State Masters Time Trial and Road Race Championship

This past Saturday was the Victorian Masters Time Trial championship held on a hilly course in Harcourt just outside of Castlemaine, Vic. It was a very tough course that I have to confess exposed my weakness and served as a humbling learning experience. As I train and race with a set of Quarq power cranks which I can quickly change between my TT bike and road bike, I am continually surprised at the different power I can sustain on the TT bike. The average power I can produce on the TT bike is 30-50 watts less than what I can produce on my road bike for the same length of effort. I’ve had the TT bike for 6 months now and I think it’s time to have my setup re-accessed. I know only time and patience will see those power numbers improved. Full credit to big John Cain who won the event by over half a minute to his nearest rival and at over 3 minutes adrift I don’t think I’ll be worrying John in the foreseeable future.

Harry warming up in the Kurt Road Machine pre ITT

The road race was held the following morning. After my poor time trial I decided to drive the road race circuit to have a look at the critical climb of the day. On paper it may not seem like much of a climb, it rose a total of just under 150m over 4.5km making it a little over 3%. However, there were two sharp sections, the 1st at 8% and the 2nd at over 10%. I knew if the group was still together the final selection would come on this climb. My plan was to try to get away with a small group before this hill. I also knew that any group not containing former Olympian (and eventual race winner) Steve Fairless would have very little chance of success. On three different occasions I managed to be up the road with Fairless and a couple others on the flatter parts of the course, but the group was too attentive and nothing ever eventuated. It would seem the hill was going to make the selection. With about 25k to go I settled into the group to conserve energy in anticipation of the final climb.

From a power perspective the bottom section suited me fine. I was at just over 300 watts and comfortable. We hit the the first steep section which had me at 450 watts for just over a minute. The pressure was on and I could tell wheels were being dropped behind me. We leveled off and were now back to just over 300 watts. The second steep section came too quickly and was asking me to hold 450 for another minute which I couldn’t quite do. By the time I crested the hill a group of 7 were clear at about 10 seconds. Unfortunately, by the time I got together with a few other stragglers the leaders had about a 20 second advantage. For the next 12k’s our small group averaged 44km/h and finished just 5sec from the leading 7.

Congratulations to Roy Clarke who took silver on the day. Roy is coming good after a fall a few weeks ago at the Scott People’s race.