Cycling History

I'm becoming a huge fan of the work of Irish cycling historian Cillian Kelly. His website is here: Website and you can find him on Twitter here: Twitter.

Cillian co-hosts a weekly podcast through Velocast (it is a subscription service) available here: Velocast. The podcast is called 'This Week in Cycling History' and it is well worth a listen.

Given it is classics season, I wanted to share a highlight from the show I heard, regarding French rider Jacky Durand, who won the Tour of Flanders in 1992 after a near race-long breakaway with German rider Thomas Wegmuller. When interviewed about his victory, Durand had the following to say (Durand attacked late and won solo):

Just then the commisaire's car drove up next to me and Eddy Merckx himself stuck his head out the window. He said to me 'hey kid, you're gonna win the Tour of Flanders'. I thought to myself 'if god himself believes it, then he is probably right'. 

The video is in French but here is Durand soloing to victory in 1992:

If the player doesn't work in your browser use this link:

1992 Tour of Flanders

A Few Race Reports...

I haven't blogged for a while so I will cover a few things in one hit...

Dalby Triathlon - 23 March 2014

This is always a fun day out and a good chance to fly the 'Dalby State High School' flag as a part of our school team. We entered the Open Teams Event and the Business House Challenge. We won them both which was a great result. 

In the Open Teams I did the 20km in 28 min 03 sec, which I am pretty happy with given that the course had four U-turns and eight roundabouts to got through. I also had to take my foot off the gas a few times because of the heavy bike traffic. All in all, I'm pleased with that time. 

In the Business House Challenge I covered the 6.5 km in 9 minutes flat. Again, the course had two U-turns and four roundabouts and I had an unfortunate incident where I had to jam my brakes on to avoid going up the back of the lead car, which had slowed  down in front of me in the middle of a roundabout. 

Toowoomba Ride the Range - 30 March 2014

This charity ride was held in wet and treacherous conditions on a very tough course. It was a great ride in terms of training but by the end of it I was just so wet that all I wanted to do was get off my bike and get into the car. There were also some more 'interesting' moments trying to stay safe in the wet with a lot of inexperienced riders (which I guess is standard on a charity ride). In any case, despite the weather and crash risks I'm still glad that I did it. 

Toowoomba Club Race - 6 April 2014

This race just straight up annoyed me. It was at the Bunker's Hill course (which I had never ridden before). It was six laps of 9.5 km. I attacked at four laps to go and was joined by Trent West. We established a good lead and I thought we were safe. James Orchard and Matthew Simonelli worked very well together and got across to us with one to go. I hate getting caught! James attacked with about 5 km to go and I made an error in judgment. Trent is a strong sprinter (best chance to win a gallop of the four of us) and Matthew was the only non-Team TLD rider there. I thought they both had a lot to lose and that they would chase. I was wrong. James rode away and had a good win and I came in 4th. I didn't have the best of legs this day and in the end I was pretty pleased with how I went given the heavy training block I was buried in. 

MMAS (40 - 44 years) State Criterium Titles - 13 April 2014

This 35 minutes plus 3 lap race was held on a very wet afternoon at the Nundah Circuit in Brisbane. It was going to take a miracle for it not to end in a bunch sprint but I was not going to be left wondering. I rode an extremely aggressive race and did what I could to get away and then stay there. With a 45.1 kmh average speed, staying away was always going to be a significant challenge. It ended in a bunch sprint which I was near the back of. 

Coach Dewort gave me a taper for this race to have a really good hit out and see how my form was. Despite the lack of a result, the news on my form is good. I set new 20 minute and 30 minute average power records and managed a normalised power of well over 400w for the 38 minute race. My best power numbers ever. This is a good sign and I am looking forward to seeing how the season progresses. 

What's coming up? Just about to hit a very busy period of racing - Queensland Road Team Series (QRTS) Round 2, Ipswich Open, Battle on the Border and then Tour of Toowoomba (although the TLD Team for this is yet to be finalised). Looking forward to the next few months of racing very much. 

Race Report: Club Criterium - 1 March 2014

A small but extremely excitable field lined up for the A grade club criterium at Glenvale last Saturday. It was 40 minutes plus 2 laps. Things started off quite steady, but at 8 minutes in we were all handed bowls of anaerobic soup and as someone on Facebook put it 'a bomb got dropped in A grade'. 

Here is what happened: 

Darren Rolfe gave it a good surge up the finish line hill (a good one). I checked and saw he had created a gap already so gave it a big effort over the top. This sent four of us clear. I kept on going and then Darren put in another solid turn. This put Darren and myself clear on our own with 32 minutes to go. Oh dear...

Darren can ride a time trial (yes he can) and that's pretty much what he did. He was sitting on the front for the entire lap, with the exception of the finish line hill. I was trying to smash myself up there each lap to keep us clear. This 'system' worked pretty well and we ended up with a good gap some (very long) 32 minutes and 2 laps later.

I was shattered by the end and Darren surged away from me on the last lap to win, giving me second place.

I'm pretty happy with this ride. I have been struggling to find form and today indicated that my top end is starting to go okay at least:

Race Report: Solutions Training Toowoomba 2 Day

As predicted, this was a tough weekend. It was made all the worse by the extremely hot weather. We had approximately thirty starters in Elite A both days and it was a high-quality field.

Criterium (55 minutes + 2 laps @ Glenvale)

This was a very fast race. My Garmin recorded a maximum temperature of 38 degrees and an average temperature of 36.5 degrees. The start was a bloodbath and the field very quickly broke up. By twenty minutes in there was a break of three, chased by a group of four and what was left of the bunch trailing behind. I was in that third group and stayed with them to the finish (there were about twelve of us left by then). I was actually very pleased (and a little surprised to be honest) by this finish. Some very good bike riders got shelled out of my group and I didn't, which is great.

Road Race (72 km @ Goombungee)

If I thought the criterium was hot, then the road race was just something else. I cannot remember racing in hotter conditions. My Garmin recorded a maximum temperature of 45 degrees and an average temperature of 41.5 degrees. The start was extremely quick which took its toll. I made it over the first two decent hills okay but started to struggle badly on the undulating section heading towards Haden. Icould feel my legs just getting worse and worse and I eventually just popped. I went from being safely in the bunch to doing 15 km/h on my own in about ten seconds. I struggled home and finished the lap and joined all the other riders who pulled out at half way (I think only fifteen or so finished). This was a disappointing ride but it's not wise to read too much into it when conditions were so bad.

On a positive note, I had team mates finish second (James Thompson) and fifth (Darren Rolfe) which is great news. Special mention also to two more team mates who finished first (Chris Maycock) and second (Trent West) in the Elite B race.

I said last blog post that my form wasn't great and it would seem I was right. Having said that, I am pleased with how the criterium went. That is something positive for me to take out of the weekend.