Jodie's 2009 Benalla Tour Report
The Benalla Tour is a great 3 day - 4 stage tour held in Benalla by the Hume Vets club over the Queens Birthday long weekend in June. This is the second time I have done this tour. This time I was on my own as David was in the Northern Territory supporting another ride. David is not only my coach, but also biggest supporter and my mechanic. With David not being there I had to be more self sufficient than I normally am. I almost decided not to attend, but on talking to another competitor (Liz) who travels on her own, I decided that I would at least know someone.
Stage 1 – 56 km road race. The division I was in was all women except for about 3 men. Once we got started I was feeling good. The group stayed together and worked together. There was a KOM and Intermediate Sprint during the race. I challenged for both and surprised myself by winning them both. I also came second in the final sprint. I was kicking myself afterwards as I thought I had it won and eased off just a fraction before the line and was beaten by an ‘old’ pro (sorry Jack).
Stage 2 – 21km ITT. My aim in this was to go as hard as I could. Not to save anything for the stage later in the afternoon. I started on the line feeling good and was the first in my division to start, so I had all guys in front of me and they were a division higher. I rode the best ITT I think I had ever done. I passed 3 or 4 guys and ended up with the fastest time in my division and was faster then everyone in the division higher – I was wrapped. My time was marginally better than a lady by the name of Liz I have great respect for. Even though she is a little bit older than me, she has been someone I have been trying to chase down for a little while.
Stage 3 – 50km road race. I well I had a nap between stage 2 and 3 and a slight blessing in disguise is there was a big storm outside and a thunderclap woke me up with 30 minutes until stage 3! On rushing to the start line with no warm up I thought they must be joking – I wanted the stage to be cancelled so I could go back to bed. Anyway no such luck and we roll off, and Liz gets a puncture about 5 metres into the stage. It was rather a flat stage and no real spot to split the field so the bunch stayed together. There were more KOM and Intermediate Sprints points up for grabs. Again I got maximum for both. I think the ITT win gave me so much confidence as I also took the stage win. I quickly retreated back to my cabin, heater on and the rain was coming down. I called David wanting to pack it in and head home. If I had not been leading the tour I might have done so.
Stage 4 – 52km road race and hilly! In this stage I had decided to attack on the hill. I didn’t really have much to lose and wanted to try and assist another lady. It also gave me the KOM points to win the KOM medallion. Our second attack worked, we had another rider with us and were away – except the other rider was not rolling through. Her teammate was second in the sprint points and another was second in the tour. I got a bit of a hunger flat. Once I got some Gu into me I got back on just in time to get stopped by a traffic marshal, which also gave the rest of the group an opportunity to rejoin. We were all together coming to the last Intermediate Sprint. I didn’t quite get it but took a second which was enough to win the sprint medallion. I was also beaten on the line in the final sprint.
Overall I had a very successful tour. I won my division, won 2 of 4 stages and second in the other 2 stages. I won all KOM points and won 2 of 3 intermediate sprints and second in the other. I hope to be back next year, although I am sure I will be up a division. Hopefully David will be with me and the rain is elsewhere.
my attack on the first climb on the final stage (Stage 4). NB the blue cover on the helmet is the division colour identifier.
