Victorian Club Team Time Trial Championships 24 July 2011
This year the Victorian Club Team Time Trial rolled around with a couple of Cycling-Inform team members not able to compete, with our main diesel engine Andrew Weightman recovering with a broken scapula after a crash, and David Sturt having just been on a family holiday to Western Australia to do some secret training (without a bike). Andrew had to be content with following us in the car for this one, could tell he would have much rather been out on the bike!
Fortunately Roy Clarke volunteered for 50km of hell, teaming up with Harry Hanley, Brendan Rowbotham and Danny Kah.
CCCC/Cycling-Inform team - photo published with approval from http://leannecole.com.au/
Ballarat didn’t disappoint with a cold 6 degree day and rain on the drive there - setting the scene for an epic ride. However surprise, surprise by start time the clouds dispersed, the sun came out and it warmed up to about 8 degrees .As we turned up for the warm-up Mal had heard that two of the TFM Celtic guys had misread the start time and weren’t going to make the start – so much for being connected via twitter!! And no we didn’t pay them non-appearance money!! With some re-arranging of teams John Cain and Mick Day got to ride, with on paper three equal teams representing Caulfield Carnegie.
After a good warm-up, we’re on the start line and ready to go. With a tail wind out and head wind back the order of the day was not to go too hard on the way out, stay together and save some bickies for the head wind slog on the way back. Out from the start we settle into a good rhythm straight away, flying along with a nice tail wind. We keep the pressure on the pedals pretty constant over the undulations, and all is going well at this stage. Until we hit the big descent. I’m on the front down the hill and pedalling hard because I know the others will be having an easy pedal, or free-wheeling behind me. There’s some shouts back there that I can’t hear due to the wind and TT helmet, but I keep pushing, until spinning out my biggest gear. I look back after reaching the bottom, and gaps have formed – what’s going on – they all should have been rolling past me on the downhills?? Turns out Brendan got a serious case of speed wobbles on the descent, so he backed off my wheel, and went for the handlebars. Harry & Roy split to get away because it looked really scary. I had 77kph max speed there and that’s not fun in Brendan’s position!!
So we settled back into the TTT, with the kms clicking by. On a couple of hills Harry is red-lining because there is virtually no benefit in sitting on up the hills with a tail wind, but he recovers quickly and continues sharing the workload. Harry was a bit off his usual pace due to picking up a stomach bug a couple of days before. Looking at the riders coming back the other way I can tell it is going to be hard on the way back, we are hitting 56kph along some stretches with the tail wind.
Then we can see the turn-around point, and execute a textbook TTT turn without even having practiced together. Roy accelerates out of the turn but feels his back go ‘click’ which is not good news. Up to speed again, and the CCCC team with Mal & Ciaran are not far behind, seemingly less than the 1 minute head start we had. We can only hope they have overcooked it on the way down. A few kms later Harry is in trouble, the intervals into the head wind on the front are at a higher peak than with the tail wind, and each one is taking its toll, especially the hills. But he keeps coming through until there is nothing left, and then we have to say bye bye and continue on with three.
With the reduced rest we settle into longer turns on the front, looking after each other on the uphills. Roy is starting to redline too, and its still a long way to the finish. I’m having a good day and stomping into the headwind, long hard turns, and just enough to recover behind. Brendan is riding well too, as we grind out those last few kms.
Roy has been in the box now for ages, and he’s giving everything to stay with us. We all are actually, its a matter of staying on the front for as long as you can hold the speed. The hills keep coming at us, are we ever going to see the finish?? Finally we enter the town limits of Buninyong and then it’s all over.
As we wait for the other teams to come in, time gaps look close.
Result – CCCC TFM Celtic 1st , CCCC Cycling-Inform 2nd at 12 secs (1hr 14min 28sec average 40.3kph), and CCCC #2 3rd at 29 secs
Wow – very close racing over 50kms between the three strong CCCC teams. The funny thing about TTing is that you always think afterwards that you could have gone harder to make up lost time – no matter how fast you went! Well done to the TFM Celtic guys again, maybe next year!! And a big thank you to Mal Sawford and helpers from the CCCC club.
