Race Report by Brendan
Well I guess I cannot deny the race was tough but as I haven’t done a lot of other races Australia wide I will confirm it has been my toughest ever race to date!
After flying home from work at 9pm on the Wednesday and quickly organising bike etc Jody and I arrived at Quantas for the infamous midnight horror flight and as per usual the flight was delayed.
After finally getting on board I quickly fell asleep and woke up 15mins prior to landing in Brisy much to Jody’s disgust who couldn’t get any sleep. After a quick chat to Davina and Luke at the Airport we got our hire car upgraded to a new Holden sports wagon so worked well with all the gear we had. We drove 20mins to have Breaky with my cousin in Brisy for and hr or 2 and headed down to my sisters house on the gold coast and dump excess equipment like my bike box and a quick hello all round and hit the road to Grafton which was at best uneventful. Finally in Grafton after a stressful week at work and lack of sleep we quickly unpacked Jody went shopping for food while I set up the bike.
Other friends from WA would arrive later in the night and on the Friday so we grabbed a afternoon nap which was overdue especially for Jody…Mates Greg and Ryan arrived and we caught up and had tea and pretty much went straight to bed as still so tired it wasn’t funny.
The next day Greg and I rode out towards Casino on relatively flat roads for a few hours and finally relaxed and the legs felt great, bike was running smooth and looking in the far distance The Great Dividing range was looming if almost teasing us. After checking the town out which seemed to be packed we caught up with the other WA people Chris, Megan and the Michael’s we walked down to rego to find out that the Michaels (Verheyen and Dowd) and myself had been placed in Division 1 with the teams, Greg (Bayley) had B grade, Chris had C grade. Chris (our WA Cycling CEO) quickly sought out the NSW counterpart and argued our case for change, so with a quick call over west to our state handicapper John Smith we ended up with the 2 Michaels wanting to try their luck against the teams in Division 1, Myself, Chris and Greg all rode Division 2. Registering was straight forward after that so we found a local pub with some awesome size pasta meals and went home to try to settle the nerves and get some sleep.
Race morning had arrived and although knowing I had trained extremely hard for this and the nerves/thoughts were up to the usual pre race things…
After sorting all my feed station bags for Jody and packed everything and fitted the timing chip and numbers.
We cruised down to the start on a extremely foggy morning but by no means cold as the humidity was creeping up. After watching Div 3 take off (some 100 plus riders) we wished the other WA guys luck including the SA.com boys and lined up with the 3 of us forming a pact to try to keep the race together until the climb and re evaluate after that climb (18km at 6% at the 80km into the race).
After the neutral zone no one seemed to interested to push the pace but some of the rolling hills prior to the main one were proving quite a struggle as they seemed steeper and longer than I had anticipated but none the less I still felt good and stayed in the top 10-15 of the bunch until the first feed zone and man I was warned to be fully aware at the feed zones and they didn’t disappoint! It was a nightmare everyone darting for position some people actual didn’t get anything and surged to the front that caught half of the bunch out I quickly grabbed what I required and darted off with the leaders. The Climb started immediately looking up and the looming range made me feel uneasy but tried to ignore that and focus and what was happening now. First corner a rather sharp surge came, a rider tagged a wheel on a silly inside passing manoeuvre and came crashing down so hard right next to me I saw his face eating asphalt and figured he wouldn’t be finishing today.
The pace was relentless and averaging up to 26kmphr on a 5-7% climb I thought it would have to slow, which it sort of did, but hairpin after hairpin the surges and speed were quickly forming a breakaway of around 15 riders by only about 2 km the climb. I briefly looked behind to see the carnage of riders spread down the previous 2 km. I surged myself to second wheel as we were about 2-4 abreast on the climb, the humidity was as high as I have ever ridden in and couple that with no wind and a 18km climb you can get the picture, most had their jerseys undone and flapping about water was being poured over the heads and we still had over 12km to climb! I had settled into a nice tempo and trying to surge too hard to destroy my rhythm, the mountain was filled with locals supporting and the feeling of people yelling and cheering was spine tingling and makes you wonder how amazing stages in the tours must be. By now every corner hairpin somebody surged trying to dislodge others and everyone predicted it so we all stuck together. Up till about 5km to go to the KOM someone put in an attack and we dropped a couple more and my lungs were burning like never before, the legs were surprisingly ok but I was getting worried as that last attack had catapulted my heart rate to over 190 and I knew I was in trouble. I was now on the back of the bunch and knowing only 3km to go but yet another surge saw me hit 200 BPM and I had to slow amazingly still we were doing over 25kmphr, no wonder I figured but no matter what cursing and riding position or gears would allow me to hang on to the top so I slowly saw them ride off knowing I would have to recover and smash the first 10km after the climb if I had a hope of catching them. So I drank and ate and rode tempo up the climb but with all the cars following the race I couldn’t cut the corners and with me now angry I had been dropped so close to the top I was now in foul mood until Jody and etc came past yelling out I gritted my teeth to the top.
I have never ever been so glad to reach a summit or KOM in my life! I was destroyed and wondered how in the hell I was going to race another 130km, I was stranded by myself and at the water station at the top took on heaps of water and I ate and drank all I could until another couple of riders caught up. I was starting to get my legs back and the 3 of us started swapping turns to catch the bunch. That lasted a couple of kms and 1 of them dropped off as it seems he couldn’t recover after the climb. SO the 2 of us kept on going and we could see them up the road and by now we were in the motorcade, after one of my turns the other rider I shall call him a prick as he attacked me and I had to chase but I couldn’t match his speed and had to settle to ride by myself and low and behold another climb of about 1km and I knew my race was over the cars slowly crept passed me and watched the bunch rode off, After letting out quite a few expletives and settled into a tempo ride into a string headwind after the climb.
I couldn’t see anyone behind me so I kept on going and was managing a respectable 40km ave over the undulating hills, but I ended up riding like this for another 30km before feed station 2 and was starting to slow and the wind just kept getting stronger and stronger. Least I had a stress free feed stop and after some encouragement from Ryan and Jody I headed off. Shortly after Division 1 came smashing past me well part of it Ben king was there so yelled all my encouragement left for Ben wishing him luck. Shortly after that the others well all over the road attacking each other trying to keep up with the breakaway.
By the time the remainder of the bunch caught me I had covered 60km solo and wishing I were on my TT bike! SO now in the bunch tempoing along with 25 odd riders I realised Greg was there and after catching up on details I realised he was dropped in the madness of the feed station at the bottom of the climb, so we all chatted and drank and eat and pretty much had an un eventful ride back into Inverell or so I thought. 15km out from the finish some dropped Div 1 team riders caught us and our bunch sped up rather quickly but we all starting working turns and a few attacks over the remaining downhill parts and the final 1.5km climb saw a few of the div 2 dudes get dropped as we started racing towards Inverell. I positioned myself as best I could near the front and hit out with approx 300 to go and managed 5th in the sprint and that placed me 20th and some 30mins down on our winner…
So overall an excellent run event (as you would expect) some awesome uphill (and downhill) like I have never encountered before. While very disappointed I had missed the break on the top part of the climb I had finished with the bunch (many didn’t finish at all) and felt very good after the race with no cramping or ill effects but I couldn’t have completed this without Jody helping me along the way with feed bags etc. Will I be back next year?…more than likely!
As for Others as you probably know Davina won which was an awesome effort, Chris managed 2nd for Div 2 missing out by the barest of margins, Greg finished next to me.Michael D pulled out 160km into the race, Michael V finished with a small remaining A grade group behind us and Ben managed 6th in Div 1. So onward to a few drinks and food at the presentation and back off to the Gold coast for a well deserved holiday!
Well done. Awesome effort