Share the Love...

From SMH published under the heading "Bike Rage"

"Wear bright clothing. Leave MP3 players and mobile phones at home. Never ride more than two abreast. And never travel in packs of more than 20.

That's the basic message for cyclists riding in groups contained in new government guidelines aimed at reducing the increasing number of road injuries and deaths."

Bike rage? I wonder when we will look more carefully at road rage against bikes? When has 'bike rage' caused death or even real injury to car uses? Perhaps less laws and more driver training?

Badass...

CORC XC @Stromlo

Pre-Race
It's always great getting to race close to home, no early starts, no having to sleep in a dodgy motel/ tent/ cardboard box/ underpass. So I got up at the leisurely hour of 6.00am to roll out the door by 7.30. Quick breakfast, make up a hydrapak to ride to the race with, a bottle for during the race, find my license, money and out the door on time.

It was a great morning with a very slight breeze for some cooling and not too warm at that stage. Riding the shared path all the way to Stromlo, dodging walkers who think it's OK to take the whole path 3 abreast with their stupid little dogs....one day I'm not going to move and just ride into someone just to teach them a lesson

70kg rider + 10kg bike @ 35kph vs walker and dog who do you think will win?

Hooking into Stromlo at the Crit track I made my way up and over the top before a bit off fun on Pork Barrel down the other side. By this stage I had a real sweat up, and you could feel the humidity in the air so the sweat wasn't really evaporating.
A run down double dissolution and into the rego area.

I lined up like everyone else for about 10 minutes and drained the rest of the hydrapak while waiting in line (1.5l). So feeling well hydrated I set off on a lap to scope the course to see what wrinkles Paul had thrown in to catch people off guard. There was only one on the climb back up to the top of double dissolution where instead of taking the single track we short cut up a rough trail before hooking back in.

Given that I had ridden pretty much these trails all week in practice leading up to the race I was confident knowing the conditions but it always helps to get a lap in so as not to get caught out. Also riding against guys who probably have 100’s of laps around Stromlo in training and 24hr racing it helps to try to get a bit more on a level footing.


Stromlo Loop

Race Start
After we had the pre-race briefing and were pointed in the general direction of where we were starting, it all came to a screaming halt as 200+ riders tried to scramble over a gate and fence. The smart ones took the inside line and skirted the fence/ gate…everyone else stood around like sheep.

Everyone slowly made their way through the throng of riders to where they thought they were starting with Elite Men at the front. I pushed my way through and stood about 4 rows back and off to the side to allow people through. Elite Men, Sport A, Vets, and finally Sport B got our call up.

We got the 20 second call then all hell broke loose on go. I got a pretty average start and entered the single track in about 6 wheel. Past timing and into the first part of the course proper, things were stringing out a bit but the elastic was still holding. We all emerged onto the first long fire trail section and everyone eases up, not me I keep on the gas passing the riders in front and put the hurt on up the climb.

Just before the next single track section a rider jumps me to enter first, but I’m not too concerned about this, as it’s the next section that’s key to get a smooth run through due to the technical nature.

Out onto the fire trail and punch past the other rider to enter first and pick my lines.

About half way through this section there is a piece of trail that crosses a small dry creek, I that the long way across the wooden bridge not spotting the short cut about 5m back. At this point two rider cut through and charge up the hill, I’m thinking to myself “How’d they do that there must be a short cut back there, have a look next lap!”.

One of the riders that charge past is Rob Cooper, not that I know it at that point and also not knowing that, that is the last I will see of him all race as he steadily put 30second a lap into me.

So back to my own little battle, there is a group of about 5 riders spread across 10 metres of the track, and it remains like this till we hit the next climbing section of single track where 3 of us pull away.

Down double dissolution and through timing the three of us are still together with me in second wheel. Through the first section of single track and rider in third wheel gets impatient and touches my rear wheel going down in a heap.
Out onto the fire road and pass and pull away from the rider in front and begin trying to open up a bit more of a gap on the others.

It’s on this lap that we start striking traffic, so things start getting held up letting riders catch back and others slip past. This where things got a bit fussy trying to keep track of everything remembering that I still had no idea Rob was somewhere up the road. Coming down double dissolution for the second lap there was about 4 slow riders ahead with a rider who had pasted me earlier entering first (turned out to be a vet). He managed to slip past a couple of the riders while I was caught up behind.

Two down- Half way

Coming through timing my heads spinning trying to work out exactly where I am in the race, I figure top 3 so just keep plugging at it, I catch back up to the Vet rider and start trading off turns. On the fire road on this lap I drink half of my 500ml bottle and throw down a couple of Clif Blocs.

The lap passes pretty uneventfully till the last climb back up to the top before the descent to the finish where I get passed by “a midget on a 29er” Now I have nothing against midgets or 29er’s but when you put the two together it really is comical. I have seen this guy at a couple of races before and it just always looks like he’s riding his older brother’s bike….

Down to the final lap and time to empty the tank, I’m still swapping off with the Vet rider, through the first single track section again and a bit of a break up the fire road to empty the rest of my drink bottle before the middle technical section. I’m still really conscious of only having a slender leader back to the chasers.
Long climb up to Double Dissolution before the final run down to cross the finish.
After crossing the line I didn’t really have any idea where I had gotten, I knew it was going to be good enough for a top three but because it’s just so hard sometimes to keep track I wasn’t sure.
I watched the elite finish about 5 minutes back with some pretty small gaps for the first four places.

The Numbers



I can say that I really didn’t have a flash day, feeling flat for the majority of the race.
The average power for the race was down a bit with only 258w normalized.

Avg Power 214w
Normalised Power 258w
VI 1.2
Dist 24km (Total 73.6km)
Time 1.13hr (Total 3.23hrs)
Speed 19.4kph
Avg Hr: 166bpm
Avg Cad: 101rpm
Cals: 942cals (total 2100cals)
Metres climbed: 735m (Total 1735m)

Fluids: 2ltrs of Clif Electrolyte

Food: 1 bags of Clif Blocs

So as you can see the powermeter doesn't lie I was feeling sh!tty because the power was down. I ended up with 2nd place, but I think that was only because I kept it together for the four laps and blocked out the more "rational part of my brain" that was screaming "Ease up, you're riding like a sack of a$$ and going to get caught soon!"

Could have done with one of these Sunday...

Every "Double Angry Angus Burger" contains 5.6 grams of salt - that's nearly one and a half times the 4g daily salt target for adults set by the nation's health authority

Cause there was a fair bit of sweating done. Race Report to follow.....

By Popular Request

I got asked about what races I'm thinking of doing in '10
Here is the short list for the time being.
(Note I haven't looked at any of the Road Races yet?

Nov-09

CORC XC

Dec-09
Alpine Assault
SCUM 60k
Corc XC

Jan-09
WSMTB 4hr
Bermagui Dirtsurfers twilight
Alpine Challenge (road)

Feb-09
National enduro 4hr
Husky 100
RTE 4hr
Otway Odyssey
WWS Lithgow


Mar-09
National 4hr Stromlo
Wagga 6+6hr
RTE 4hr
WWS Yellowmundi
Scody high country challenge (road)
MTB 101

Apr-09
Australian Marathon Champs
Brindi Epic (?)
Tumut 3hr
BMC Classic

May-09
Dirtworks 100k

Roadies Skill Anyone?

From La Ruta de los Conquistadores
Who said roadie skills don't pay?

New Software for the GPS

TopoFusion Software.

Allows 3d display of power data as shown by colours

Restin'

Haven't done to much since my attempt at the Thursday Crit.
Wetn for a cruise around Majura yeaterday at about 2pm...might have been a bit of a mistake killed a 1.5l camelbak in an hour with temps in the low 30's.

Given the weather I'm glad I wasn't one of the poor souls who signed up for the RTE 4hr @ Stromlo....from all accounts it was brutal with no shade, dust and sun.

With the lack of riding over the past three days I'm thinking I might need to invest in some of this to keep up appearances....

Put the gun down Son.....You're out of bullets!

Now if this were the movies, I'd probably be the character that tries to reload and gets shot to death

So whats the relevance? Well yesterday was the weekly CORC Dirt Crit and I finally got around to going to one but I really shouldn't have bothered.
Riding to the race I felt flat and tired, which isn't surprising given the amount of racing over the last two weeks. Including the mornings riding, I already had 60k in my legs....again not real smart on my part.
Even a 500ml can of V and a bag of caffine Shot Blocs didn't pick me up.

But being who I am, I still signed up to race.

Sitting on the start line looking around everyone else is pumped, me? I just feel sleepy tired. We get the call to start, I jump on the pedals and I knew then the gun was empty....nothing left. For the first lap, I try my hardest to keep on the gas but people who any other day shouldn't are just pulling away.
About then I decided to pull out of the way where possible to let people past (no point f^&king the others day, just because I'm creeping)coming out back onto the main fire road two riders ahead collide and eat sh!t. I skirt around them and continue on, riders stream past. During the second lap I look down at the Garmin....HR 130bpm. At that point I just decide to pull the pin at the end of the lap. There is no point pushing, because I'm not going to get any benefit from another 3 laps.

I finish the lap and roll over to Jases wife, Kylie and start chatting to her and her friend. It's funny as they are going on about how badly they killed themselves in their race...I'm not even breathing hard and had an average HR in the mid 120's for the 2 laps. Not good and a sure sign that the body is tired and needs some lovin'

So I go grab my bag and start the long ride home to try and beat the sun setting.

Coming down Erindale Drive looking out into the hills I'm treated to a display of this,



Stats for the day.
Dist: 90.6km
Time: 4:10hr

What it takes to win one of these suckers

Surfing around over on the Saris website I came across this info for Jeremiah Bishop from the Mohican 100 this year.

Ride stats:

Distance 102.35 miles
Duration 7:06:46
Work 5759 kJ
Avg Speed 14.38 mph
Avg Cadence 65 rpm
Avg HR 150 bpm
Avg Power 225 watts (3.28 watts/kg)
Max Power 1502 watts (21.93 watts/kg)


Peak power:


Power Watts/kg
5 sec 736 10.74
30 sec 552 8.05
1 min 517 7.55
5 min 359 5.24
10 min 335 4.9
30 min 293 4.28
60 min 278 4.06
120 min 262 3.82



What was really surprising was this comment from Hunter Allen his coach "Jeremiah’s power in this race was incredible. It really shows just exactly how hard one of these 100 mile MTB races are. This file rivals many of the winning Tour de France power files that I have seen."

Highland Fling 100 Miler

Well it's done and dusted, another race to scratch off the To-Do list for the year...and everything went really well.

Pre-Race
Because I wasn't staying local for the race start I had an early wake-up, like 3AM early. A bit of toast, some coffee, and hit the road with my Mother who was over for the week from New Zealand. The drive was going smoothly till we got just past Goulburn and into some ow lying fog...then I almost ran into a couple of my friends...again.



The first one I came across was just standing in the middle of the road and really, really didn't want to move. So I got to test the ABS out, 120kph to 10kph in about 100 metres before it got the hint and jumped off the road.

The second one took a flier out of the bush on the side of the road straight in front of the car, again the ABS got a hammer pulling up in time. I'm sure by this stage the B-Double truck that I had passed earlier was wondering what the hell I was doing!

Arriving in Bundanoon at about 5.45am we found our way to the oval and parked up. I started throwing food down my throat, two cans of chocolate creamed rice washed down with a Gatorade. Big Jase had done my registration the day before so I didn't have to stress about that, other then trying to located him in the car park. A quick trip to the toilet, turned into a 15 minute ordeal after lining up, and I threw in another lap of the car park trying to spot Jase. Still no sign of him and the heart rates starting to creep up. Check the mobile...no coverage, great can't ring him!

So I start getting ready, into shorts and top, go to jamb my foot into my shoe and get a painful reminder of where I left my CO2 cartridge! I run through the feeding procedure with my Mother explaining when I will need bottles and a fresh hydrapac.
I jamb my bag of shot blocs into the back pocket, and gel flask as backup in the centre, CO2 inflator left hand side.

Helmet, glasses and we're set to rock! But I still don't have my transponder, and race number. So I just have to chill and watch the cars come in. Eventually Jase arrives with about 10 minutes to the race briefing, so I roll over give a quick thanks and got back to the car to fit everything up (I even remembered cable cutters this time).

The Start


Google Earth Perspective of Course

Over to the start and climb the fence and squeeze into about the fourth row back. The 100 milers are supposed to get the front two rows but arriving a bit late with the start area already packed fourth row it is.

Sitting through the briefing and more and more people are jumping the fence and trying to squeeze into the front, and I'm standing there thinking "Great someone is going to screw this up and we're just all going to go down in a big heap" We get the count and down and surprisingly enough everyone makes it off the line without incident.

It strings out almost immediately and legs are giving me the big two fingers at the effort off the line. Thankfully my brain starts to kick in at this point and I slow things up a bit before over doing it. Riders start slowly streaming past as I'm regulating my effort.
The first loop is direct to previous years with some farm paddock riding thrown in to break things up well this turns to custard when after 20 minutes everyone is standing on to of small hill because the front riders missed some arrows and no one has any idea which way to go.

After about 90 seconds someone works it out and we're back rolling, except now the entire field is bunched up again so when we reach the start of the technical single track it's walking pace/ hike a bike.

A couple of guys on cyclo-cross bikes go running past on the outside of the track, but everyone seems resigned to waiting their turn till the track opens up again. Out through on the other side the trail starts opening up and it's time to start making to ground up again.
Smoothish fire trail, and I latch onto a 100k rider and get towed along for a while.

Through "Early Bath" and I stop and introduce myself to Spoonie out the other side before continuing to make my way forward. I catch a group of 10 riders before resting up and continuing to keep riding forward. The Rhino is at the front of the bunch driving it and he latches on as I ride past. We start up a conversation going into the transition at Wingello.

Forest Loop 1

In transition, I jump off the bike and run some lube on the chain before setting off solo. I latch onto a group of 100k riders heading up the fire road and we set about a pace line for a while till we make it into the forest proper.

Single track, more fire road, then we're at Did You? a wall of a climb with a bit of loose stuff just to add to the challenge. Point to the seat time to get the balance right, then grind it up the climb to the top. More fire road, more single track, then it's onto the fire lot of descending with water bars.

From this point on I start to exercise a bit of caution (which was probably well founded, more on that later) so as not to launch too hard off any of the slopes.

Through Tangles and I'm caught by the first of the elite 100k riders so its a short pull over to let first a group 2, then another 2, then a group of 10 through. This is pretty much all I see of the lead 100k riders, another 2-3 trickle through on the fire roads but over all there wasn't alot of interaction.

Half way Hill, The Kick, then it's the long drag out of the forest area back to transition. This drag turns out to be worse then any of the other hills during the race including "Did You?"

On the gravel road I have a couple of rabbits to chase back to transition at Wingello. I check the Garmin at this point and its about the 4:20hr mark. This is slower then I had hoped but, it was what it was.

Forest Loop 2

Into transition, I change bottles, hydrapac, lube the chain again. I head across the timing mat and just on the other side realise I haven't grabbed the second bag of Shot Blocs. So I turn around call my Mother over explain what I didn't grab, get it and get going again.

Heading back into the Forest, I spot two 100 milers chasing. One is PDog, the other is Jase. At this point I decide not to get into a drag race with them and ride my own pace through the initial single track until "Did You". Jase gets past me at this point, but bobbles the climb and has to start legging it. PDog is just behind and is riding the climb too. He passes me halfway up, and I keep it steady.

Across the top Jase jumps ahead again, muttering something about cramps. I figure that we're only at the 90k point, so no need to do anything stupid. Unfortunately this is the last of I'll see till the transition at the end of the stage.

About halfway through the loop and I see a SES vehicle with it's lights on at one of the fire road intersections. Looks as though someones, overcooked it. Heading down the next descent and just before the corner I hear a horn and here is one of the SES vehicles heading up the road. The driver shouts out that there is an accident at the bottom of the descent and be careful as there are people on the track.

Down the bottom curled up under s space blanket is the injured rider being tended to, turns out they over cooked the waterbar causing a 6 rider pile up. The rider also broke both wrists. Further on I hear a chopper overhead, as it's coming into land to evac the injured rider out.

Further on and I start catch the slow 100k riders, some are still on their bikes but the majority are either pushing or sitting on the side of the trail in the shade. I always try to give a bit of encouragement to these riders especially the ones that really look like they are struggling.

Up halfway hill and into the feed area, I stop the other side as I need a p!ss just as I start to get the flow going I hear a 100 mile rider shouting out to the officials if they have a spare bottle as they lost one of theirs. Well that gets the adrenaline flowing again, as I know that the trail ahead suits my strengths... climbing. So is off and racing again, The Kick and the final drag out of the forest.

I don't see or hear the other rider again.

Final Stage

I had been trying to work out in my head whether this stage was 17 or 27k....when I pull into the transition I ask and yup it's 25k. Jases's wife Kylie and a mate are there and help get me ready for the final stage. I skull a bottle of V, pull off the hydrapak, change bottles as it's off.

The first 5k fly by, I'm thinking it's going to be great if it's all like this... But no the terrain changes again and we're back into the fire road climbs. Still picking off 100k riders so it's giving me visual targets to aim for. A final stream crossing which feels like heaven on the legs and I'm at "You choose". Now I didn't have much info on this climb other then the short steep option is to the left, so I opt for that and the climb turns out to be a series of steps and is actually pretty easy to ride. I was imagining something like the Sledgehammer at the Otway earlier in the year. At the top it's a 3k downhill run to cross the finish line in an official time of 8:14hrs.




Post-Race

Well with not having a powertap I only have info from the Garmin (I'll give a full review in a couple of days of this) for the race,



Dist 166.0km
Time 8.20hr
Speed 19.9kph
Avg Hr: 147bpm
Avg Cad: 91rpm
Cals: 6500cals
Metres climbed: 4600m

Fluids: 4ltrs of Clif Electrolyte
2 bottles of Nuun Electrolytes
1 bottle of V

Food: 6 bags of Clif Blocs

Well today's Tuesday, and I'm quite surprised how the body has pulled up after the race. I'm actually feeling better then what I did after the Angry Doctor, and I have to say I enjoyed the course a bit more.

On a side note my Powertap arrived back from the US yesterday, not sure what the problem was but I have a complete new rear hub so I'm figuring something pretty catastrophic must have gone wrong with the hub. I won't have the wheel for this weeks Dirt Crit, but should have it for the Rocky Trail 4hr on Saturday.

Fitz Challenge

Today was Fitz's Epic a nice 207K jaunt around every steep bit of road the organisers can find out the back of Canberra.
This required a 4.00am start...which didn't happen, it was more like 4.30. Threw down a couple of slices of raisin toast and out the door by 5.00 to make my way over Stromlo.
This year the organisers got well, organised and sent out all the brevet cards in the two weeks prior to the start. Only problem was they seemed to screw up about half the riders cards who were doing the epic. So the outcome was on the day rego.

Briefing then, Off
We got the riders briefing and had a minutes silence for the rider killed on the descent off Fitz's a couple of years back.
There was a record field of 90 entrants in the epic, and I even spotted another 2 SRM's on riders bikes.

All calm on the Front
Like last year, it was steady tempo riding on the front till Pierces Creek. Now I might have mentioned before I really hate this climb! One of the riders I had marked as a good climber started riding off the front so I decided to join him and lead up the climb for a peak of 400w for 5 minutes.

Everyone regrouped over the top and it was tempo again and remained like this all the way to the 60k mark at the base of Fitz.

It's On
Now for those that haven't ridden this climb it's one that just requires you to ride as hard as you can to maintain momentum. So I went to the front and started doing my best monkey impression...swinging on the bars.
I was joined by the rider from before and we made our way up the climb slowly, painfully opening the gap to the other riders.
I always find it interesting with other riders on climbs to listen to their breathing to judge how hard they are working. I'm lucky in that I can deep breath even when in the VO2 zones and don't start shallow breathing. The rider today sounded like he was hyperventilating.
We crested the top of the climb and started the drag to the turn around with only a couple of kicks before the descent down to the turn. I beat the wife there this year and she turned up 3 minutes later with fresh bottles of wet, cold, goodness.


Clif Bar Salty Lemonade

We were soon joined by the other lead riders, but I had done my form, changed bottles, had a leak and was off. The rider I had been with decided to wait for the other riders but, I wasn't starting off at a reasonable pace back over the hills I had just ridden down. I figured they would catch me before the climb up Apollo Road or part of the way up (hopefully after the wall at 4k).

So Much for Planning
I made the left turn into Apollo Road still solo, and started the slow crawl up the climb. I was using PE rather then power at this point, riding just at the point where I was breathing deeply but not starting to go into VO2.
I managed to make it up the wall though I was really thinking that a 26t would have made things a bit easier. Cresting the top of the main climb there is a 4.5k false flat to the upper car park where the old tracking station used to be located.
I reached the car park handed over the my card to be marked off then refilled my bottle, sculled that in one hit, refilled again and pointed the bike back downhill for the 15min run back to the main road.

In the Dog
On the way back down I saw that the chase bunch had splintered and there were only two chasers behind at about 4 minutes. So I decided to get on the gas and open the gap up so that I could cruise the Corin climb. Again just like last year the wind had turned and I was faced with a head/ cross wind all the way to Corin.
Reaching Tharwa I started to strike the slower riders from the 100k event. By this stage the heat was out in full force and starting to take it's toll on everyone. A large number of the 100ker's were walking the hills.
Reaching Corin, I spotted a rider just after the turn off from the main road who was starting to make their way up the climb. I was thinking that either this was a punter out for a bit of hill work or a 100/160k rider who had mis-read the sign and were going to do a few extra k's.....which I thought was funny at that point. I closed the gap to them to about 20 metres and just used them for pacing up the climb which was great mentally. What was also funny was watching this person tipping water over themselves to keep cool while I was on conservation mode.
The rider stopped once cresting the top of the hill and pointed back down the road, and as I suspected they were just out for a bit of a punt around.
I reached the checkpoint at the top and refilled my bottle again. At this point I would have given my left nut for a cold can of coke but nothing, plain old water. At least I knew Heather had dropped 2 fresh bottles at the bottom of the climb to see me through to the finish. The drop back down gave me a chance to check the gap to the chasers and by my estimate it had blown out to 15 minutes at this stage. I stopped at the bottom grabbed the two fresh bottles and set off on the haul back to the finish via a Urriara loop.

Cars...Lots of Cars
I made the drag back to the next check point at the bottom of Mt McDonald and started the climb up, when coming down the mountain was a car rally. I couldn't quite work out the theme as there were various makes and models. The funniest thing was some bogan chick leaning out the passenger window giving me the finger, Gee 'cause I have never had some dirty slapper lean out a sh!tbox car and give me the finger before? Love I used to live out west in Sydney, I got that ever day riding to work!

Finish
I started cramping abit across the top of Mt McDonald but no where near what happened a month ago, I managed to ride through it and keep going. Unfortunately I missed my goal for this year which was to break 7hrs, I reached this mark at the bottom of the three sisters climb. From here I just went into conservation mode to reach the finish figuring that there was no point pushing harder then needed.
I eventually crossed the line in 7.5hrs.

Stats for the day

Km's 208.7km
Energy 5624kj
TSS 543
Climbing 3550 meters
P(avg) 206w
P(norm) 260w

Food & Water
clif bar mix: 6 bottles (3 litres)
water: 5 bottles: (2.5 litres)
cliff blocs: 5 bags (Margarita are still the best)

Overall I surprised myself, I didn't think I had the form to do as well as I did. In fact I thought I was in for a hammering. After the ride, the legs were tired and sore but no worse then the Angry Doctor. I think this might bode well for next weekend...well maybe.