of TTs ahead, and according to his blog he is fired up more than ever after that 2 second defeat. Game on!

Round #1 - Wildwood Results

Wildwood start line.... The first of many to come in 2012.
Photo by Paul Williams

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