The second dirt crit of the season

Well, another week has passed and it was again time for the Thursday afternoon dirt crit. Again at majura, however this time the course was flat. And twisty, with majura's trademark sinuous singletrack. It also had a kick ass 1% fireroad which was plenty long for passing, and totally doable in just about the hardest gear!

 

Quite a few more people turned up today, including Dan McConnell, Ben Henderson, Nathan Haas, Matt Rizutto, Brad Morton, and Mark Tupalski. This was defintely going to be excellent. When Gazza got us underway it was an absolute drag race up the fireroad peaking out at 39km/hr before the first corner. I went in at 5th wheel behind ben, Nathan, Dan and Brad. On the 2nd lap Brad went through on the fireroad and slotted into 2nd and I was still in 5th behind Dan. Around the backside we were still in a single file arrangement when ben hit a stick the size of a cricket stump. It went up into the air at head height twirling in slow motion for the amount of time for 4 riders to pass. It was hysterical.

 

By this stage the elastic was beginning to stretch and ben was getting a slight lead from brad. On the 3rd lap I laid some power down and went past Nathan on the fireroad in search of Dan's back wheel. Brad had a mechanical and had to stop by the side of the trail to tune a front derailleur that had misaligned itself randomly!

 

I finally got Dan's wheel on the back side of the 5th lap, where he nicely let me through which allowed me to slot into 2nd place and essentially no man's land. ben was too far in front to get back, oh well no problem. ben 1st, Me 2nd, Tupak 3rd.

 

Now, it was quite apparent to me that both Dan and Nathan haven't raced since the Worlds so their motivation factor was probably pretty low for a humble clubbie. It was pretty classy Dan letting me through when he knew I was keen to go on.

 

Afterwards I cruised around Majura with Tupak and brad, and then did the backside of ainslie for a spin down before cruising home talking to the kangaroos!

 

Stats from the race.

• It was warm and muggy
• Race Time: 10:40
• Avg Speed: 26.1km/hr
• Avg HR: 173
• max HR: 184
• Dusty as!

 

  

Commuter Olympics

I decided to figure out how many traffic lights there are on my standard 90 minute, 55km morning training run. It turns out that there are 37.

 

This morning I managed to get stopped at only 3 of them. This is pretty amazing, thus the post:)

 

On average, I would say that I would get stopped by about 10.

 

This is pretty much why, on weekends I take the roadie out west of Canberra towards the Brindabella Mountain ranges. No lights, not much traffic, slightly hilly.

 

Dirt Crit this afternoon - hot day - majura pines - shade by pinus radiata.

First dirt crit of the series

Majura Pines, hallowed grounds for many ACT riders. 5 minutes from my front door. View of Mount Majura from my dining room table!. First dirt crit round of the CORC series for 09/10.

 

Steve and the ONYA crew set up an absolute brute of a course for the first round of the series. The course started half way up the main fireroad from the bottom, before turning left into the singletrack, then left shortly thereafter to follow a rough old track that had doubles, drops, berms and more doubles. It then crossed the fireroad then hooked back up through the native section which twists and turns then rocks up back at the base of the main fireroad.

 

This fireroad is pretty long, has a grade of about 3%, pinches past the start finish spot at 5% for 10 metres then flattens back out to 3% on the run up to the singletrack. But, the real climbing starts after the double track, and includes about 200m of singletrack that has a very slight false flat.

 

When the start gun went, which was actually steve just counting down, I got a quickish clip in and laid some power down. I drag raced Brad Morton, Mark Tupalski and Shaun lewis up to the singletrack and got the holeshot for the entry, the descent was pretty much just a recovery for 10 seconds then it was all about the elbows absorbing the bumps and making it as smooth as possible.

 

On the exit onto the fireroad, I let Mark and Brad go past and promptly got onto Brad's wheel. On the next run up the fireroad, Brad's weekend of racing caught up with him a bit, and I went round him and started to get Mark in sight again. I followed around for another lap and noticed on the second last lap that he was slowing down very slightly. At the exit of the singletrack, I had got back onto his wheel. From here I was checking to see how he was trekking and figuring out when to go past him. Mark got out of the saddle for the little pinch past the start finish line, and as he was sitting back down I made the jump across on the blind side. From here I just buried myself and sprinted out of the saddle up to the singletrack. This got me a decent gap and I was able to hold on through the rest of the singeltrack and take the win, which was extremely pleasing.

 

After that it was just talking crap with everyone and riding back home with Kylie.

 

Some stats from the race.

it was freezing - well it was 15 degrees, which was half of what it was on Monday

it was actually the same temperature as my morning ride that same day.

 

Time: ~12 minutes

Average Speed: 26.6km/hr

Avg heart rate: 170bpm

Max Heart rate: 184bpm

Glasses: Oakley Radar black frame, Hi-Intensity persimmon pitch lens.

 

year in review

The last 12 months have been pretty good with regard to racing. My season runs from the start of the Dirt Crits in November to the start of them again the following November. I usually have 6 weeks off racing in the middle of the Canberra Winter in order to freshen up mentally and keep the desire. I still train during this time, just no racing.

 

In the last 12 months I have entered 29 races, not including the prologue at the Scott 24 hour. Not sure how to classify this one - sort of like a race within a race. The breakdown of events enetered goes like this

• 1 SuperD
• 1 24 hour race (6 man team)
• 1 100km race
• 1 hillclimb
• 9 cross country races
• 16 short track races

   

The unique result breakdown goes a little something like this

• Super D - 2nd
• 24 hour race - 2nd
• 100km race - 6th
• Hillclimb - 7th
• Cross country -  2 x 1st, 3 x 2nd, 1 x 3rd, 2 x 4th, 1 x 5th
• Short track - 5 x 1st, 8 x 2nd, 2 x 3rd, 1 x 4th

Notes on specific races

100km race was first of this kind that I have done. This should be a good one to progress in the years to come. I liken these to the Classics races within the ProTour events. It does take a few years to figure out the route, the pacing, the distance etc.

 

SuperD was a sensational event. Top of Stromlo to bottom of Stromlo, via skyline. Hopefully there will be more of these to come.

 

Hillclimb - should not have raced this event! - Just came back from Geelong National round and was not even close to being fully recovered.

 

Cross Country - finally won a national round down in Tasmania in Vet men. Also won a local round at Stromlo. Had a good day out at the national titles to get 2nd in vet men - loved that course.

 

Short track - finally won a national round down in Geelong in Sport men. One of the third places was due to a flat tyre on the last lap after building up a healthy lead.

 

Managed to get 2nd place at the Australian National championships for both XCO and XCC. (Vets and Sport men respectively)

 

I also managed to win the National XCO series in Vet Men for the second year running. This year I had different objectives and actually wanted to win a race, so I did less of the series races, got the win at the last round, and as a bonus also got the series from 3 of 5 races. Sweet! I also came 3rd in the National XCC series for sport men - Sport men is essentially the fast U19 and the Vets at the National level. Again I only raced 3 out of 5 of these, So the placing was a bonus.

 

Locally, I finished second in the A grade Crit series to Brad Morton. Currently I am leading the Senior\Elite men standings for the CORC XCO series.

 

In all of these races I have had 3 mechanicals in total - 2 flat tyres and 1 bent chain. Still finished all races.

 

No cramps in any of the races - EFS is some good stuff for my purposes. Lots of electrolytes.

 

Reasons for better performance

A few things stand out.

 

Researched a lot of things. Never stop learning

 

I tightened up my nutrition. This resulted in a further loss of 6kgs. This does make a big difference. I should be able to safely lose another 2kgs over this summer, without any loss of power.

 

Raced a little less - not sure how, but the total amount of races is down from the previous 12 months by 10. - Not by choice!

 

Made sure that i focussed on making incremental, sustainable gains in training. 6 week training blocks (a'la Lemond style) definitely worked here.

 

Got a hardtail and made sure that the bike was never the weakest link, some stuff here that is definitely not getting mentioned - free speed!

 

Made a lot of 1% improvements in many areas. The incremental accumulation of small performance gains do add up - thankyou to Dave Brailsford (UK - team Sky) for that one.

 

Got some white shoes, white gloves, a white helmet and white parts for the bike. The white gloves only come out for special occasions!

Sparrow Hill Round 6

On Sunday there was Round 6 of the CORC XC series. What a day. Hot and humid with lots of blue sky and sunshine. The day before I had spent a few hours out around the Cotter and Contador creek lapping up the sunshine. When I woke on Sunday, I was still a little tired and the muscles were telling me that I had done some good work. Kylie cruised out with me today, which was good. We talked crap for the half hour drive out to Sparrow Hill, marvelling at the massive roundabout put in for Captains Flat.

 

After registering I set off with Joel and Bronwyn Ryan and Kylie for a light practice lap. Joel was rolling some new SRAM XX on his 29er. Only just got it. The lap was pretty cruisy, just checking out the 7km track. Pretty much just big dog action today. When the start call came, our field of 10 senior\elite men pinned it up the fireroad at 35km/hr. The first bit of singeltrack was a fair way off. I settled into a good rythym and popped in behind Joel for the entry of the singeltrack. We caned it around uneventfully for about 17 minutes for the first lap (17:09). Then some reshuffling occurred and Brent Miller took off with Joel on his wheel. I settled in behind Mark Tupalski and we cruised around for 2 laps until the traffic started getting pretty ordinary. 225 people turned up - just amazing the pulling power of Sparrow Hill.

 

On the 4th lap I put the power down and Mark popped off somewhere - I later found he busted his rear derailleur, and had to DNF. I thought I had Matt Rizutto on my wheel, and was occasionally talking to him as such. On this lap, we managed to pass Joel Ryan, not sure if he blew or had a mechanical. I also ran over the ass of a snake that was slithering across the track. I thought Matt was having a good day out, and was having a lot of trouble dropping him. On the last lap, I opened it up some more (not much left to open really) and tried to get a 5 metre gap. This held for about the 3.5 kilometres and I was able to get across the line for 2nd place, behind Brent Miller.

 

Then I realised that it wasn't Matt, but Brad Morton, who had also nicely won the ACT club road championships on Saturday. If I had known it was Brad, I wouldn't have left it so fine. I will always back myself in a sprint, but with Brad it is a pure 50/50!

 

Some stats from the race.

Distance: 7km per lap  - 5 laps - 35km

Time: me, 1:27:47 (winner 1:27:27)

Avg Speed: me, 24.26km/hr, (winner 24.36km/hr)

Avg HR for race: 170bpm

Max HR within race: 184bpm (pretty close for today's relative max)

Glasses worn: Oakley Radar Retina Burn

Time on the bike this week: 13 hours

Drink: EFS - lemon lime

Gel: Gu Roctane orange on 4th lap.

 

So that was the last race of my 12 month season, which runs from November to November each year. The new season as such, starts on Thursday with the first local dirt crit.

 

Later this week I will post the yearly assessment with the finer details of races and their results.

 

 

catching up

At the Scott 24 hour race this year, I was fortunate to catch up with an old friend from junior racing days, Ben Monroe. It was good catching up talking about bikes in general and what he was up to now as RockStar Racing strategy consultant. A film is in the works documenting the Scott 24 hour quest for the Rockstar boys. I was fortunate to be interviewed in the film, hopefully it turns out alright - it was in transition waiting for Trev to come in!

Pete Smith, Ben Monroe, Scott Finlay and myself were part of the shop team back in 88, 89. Back in Brisbane, in the late 80s there was a strong shop presence in the way of Edward Street Cycles. Laurie Cranley, who now heads up Bikestyle Tours, and Brian Johnson sponsored the local guns in the emerging MTB world.

In 1989, Ben and Scott went over to Mammoth Mountain, USA for the world championships. Ben was fortunate to win the junior downhill event thus becoming the first Australian MTB champion in the process. When he got back I rode with next at the 1989 Australian MTB titles at Pierces Creek at Stromlo. This was probably the first trip away from home for me, being 15 years old! Ben won the Cross Country and the Downhill that year, Scott got 3rd in the XC and I got 6th in the XC.

Even back then I figured that Canberra was a pretty cool place to ride. It might have been something to do with being away with a bunch of guys who loved to ride and race bikes. We drove down from brisvegas in a hired tarago, towing a trailer full of bikes. It was a week long trip and pretty much opened my mind to the big world out there!

Of course, people move on and do new things, there are still probably just a handful of people from those days that still race and ride. The longevity of these people is testament to the pull that 2 wheels has for a lot of them. I am pretty much addicted to the wheels. I currently have 4 bikes, my girlfriend currently has 6 bikes, I own 3 bike helmets, 4 pairs of cycling shoes, 10 pairs of cycling gloves, 5 team outfits, way too much Assos gear!, over 30 pairs of Oakley sunglasses and devour as much information I can in the way of books, magaizines and internet pages.

Strangely enough, I don't hark back to wanting to ride a steel, rigid, singlespeed. There is a reason why technology has advanced!

A nice recovery week

After the Scott 24 hour race, a scheduled recovery week was due. This is mainly due to the fatigue that sleep deprivation brings. At the Scott, 2 hours sleep is considered a good effort. This year the nutrition was sorted quite well. I had plenty of pasta, watermelon, cashews, protein shakes, banana muffin-cakes, cytomax, english muffins, bacon and eggs. The good combination of real food in decent proportions ensured that the early morning laps were busted out with the same intensity as the day before. Only the traffic makes them slower!

 

Back into the training over the weekend and it was back to back 4 hour tempo days on the roadie. Saturday, out at Contador Creek, I reckon I saw about 50 people. The great weather has brought everyone out. Sunday, it was just quiet as. Evyerone was probably cruising on the flat or something else was on that I didn't know about!

 

A little bit of discussion on a certain forum today ensued with some punter saying that intervals weren't required for cycling. With that in mind, the morning session today involved hard riding, and the lunch time session included some even harder riding. LT and VO2max efforts on the same day??!! No way it can't be done, it doens't need to be done!!!  --- Well I did them, and I reckon they might pay off in a few weeks time!

 

I also signed up to do the 4 hour Rocky Trail Entertainment Enduro at Stromlo. Well, the course is superb. Up and down the trunk, skyline and berm track for 4 hours. That should equal 7 - 8 laps. I would do 6 climbs of stromlo, majura or ainslie on any given Saturday so I decided to throw it down on dirt. The fact that it is on a Saturday means that I can also train on the Sunday --- we'll see how that one pans out.

 

Now I wonder if my new Cannondale Flash will arrive before xmas?????

more photos

more photos of the Scott 24 hour race

--
James Downing

Scott 24 hour

The weekend just past is the annual Scott 24 hour race put on by Canberra Off Road Cyclists. This year they had capped the entries (solos and teams) at 2500. By reckoning, this amounted to about 630 riders on course at any one time, which at 19km is about one rider every 28 metres.

 

I was fortunate to be notified during the week that I was selected to race in the prologue. The prologue is an invitational event for the fastest 20 riders to showcase their speed and race for some big money. Unfortunately, I did not win the big prize, but was stoked with catching my minute-man, and averaging over 23km per hour for a quick up and down lap at Stromlo.

 

For the main event this year the Lonsdale Street Cyclery team consisted of myself, trevor Rix, Will Bowron, Jon Harris, Joel Stewart and Doug McLean. We were extremely fortunate this year to have the absolute luxury of a corporate tent. This entailed a 6 x 9 metre marquee, full lighting, full electricity, patio heaters and to top it off, about 75metres from transition.

 

After holding the pre-race meeting the weekend before, we had the tactics sorted. After setting up on Friday morning, then going for a quick spin around the day loop, we decided to go with Plan B. This course was full on for an event like this. The fatigue would definitely kick on as the course went on, not to mention the traffic. We took time at slickrock to sort out some different line options, this came in handy in the race as Joel was able to make up 15 positions in one stylish passing move.

 

The course this year consisted of about 400m climbing per lap - this is pretty considerable. The course also included a lot of technical trails out the backside of Stromlo. Definitely a rider's course. The course also included a mental breaker at the end which added on a cruel little climb which took all of the mental energy (as well as physical power) to get you up. There was also a dedicated day and night lap. The night lap taking the more conservative approach down 'skyline'.

 

Will was the keen participant in the run and got the team off to a fantastic start. We lapped solidly for the next few hours, and in perfect timing, Trev turned up! This was great as Trev had to work the morning, but he was able to get out early and we slotted him in so that all in the team were able to do a single lap before their second. As night fell we went to the double-teamed lapping strategy to allow for everyone to get some well-deserved sleep. This went like clock work, and we rode strongly through the night.

 

Sometime before 8pm Kylie went to the timing tent and fond out that we weren't down as part of the 6man teams, but were with the corporate teams. Trev got this sorted and we soon found out we were in 2nd place behind Team Felt. This stayed like this until the end of the 24 hours, the felt boys putting in consistent lap times and their win was well-deserved.

 

Each person in the team was able to get in about 5 laps each which added up to about 100km for each rider, taking into account transition and warm up and warm down. All up the team did 513km in 24 hours.

 

Special thanks go out to Trev and Janie for the entry and associated management of provision of a luxury corporate tent for the team - hugely appreciated by everybody. Kylie - for sorting the timing board early on to get everyone in the transtion mindset, and also for the awesome cakes, Rachel, for volunteering and also popping in to talk - and all the friends, wives and girlfriends for poppin in and saying hi, and keeping everybody's fatigued mind stimulated with 'new' talk - it all definitely helps.