De Bortoli Tour 17-18 July, D Grade.
My first real road racing experience of any kind, apart from a handful of crits with Eastern Vets; picked a tough one. Thanks to Craig for regular provision of reassurance prior to / during the event.
Stage 1 Sat am. 72km from Yarra Glen including 1 major climb (Toolangi via Chum Creek Rd) and 2 laps of the aptly named “Death Valley”. Weather: cold with gusty, biting southerly wind. 50-odd starters
Stayed with bunch to the foot of the long climb, including getting suckered into a short stint on the front chasing down an early escape. “Reverse attacked” the leading group of 20-odd in the 1st km of the main climb (~9km @ 4%) as the HR soared well into the red. Climbed tempo from there, passing a few later reverse attackers. Fairly slow descent into a strong headwind which meant pedalling all the way down. Picked up late in the descent by 5 big guys who’d eat me for breakfast in a crit. Rolled turns with them for about 10km to Death Valley (Old Healesville Rd). Grovelled up a horrible berg (1km @ 9+%) to the KOM where they weren’t awarding points for 20th D-grader over the top. Rolled a few more turns with the breakfast-eaters before encountering another horrible berg. Hit by buffeting cross / headwinds over top of said berg, causing further reverse attack. Waved farewell to the breakfast-eaters and gritted teeth back into Yarra Glen, to start second shorter lap of Death Valley. Breakfast-eaters still visible about 1km ahead. Said hi to Virginia as I passed her just out of Yarra Glen, then about 1km later got walloped by “l’homme a marteau” (man with the hammer = frogspeak for hunger flat) together with more horrible cross / headwinds. Horrible carbo gel packs having no obvious impact except for making gloves and jersey very sticky. Crawled another 8km to start of Death Valley being passed by no-one which would have amazed me if I had felt alive enough to be amazed. Homme a marteau obviously travailling overtime. By now would have happily tried any pills, syringes etc hastily discarded by Aussie Olympic team hopefuls along side of road. Wondered if I’d be able to walk up horrible KOM berg, riding all the way seemed clearly out of the question, but spirits lifted by sight of dropped A/B graders crawling past on the climb not much faster than my 8 kph. Last gel and or serious endorphins must have kicked in at this point since final horrible berg and winds didn’t seem as bad as feared and no- one else in D-grade passed. Still, lost 10 mins to breakfast-eaters in last 22km lap giving them time for lunch and the leaders a start on dinner before my arrival at Yarra Glen.
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Stage 2 Sat pm. 18km ITT Steels Creek, gently rolling road, f(*&ing gusty wind
Start. Hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, …. - get the general idea?. Finish
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Stage 3 Sun am. 84km from Healesville including 2 loops over Pantons Gap (~ 8km @ 5%) – or so I thought.
Horrified to learn from Craig on arrival that course involved 3 loops over the climb. Total of nearly 2000m climbing when other lumps added in. Clearly plenty of other D-Graders had realised this already, because they hadn’t turned up. About 35 starters.
Ecstatic to hear organisers announce at start line that D grade course reduced to 56km / 2 loops. Funny how getting back what you thought you always had can make you wildly happy. Must remember to try this with the kids sometime.
Stayed with bunch to the foot of the 1st long climb, cleverly avoided getting suckered into any stints on the front chasing down escapes. “Reverse attacked” the leading group of 20-odd in the 1st km of the main climb (sound familiar? – sure felt it). Plugged away at the climb which ends with ~3km of dirt road, joined by Craig halfway up. Minor chaos near top where a B grader climbing on the wrong side of the road had earlier headbutted a (hopefully) slowly descending car. Climb finishes with one of those beautiful, gently easing gradients where for a km or so you get to put it in the big ring and feel like a superstar (if there’s no one around to pass you). Bombed – well, maybe grenaded – the descent towards Healesville led by Craig and worked turns with him all the way round to foot of main climb again. “I’m stuffed” he duly announced – “No, I’m the one who’s stuffed, I thought you were going well” – “I thought you were, I was just hanging on” etc etc etc. Saved breath, gritted teeth and suffered up second climb – three laps would have been impossible, let alone A grade’s four. Again joined by Craig halfway up after rudely dropping him earlier. Actually passed someone!!!! More big ring superstar stuff over the top and another fast descent with Craig leading until a Healesville local named Cheryl (according to her rego plate) pulled out from driveway as we approached 100m away at 60+ kph. Fortunately laws of physics still on our side and we followed Cheryl as she meandered slowly down the road (hard to drive properly in moccasins?). Rolled over finish line with Craig and felt hugely satisfied to have survived a pretty intense introduction to open stage racing.
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Vital statistics: finished midway in the field (including the DNSs and DNFs) thirty-something mins down on winner. Average HR for every stage ~170. Ouch!
