race report by peter.

 

cyclo-sportif races, for those of you that don’t know, are not races.  they are participation events.  there is no winning team and the results are not even published in finishing time order.  this escapes a few insurance issues about holding races, but as far as a participation event goes, it is pretty damn competitive.  for this reason, i was trying to put myself in the second team as i know that i was not totally on form. 

however, let me step back a bit.

it was great to see so many spr riders entering the event this weekend.  we had four teams, two in the 78km event and two in the 62km event.  what was even better was the fact that we had a number of first timers and it was great to see them out having a go at racing.  hopefully this will be a sign of things to come and we can build on this.  if people are still willing to turn up when gale force winds and driving rain are predicted, then they are hard enough to take on any of the races.

so, i was trying to change the teams around so that i could have an easier ride.  not necessarily an easier ride, but just so i wouldn’t be a burden to the team.  the format of these events mean that you cannot drop a rider or leave anyone behind.  it happens and we have done it before, but with no real definition of a winner in these events, it is hard to say that any team has had an advantage.

so our team consisted of ryan, brendan, judd, michael, mike, jerry, rob and myself.  some strong riders in there, but i was not to be counted in that category.  the other 78km team had seven riders as did the two other 62km teams.  hopefully we will get a race report from all of them.

this event has been notorious for attracting bad weather.  two years ago, the wind and rain was so bad that they eventually cut the ride short and sent people home.  last year was wet, with some wind, but it is winter after all.  this year, the long range report had most people running scared.  the wind and rain that lead up to the event were not a good sign, but by the time the morning rolled around, it was looking pretty good.  we seemed to have lucked out and the event was sitting right between two cold fronts.  kind of the eye of the storm.  there were showers about, but the wind was nothing like the previous day.  hopefully it would remain that way.

we signed the teams in and managed to get everyone in a spr jersey so that we at least looked the part.  the main registration was held at the velodrome and would coincided with the track grand prix.  more on that later.  lorraine showed us her wheel with the nice nail stuck right through the tyre and embedded into the rim.  luckily she had her spare wheels ready to go.  there wasn’t a lot of stuffing around before it was time to head to the herne hill school for the official start.

we had obviously stuffed around enough as we missed the initial roll out and the escorted transition to the start line. we kind of knew the way so just took off on our own.  well not really on our own as others missed the escort as well.  by the time we reached the school, there was only time for a brief toilet stop before we were lining up.

gary suckling announced our team, had a few digs at ryan and before we knew it we were away.  single file was the plan with 30 sec turns at the front.  this allowed everyone to get a decent rest and also made sure that riders didn’t burn themselves out too early.  a proper two line roll through means that you are often chasing the guy in front and don’t get to rest too long.  with the wind the way that it was, a single file also meant that we could hopefully echelon across the road if we needed to.

the groups were set off in 30sec intervals and so we could see the guys in front of us right from the start.  usually they start the faster groups later much like a handicap event, but this means that you need to know how fast a group will go.  as we haven’t competed this year, they just put us anywhere. 

we quickly caught and passed the first group and began chasing the next one.  the circuit, although square in nature, had a number of left, right corners and even what could only be described as a chicane.  this meant that you were often dropping into corners and this made it hard with slower groups around.  we often had to slow down to get past a corner before we could overtake. 

by the time we reached the long back straight, we had picked off a number of teams and had begun to work out what to do in the wind.  i had just got to the front when i heard a call go out.  against the buffeting winds it was hard to make it out so i asked behind me what was going on.  “ease off” was what we heard, but there was no way i was hurting anyone this early in the race.  a few more calls later and we sat up to find that judd had punctured his rear tyre.  we spun back around and watched/helped/waited for the tyre change as a number of groups past us back again.  with the tube changed and all gassed up we were off again.  i was just behind judd and noticed that hie tyre was looking flat almost straight away.  i thought that maybe he had not put enough in but he said that it was getting soft.  two flats is a criminal offence so we shot him and left his carcass in the bushes.  actually, we disobeyed rules and left him behind with a spare tube to fix his wheel.  as it was a circuit race, we would pick him up next lap.  i now had the timing band on my leg so the team would at least have to get me home.

we got going and quickly picked up the teams that managed to get past up while we were stationary.  one team did come flying past and we never saw them again, but no-one else managed to pass us.  we were still sorting the team out in respect to where to echelon off to account for the wind.  some people felt compelled to ride on the left side of the road when the wind was from the right.  i guess that it is just what is hammered into you when you start riding.  it took us a couple of laps to really get it sorted out and it made it difficult that we had to continuously pass other group so had to revert back to a straight single file.

we picked up judd on the second lap and continued on our way.  we were all still doing turns at this point, but some like rob and myself were beginning to struggle.  rob would put too much into his turn and would drop off the back after he peeled off.  i was really starting to feel the pace in my hammies and was not able to maintain a strong lead.  judd (or the judd-inator) was determined to make up for his lost lap and would often get to the front and smash out a long time trial.

by the end of the third lap, both rob and myself were toast and with two laps to go, we were down to survival mode.  we didn’t go to the front and just sat mid pack with ryan riding alongside, in the wind, giving us the occasional touch-up to put us back on a wheel.  it was only 2 laps and only 30 kms, but it felt much, much longer than that.  only highlight i can think of was rob dropping his bottle and having it jam in between his frame and cranks.  he thought that he had dropped in altogether, but managed a great save.

we eventually rolled across the line for the final time and stopped the clock at 2:11:07.  no idea how much time we lost with the tyre change, but with the conditions the way they were, we were pretty happy with the time.  it was then the slow roll back to the velodrome to get changed and have lunch.

the one benefit of starting early and being relatively fast was the fact that there were no queues for lunch.  after getting changed we were straight through to the stands to eat and watch some classy riders on the track.  there were a number of riders that have ridden with us before as well as some regulars.  josie was back from europe and was wearing her world champs colours as were anne meares and kaarle mcculloch.  three world champs at an event wasn’t bad.  the fleet girls were there (minus davina who is still racing in america) as were a few others that have graced us on sunday – mel, sam, adrian.

all up a great day (as it didn’t absolutely pour down on us) and it was great to see some of the non-regular-racing people having a go to show off the spr colours.  thanks to kim as well who came out to take some photos and helped mike back to the velodrome after he cracked his norco frame on lap one.  also thanks to shun who won one of the raffle prizes at the cyclo-sportif but donated it to spr for us to use as prizes and giveaways.  he said he didn’t really want the stuff, he just wanted to win.