Report by Paul.

If you are into cycling, and unless you live under a rock, you would have know the Tour De Perth was on last weekend – 4 stages over 3 days showcasing some of the best cyclists from this state and country.

 
For the rest of us that aren’t up to the elite level required for the TdP, there were some support criteriums held on Sunday between Stages 3 & 4. I had never competed in a criterium before so I thought this would be a great chance to give it a go. I watched the TdP criteriums on Friday night and it was quite frightening the speeds the girls & guys were doing…especially around corners.

 
So Brettski, Daniel H. and I decided to race the Men’s Support B criterium. It was to be 30min + 1 lap. The 1.2km course used the last 300-500m on Perry Lakes Dr to the TdP finish line then loop onto a closed road internal to Alderbury Park. The internal road was rough…potholes throughout…covered in those pesky honky nuts (gumnuts for you eastern staters)…oh and there was also the added challenge of three speedbumps to negotiate at high speed 🙂

 
So after numerous warm up laps waiting for the juniors to finish, we waited at the start/finish line for our smashfe st. We were running about half an hour behind when they sent us out for a warm up lap (again). You could feel the tension in the group as we went around at about 28km/hr, I’m sure everyone was making mental notes on potholes, sharp corners, inclines…places were someone may attack.

 
My objective was very simple – stay upright and try to be with the pack on the final lap.
Due to being behind on time, our race was reduced to 25min + 1 lap. The first lap was quick and the legs were burning. As predicted as soon as the bunch got onto the smoother surface of Perry Lakes Drive the speed picked up even further, plus we had the aid of a tailwind…we were at 50+km/hr and strung out in a line. At this point my thoughts were mostly how the feck am I going to hold on for another 20 min?

 
The first attack took place on lap three (?) along Perry Lakes Drive with the rider coming from the back half of the group. The guy attacked to the right side of the road, whereas the group was on the left side. Two more riders managed to jump on quickly. I was about 4-5 riders back and after a few seconds realised that no one else was going to chase and that if I didn’t go now we would lose them. So I took off in pursuit moving over to the inside of a slight right-hand bend…trying to use the shortest distance on the bend to make up ground. It wasn’t until I managed to get within a couple of bike lengths of them that I realised I had taken the rest of the group with me, but the benefit was that next on my wheel was Daniel. This turn of chasing had pushed me into the red with my heart rate maxing out. It was at this point that I didn’t know how much longer I would last but I managed to slot back into the middle of the group and take off a few beats from my HR and recover somewhat.

 
For the remaining laps there were two places on the course that the strong guys tried to unload as many riders as possible – along Perry Lakes Drive and as we came out of the first turn over a speedbump. It was all about positioning yourself in the front half and holding. There was plenty of argie-bargie and elbows rubbing along with the usual ‘words of encouragement’ between riders but fortunately no one went down. I was relieved and nervous when the bell rang for the final lap – relieved as it was the final time I had to get around this loop with my ring hanging out, but nervous cause I knew the pace would increase once again. Daniel had pulled up next to me just before the final lap and asked how I was doing – he looked as though he had a bit left in him.

 
The final lap I was just hanging on and was out of gas. I managed to hang on to the front 8-10 riders along the final stretch to the finish but didn’t have the big kick in the sprint to match it up front. Daniel got himself into a great position and managed to hang on for 3rd…great to see SPR on the podium.

 
I really enjoyed the race and it was pretty much as I expected it would be – very fast with no let up at any point. I’m looking forward to doing some more criteriums. For those of you that are into details, the total km’s raced were 18.75km with an average of 39km/hr…my average HR was 176 bpm (85% of max) with a max of 195 bpm…literally my max!!

I now have even more respect for the elite guys who raced for 50 min + 3 laps at higher speeds.