We flew to the 'Bart on Thursday morning, amongst flat-brimmed DH'ers, our friend and hiker Helen (it's random who you run into in airports!), and fellow XC'er Willet.
The course is located close to Hobart city in the town of Glenorchy, and in a nutshell is pretty much; climb, climb, climb, descend, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, descend, descend, repeat. The course was shortened somewhat from last year, cutting out the only flat bit, meaning drinking was going to prove difficult.
After Helen and I undertook the 'airport yoghurt challenge' (she won, but I guess it's a good thing considering the climbing that lay ahead!), we all boarded what was to be the most traumatic flight I have been on in a long time. We had two single mothers and four children under four in the row in front. Need I say more?
We arrived in Hobart—I love Hobart—and Aido had a brief trip to the doc for his ear issues (Aido says 'WHAT?' I say, 'You're turning into your mother'), and the we rode the course.
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| Pre-race coffee and chillax, with Mt Wellington behind. |
The lap featured over 200m vertical climbing, which meant that with a five lap race it was a bit of a climbers' course.
We picked up number three of the Cyclinic race team, Glenny, and had a cruisy eve, sharing accomodation with the guys and girl of the Merida Flight Centre team.
The next day we rode the course again, I practiced some descents and chilled out. With a broken cage spitting out bottles like a camel, I ventured into town to pick up a new cage. Little did I know...
The Race
I was nervous before the race, but I think a bit of that is healthy. After having a good race three weeks ago, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to replicate that again. The weather was changeable, but at 8am during warm up the overwhelming factor was coldness.
The start hurt. After waiting in the cold for 15minutes to be called up, the start—on a long hill fireroad—was initially slow...then took off with speed. Jeepers, my legs were in shock!
I managed about fifth into the singletrack, where it all slowed down a bit and a girls with bike issues was getting in the way.
My dodgy cornering skills meant a gap opened between me and the leaders on the first D, but was quickly back on again by the first switchbacks of the main climb...and this is pretty much how the race went!
The first lap felt super conservative, trackstanding in a line of about six of us to get around the switchbacks, I was like 'shit, this is slow, this is GOOD, I have so much more in me!', and we rode together up the main climb. The girl with bike issues was once again in front of me and was havving a huge struggle, but wouldn't yield. very annoying, as I lost contact with the group for the main descent on the first lap.
Never mind! By the time I hit the second lap I could see Katherine O'Shea and Jodie Willet by the feedzone, and was riding behind Jodie up the climb, and she would pull away a bit on the D's. This happened every lap: she would put some seconds into me on the descents and I would catch up on the climb, the last few laps I was tiring, as it took longer to catch up the climb and on the last one I didn't make contact.In the first laps, my grand plan in the midst of the race was to ride up to Jodie and maintain her wheel every climb—no biggie if she pulled away on the descent—and wait until the final lap and kill myself up the climb, hoping to get a gap and finish ahead.
However, other things got in the way. Namely, food and water! The laps were about 20-minutes. Each lap I took a feed—a half-full bottle. Each feed I came back with no bottle! Yes that's right, four bottles from four feeds were pinged out. The new cage I had bought was as bad (or worse) than my old broken one. On the descents my bottles pinged out like missiles, and drinking up the climb it was awkward to get them back in, little buggers!
While no-one could drink that much on this course, by my last lap, when I had probably had half a bottle in me in total throughout the race, I started to feel the effects and was a little dizzy (though strangely I still didn't feel 'in the red'). I dropped the bottle and knew I had to pick it up and actually get some liquids in, and watched Jodie ride off up the climb while I lost precious seconds. But who knows how many I would have lost if I hadn't had that coke mixture? Probably more if I was making silly mistakes because I was further dehydrated.
The last lap was the only one where I wasn't on Willet's wheel up the main climb. Towards the top, I eyeballed her maybe 50-metres up the track on the slow, rocky climb, but was pretty powerless at that stage. My final descent was just surviving bouncing off things. While not particularly muscularly fatigued, I was well aware of being super dehydrated! I came into the finish down the awesome fun berms with minimal pedalling, aware that I had noone behind me. Sixth over the line, fifth elite women and 3mins behind Ro, the deserving winner (who had duked it out with series leader, Jenni King for the win!).
A very slow last few berms...maybe if I knew Aido was video-ing
I would have put some more effort in!
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| Row Fry riding to a sneaky win. |
Super stoked to have a good ride, and well aware that my main weakness is cornering on descents, I know where to put my time on the MTB into to get a better result at the next round. The nice thing was being able to ride with the 'fast girls' without feeling like I was killing myself every lap. My goal of drinking well throughout the race was quickly thrown out the window, but there's always next race!\
Sweet pea had an awesome race, with pinner Jongewaard and Lachie Norris riding super strong out the front for most of the race—Jongewaards fastest lap (and fastest lap of the weekend!) was his lap five...of seven! Madness. Aido and PVDP tousled for the final two laps, with PVDP using the power of the femur to come out about 10secs ahead. However, Aido now has the series leader jersey and plate after his awesome ride at the You Yangs.
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| Aido in the final laps with PVDP hot on his heels. Nice wheels! |
Post-Race
I feel pretty lucky that we get to ride around Australia and experience different places, even if it is super expensive! I love Hobart and would happily live there if the temperature was a steady ten-degrees higher that is is in reality!
We had some great coffee, and went out for pizza at Cargo at Salamanca Place with AJ, JK, Glenn and Jo (of Trailmix fame). It was so good that I inhaled four pieces if this pizza in a blink of an eye! Either that or I was super hungry.
We shared some wine, and slept really well (although by all accounts, it was a noisy night in our room as we had the red-wine snore on!). The next day we bypassed short course ('vomit racing') for coffee and brekky out, and drove around Bellerive. Very nice! Even caught a rainbow in front of Mt Wellington!
All in all, a great weekend away...but do I really have to go to work now?