by ‘dropped in dalkeith’

When the call went out to all SPR riders that there was a race at Collie on the same weekend as the Busselton Half-Ironman my first (and only) thought was ‘great, we can go and support the guys & girls on the way back to Perth’. Then Rob had this insane idea of not only showing support on the sidelines, but actually racing after completing in the ½ IM. After a week or so weighing up the pros and cons I thought why not – it’s not every weekend I get the chance to compete in two events, take the opportunity while it’s there.

So after a very successful event in Busselton (Rob will tell you all about it in another blog) we grabbed a well deserved quadruple shot latte from The Goose and left Busso early Sunday morning. C grade was scheduled to start at 1130am so we managed to get into Collie by 1045 only to find out they had put our start time back to 1200pm. No need to rush now. So we suited up, took in some calories, caught up with Lorraine and Nico in the car park then went for a short warm up through the town centre. The legs were feeling surprisingly OK considering the 90km ride and 21.1km run I had put them through the day before. The weather was perfect, as it had been for the past few weeks, with no wind to speak of on a bright sunny 25 deg day.

We got back to the start line and all of a sudden they called up C grade to line up…but it was only 1130 and they soon realised the start time had changed. Time for some more food, short stretch and bathroom break then we were called up to the start line for the second time. So there we were lined up along the side of the road ready to race when the timekeeper broke the dull noise of chatter with ’13 minutes’. What the? 13 minutes? He must be yanking our chain. But he wasn’t. We waited for what seemed to be an eternity in the sun before C grade was finally sent on its way.

There were 33 starters in C grade with most representation by Cyclemania and SPR…we had five riders – Ronny, Bruce, Mark Schneider, Rob and myself – which was a great turnout and the most for SPR in any grade. Ben had the toughest job riding by himself in B grade (but we’ll get to Ben a bit later).

The course was a 21km loop with around 3-4 undulations…nothing too serious. C grade was to do 3 laps for a 63km race. The most interesting part of the course was the last 800-1000m where we came down a small hill, over railway tracks then up a small incline that turned right before the final 300m-ish sprint to the finish. In the pre-race briefing they warned us this section was quite bumpy over the railway tracks…I mention this for a reason as it becomes important later on.  

It only took around 3km before the first break off the front by a Cyclemania rider. About 5 riders took off and then another Cyclemania rider sat on the front of the chase group and attempted to slow us down…this didn’t fly and we caught the break fairly quickly. So Cyclemania showed their hand early. The rest of the first lap (21km) was what I would call a reconnaissance lap with nothing really happening…lots of swapping turns at the front with no one really showing too much. At one stage on the back half of the loop I was being forced further back in the group and wasn’t feeling comfortable with some of the riders back there (safety wise) so I decided to go to a safe place – on the front. Not long after Rob came around and SPR all of a sudden had two riders on the front. It seemed to make the other riders take notice of the SPR representation because from then on whenever one of us went near the front we seemed to be closely watched. The only real surge on lap one was near the start/finish line funny enough were people wanted to be seen on the front.

The second lap saw the surging pick up with the occasional break. I managed to grab the first break of 4-5 riders but the pack soon caught on. The next break was then chased by Ronny, giving the other SPR riders the luxury of letting the rest of the group use their energy to chase. This is where we worked well together. Then Mark went to the front and did some work with the lead riders. Unlike the first loop, the pace picked up along every incline to see who had the legs to keep up. A few km from the end of lap 2 Rob told me that his day was over with his legs having no energy left to surge.

Into the last lap and once again the surges came. I didn’t realise Rob had pulled out at the start of loop 3 until Ronny informed me as we began discussing whether we wanted to start attacking. Ronny wasn’t too keen as the pace was a bit high to do it, which was the right call as we still had 15km to go. Mark was once again in the front half dozen riders doing some work – he was riding strong. The further went went and the closer we got to the finish you could sense everyone was wondering if anyone would break. Now my original plan was to see if i could get through 40km and then see how I felt. I was now through about 50km and was feeling pretty good so I decided to attack over one of the inclines and down other side. A Cyclemania rider immediately jumped on my wheel but the rest of the peleton let us go so the two of us picked up the pace for a few minutes before we realised we weren’t going to get away and sat up to let the group come together again. Ronny gave me some word of encouragement for my efforts then we sat back in the group to let others do the work. Once again Mark went to the front and immediately the group reacted.

So into the last few km and all of a sudden there was a call of ‘B grade coming through, stay left’ and then I see Ben come flying past on the front of B grade. So we now had the situation of B & C grade coming towards the finish line in a big bunch. A couple of the C grade riders thought this was an opportunity to make their move and latch on the the passing B grade train, which is a big no-no. We were barking at a few C grade idiots to sit up and let B grade through but they wouldn’t have a bar of it.

Now you remember me mentioning the final 800m into town with the decline over the railway tracks…well we had +50 riders trying to jockey for position over a bumpy section of road with railway tracks and a right-hand turn. And as predicted there was a crash with a couple of riders going down hard near the front. Lucky enough all SPR riders got through unhurt but it did slow a lot of people. It was a crappy way to end the race as there was no sprint finish and Ronny, Mark, Bruce and myself were all up in the front with a great chance to have a crack at it just as the crash occurred. I managed to get through and over the line in around 6^th or 7^th place but the finish was a mix of B & C graders so I don’t know how they manged to work out the podium places. My bike computer tells me we averaged 35km/hr for the 63km with a max of 56km/hr and my heart rate averaged 156 bpm (max of 171 bpm).

Overall I really enjoyed the experience with this being only my second race. The course seemed to suit me and it was great having 5 of us in the pack riding for SPR. Congrats to all those who competed in other grades and thanks to those who cheered us on from the sidelines. I’m looking forward to riding some more races with the crew this year. Thanks Rob for talking me into it J