Tour de Mike

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby foo on patrol » Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:18 am

Bugger! Always a bit disconcerting when you have a front wheel spoke pop Mike. :wink:

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:39 am

ITT Report- Calga 2/6/13

Phoned my fellow club member Lacey at 6am and discussed the weather. We decided to proceed with the view that we could pull the pin when we were there. After all, we have done road races in worse weather.

We arrive and guess what... no rain, so its on. We register. Riders are sent out one minute apart.
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Head off for a quick warmup and its time to line up
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Brownie helps me into the starting booth
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3 seconds to go
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Brownie lets go and I'm off
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I'm thinking, Ken Dinnerval, 16 spin classes and my legs aren't even warm. What am I doing???
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I look down at my computer and my speed has stopped working, dam, that ain't gunna help. Probably more important than speed is distance, which I don't have. I do have heart rate and cadence, so not all is lost. So I decide to try to control this ride using my heart rate, targeting 170bpm

Meanwhile Lacey has missed his slot and Crafty is helping to slip into something more comfortable [new number]. We all know how Crafty likes to play dress-up.
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And he's ready to go
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Way out
Not knowing my speed and distance is a nuisance, in particular my distance. Then possibly about 1/2 way on the way out, I spot the rider in front of me, the visual gives me someone to work at. I seem to hold steady to him for the way out. But just before the half way turnaround the rider behind me overtakes me and is about 10mtrs ahead of me as we chuck the u'turn.

Way back
The overtaking rider clears off and pulls out a sizable distance. Then I find myself reeling a rider in, I'm assuming its the rider who left 1 minute in front of me, but when I'm real close, I see its the rider who overtook me and cleared off. I'm almost on him and he kicks again, disappearing into the distance. I can't see anyone and I'm focusing on my stablising my heart rate, with partial success.

Lacey goes by in the opposite direction and I'm thinking "he's a long way behind" I didn't have a distance reading so I don't know exactly how much and I didn't know about his start time changing.

I close in on Blood hill and there's riders everywhere. On the hill I think I overtook 5 riders, excluding the one stopped at the side, possibly with a mechanical. The 5 riders consist of the one who started behind me, one minute ahead, 2 minutes ahead, 4 minutes ahead and 5 minutes ahead. You can tell by the numbers, that's your start time

the 2 guys 1 minute behind/ahead of me catch me, I know we are closing in on the finish, while the speed reading has kicked in, I don't know the distance (thanks computer). The 3 of duel briefly and I leave both of them behind, but with a K to go the guy from behind comes up beside and say "nearly there" as we can see the finish tent. He pulls about 2 bike lengths on me and its over.
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Afterwards
I stopped my computer, I might as well analyse my heart rate data I think. After a bit of a cooldown, I go back to the tent to check with Crafty as to my time and its 39m52s. Not my fastest time, but a good learning experience, I have an idea of what I did well and where there's more potential. And that's the thing about ITT's, you need to do a few to learn, this was my 6th, previously I did Calga twice in 2011, the NSW 2011 ITT champs (bronze medal) and the Australian ITT champs in 2011 and 2012.

We packed up and drove off, it started to drizzle as we left. We had avoided the rain. We went to Pie in the Sky and had coffee and ate... you guessed it, while the bikes sat out in the drizzle.
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While we were there Steven Berveling (SCC) turned up, he's a time trailist specialist who had a nasty crash in Centennial Park earlier this year. We discussed times and conditions and he feels that the colder heavy water laden air would of slowed our times, which made me feel better about missing my PB by 39 seconds.
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Then the heavens opened up big time
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If your feeling bored, the rest of the photos are here

Garmin data is a bit screwed, but Strava seems to have cleaned it up a bit. Check out also the hidden sections on Strava
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Thu Jun 06, 2013 8:53 pm

Strawberger and I have entered Wagga Wagga. A race I've never done

http://www.nsw.cycling.org.au/cy_nsw/ra ... art%20List
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:32 pm

Bike stuff gets a tidy
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jun 16, 2013 3:57 pm

Driving back from the racing in Wagga Wagga (I'll post soon), we are discussing the NSW Club Team Time Trail Championshps. So I look up the results of this months ATTA individual time trial and I'm surprised to see that I came 7th out of 37 entrants. Bit surprised by that

http://www.atta.asn.au/db/005.php?page= ... id=nsw6_13

And no I haven't defected to St George :)
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jun 23, 2013 6:01 pm

Saturday June 15th 2013 - Wagga Wagga road race.

Wagga Wagga divides the road race into two races. A) being something like 118k and B) being something like 88k off memory. I was placed in B in the bunch in front of block, 5 minutes in front of Scratch. Lined up with the usual array of riders of ages and sizes I felt confident on the line.
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But the pace was real hot and I was dropped 6k into the race. Riders had started to pop from the 3k mark. That left me by myself for a little while.
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However we soon formed a bunch of 4 and worked together until block caught us were we jumped on, only to be dropped say 5k later. No sooner had this happened and scratch came by. I was feeling pretty wasted and didn't try to jump on scratch. Not too far further and I caught the riders who I had formed a small bunch with earlier and our bunch reformed and away we went. We worked pretty well together and gathered 3 more riders over the say next 20k.
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Then riding along a straight road we saw a rider in the distance turn left into a side road. I asked myself "Is that the way or a shortcut home?" We asked each other and none of the 7 of us knew if we go straight or turn. I thought, if I get lost I don't even know the town that I started in. At the intersection we took a guess and turned left. Fortunately we saw a "cycling in progress" sign so we knew we were on the correct route. However somehow amongst the confusion our bunch broke up into ones and twos. I found myself alone again, but was in good spirits, as far as I was concerned, the race had been converted into a training ride.
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Up in front of me some of the riders from my bunch formed a bunch with some other riders of about 8 riders. I looked behind me and there was a bunch of about 15 catching me, which would of consisted of block and scratch riders dropped early. I tacked in and felt good, there were plenty of riders to share the load. And it only took a few k before we caught that bunch of 8. A great collection of riders to take us home. But going up a big hill, it broke up. I ended up with 2 other riders. We came upon a bunch of about 10 riders who were from limit or there abouts and they didn't even try to tack onto us.

With 20k to go I decided to do some time trial training and turned up the wick. At the time I was with 4 - 5 riders and none of them came with me, I went solo, caught another bunch of 4 riders and went past them, caught 2 other riders, went past + some solo riders and finished with a time 2:33, a long way behind those who were in the race for real. I compared my time with one of the riders I was with at 20k to go, who started in the same bunch as me and he had 2:33. I doubt that I was 10 minutes quicker over the last 20k, must be some sort of inaccuracy there, but I did ride well to finish up.

Data: Garmin Strava

I did suffer a significant problem with a muscle in my back, I'm not sure which one it is, but it seems to go from the spine to the left hip over/near the back of the pelvis. It was that bad when I finished that I could barely walk. At the time I didn't consider it an injury but its still not 100% better.

And they still haven't posted results, not that I'll be listed...
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Jun 30, 2013 9:13 pm

Sunday 16th June 2013 - Wagga Wagga Criterion

The field was broken into 5 grades A, B, C, D, E, F.
F grade - broke into 2 distinct bunches on the first lap, realistically there needed to be a G grade with half the riders in it. Not that the organisers would of been in a position to of done that.
E grade - see Strawburgers write up. While I needed to warm up, I did see some of this race which inlcuded Strawburger go for a break with one other rider

Then it was Myself and MJRE - D grade - 30 minutes and 2 laps of a 1.4k circuit.
There was an immediate attack on the first lap and I decided it wasn't likely to be successful, so while I sat near the front of the race, I didn't pursue it.
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I let myself roll towards the back, placing myself on the back of bunch, but not further back where there was a line of riders who were clearly struggling, sitting in single file.
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The course had 5 90deg corners and one sweeper. The corners were congested and we sprinted out of many of them. While I have achieved the high average speed (I got 41.7kph and MJRE got 42kph, perhaps MJRE started on the start line, where I included the role to the start line), I've never done it on a course where I slowed for 5 corners each 1.4k.

Thru these corners we were often 3 or 4 abreast. And it was this behaviour that came to my eventual race decision.
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It was hard to tell when the prime laps were, I simply decided to ignore them and continue to save energy for the overall race, I was doing a good job of not putting my nose in the wind and keeping away from those who were struggling.

With a few laps to go, I moved myself up to about mid field, I was feeling good fitness wise, but was not happy with the safety of the race. Around this time a number of riders had came to the same decision as myself and started ejecting themselves from the bunch, I decided to do the same and rolled to the back, I have broken too many bones in the last 4 years. I can be seen on the back in this video

So the question I have to ask myself is whether I've lost the hunger for the win, I rode the right tactic for this race, leaving plenty of energy for the finish and yet I decided not to contest a race that I would of been competitive in, or is there a limit to how many times you are willing to risk crashing. MJRE and I discussed this after the race
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby foo on patrol » Mon Jul 01, 2013 3:37 am

I would say you lack confidence Mike, not hunger as you need to have both too be competetive. :idea:

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby MREJ » Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:57 am

Hi Mike

It was a tight course, particularly the first left-hand corner, turning into a road with a raised median strip. It got very squeezy there, and there were some nervous moments. That was the corner where, with a couple of laps to go, there was some touching and a noise as we jammed through the gap, and next thing I knew, there was a rider over on the other side of the median strip. At least he was upright, rolling along looking at us, but it would have been hard to get back into contention from there.

It's a course where it really pays to be at the front. Starting at the back is no issue at some venues, but it didn't help us at Wagga.

Generally, I thought that the riders' behaviour and handling were good. That doesn't prevent accidents of course, and I can see why you might back off. Mostly I enjoy the cut and thrust of crits, but at times when I've been nervous or didn't like the feel of the race, I've eased off the pedals too.

I'm glad you mentioned about the primes. We were supposed to have two. I was wondering whether it was just me that had missed them!
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Tue Jul 16, 2013 1:06 pm

I'm a bit behind with updating this thread.

I've planned to do a couple of nights at RAW and have turned up to week 2 and week 4 so far. Friday night is in the best for me as I'm usually rooted from the weeks spin classes.

Week 2. I've put myself in div 3 and must admit I don't see a lot of difference between div 3 and div 2

First race and nothing happened in my legs when we went to sprint. Which made me think when my last rest day was and that was 3 or so weeks prior, the day before ken dinnerval. I improved as the evening went on but didn't podium.

Week 4. Despite a large number of spin classes durning the week including 2 on Friday, I was riding better and challenging for podiums. In the last race div2/3 combined I pulled a third.

I had intended to turn up on week 5 but elected to rest my injured calf.

Week 6 I won't be turning up as I've got NSW TTT the following day
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sat Jul 27, 2013 3:00 pm

Last weekend I did the NSW TTT and Nowra road race, but before I post on them a bit of background to my preparation.

Sunday 7th July Calga ATTA ITT 25k
The 4 members of our team went out and did an ITT. This was in part to practice intensity and also to assist in determining a strategy. For me it was to be a maiden voyage with a disk wheel.

The end result was a PB for me and an improved result for Mark over the last time. Paul and Simon (not strawbuger) did Calga for the first time. Simon managed to turn up without a mounting bracket for computer, so put the computer in his back pocket.

Results - http://www.atta.asn.au/db/005.php?page= ... id=nsw7_13 41 riders/teams doing 25k option.
7th Michael 0:38:48 38.7kph
16th Mark 0:41:32 36.1kph
18th Paul 0:42:15 35.5kph
22th Simon 0:44:12 33.9kph
So we were seeing a 3 tier situation, myself 2.5kph quicker, Mark & Paul similar and Simon 1.5kph slower. However there were a number of problems that Simon encountered, 2 flat tyres on the start line, resulting in him being reallocated a time slot, not having a speedo to look at meant that he was blind to how far he had traveled, fortunately he had figured that the orange witch hat was the turnaround, as there was no one there to tell him.

Post discussion at Pie in the Sky we came to the assessment that Simon was a probably about half way between Paul's time and his actual time. The 2 strategies determined at this time was to share the work load evenly on the way out, with me doing the bulk of the work on the way back, or for Simon/Me to do the bulk of the work on the way out, with Simon being dropped around mid point.

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Strava
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sat Jul 27, 2013 7:42 pm

Sunday 14th July - TTT training

With Simon needing to be in Loftus in the weekend, we selected Sutherland -> Waterfall -> Sutherland for a semi race simulation. We decided to ride out from Marrickville with our bike club (DHBC) Sunday training ride. DHBC runs 4 bunches called Fasties, Middies, C28 and C25. We decided to sit on the back of Middies, which I found really slow, guess on the rear occasion when I've ridden, I've gone Fasties and therefor wasn't use to the slower Middies. Not so much the speed difference but the bunch sizes, with Middies being a large bunch vs a much smaller Fasties bunch.

At Sutherland we stopped for a while and discussed the upcoming semi race simulation, while a couple of other bunches went past and then we were off.

At Audley turnoff we came upon SCC but fortunately were able to get past without loosing too much pace, a bit later we came upon C28 and got past using the middle lane at the red light. We worked well together and only occasionally had to call the lead rider to ease up. It seemed that we had found a good balance between performance and unity. The return trip worked even better, at high speed we just seemed to click.

Finishing at the Loftus turnoff we stopped for coffee at Sutherland. Mark had a look at his Garmin data and while it was a little hard to analyse due to stops at traffic lights, it seemed we had averaged 35kph out and 45kph back. Which seemed to put us on target.

Later on General Homes, the 3 of us (not Simon) were cutting some good pace and I was spied by the guy who lent me wheels for 2011 Australian ITT champs and he FB chatted to me later saying he was impressed with our pace.

Strava

So it seemed we were in a good position for the race next Saturday
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:01 am

NSW Clubs Team Time Trial July 20th

Opps, forgot to post the Nowra races, here's the TTT post I put on my club forum
mikesbytes wrote:Race Report

Team;
- Simon B
- Paul A
- Mark L
- Mike C

Category;
Masters 150+

In the Masters 150+ category there were 21 teams entered. We were the 6th to last team to leave.
Image
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With 30 seconds to go, the barriers blew over onto the road just in front of us. Mark was held clipped in and on a clean line, where the rest of us had to merge with each other and go around the barrier. This resulted in Mark getting away from the rest of us and we didn't get ourselves fully sorted till we had done almost a K.

Once sorted we got on with it, the wind gave the course a very different feel to last year and we made good progress, cutting thru the terrain. About 15k out Simon popped, I went back to get him and after a little he decided to drop so I rolled back to Mark and Paul and we got back into it. Caught a dropped rider from the group ahead and finally made the turnaround.

Unlike last year, turning around didn't make it automatically easier but we did a good job of cutting thru the headwind and then at about 60kph my bike developed a loud rattle, I thought my cassette had come loose and we rolled slowly into an intersection that had 2 officials. They offered me a wheel, but it had the wrong cassette. I took the wheel out and we couldn't find anything wrong with it. I guessed that the skewer had come loose, we put the wheel back in and took off.

It took about 2k to refind the rhythm and we took the downhill by the short and curly's. Just before Nowra airport a car came out of side street, it just managed to get ahead of us, not slowing us down but it went straight into a 60kph zone and we were doing 65kph. Fortunately we didn't catch it.

Around the turnaround and despite the direction we ended up in a headwind for the final bit, I struggled on the front, Lacey went past me and hit the wall, so I went back on the front, we turned left to the airport and strung across the road for the final effort to the line.
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We finished about a minute behind the team of Lindsay, Ron, Roger and Peter. Our time including my stop to inspect the rear wheel was 1h6m55s, I think we came 12th out of 21 teams. How much we lost in the stop is difficult to tell, perhaps we would of come 6th, but no way we would of got bronze, for that we needed to do 1h2m.

Strava: http://app.strava.com/activities/68378845
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:07 am

Nowra to Sassafas n Back July 21st 2013

And here's the writeup I did on the club forum for the Sunday road race
mikesbytes wrote:Congratulations to Adrian on taking 5th, totally well deserved and after a gutsy 30k solo return ride.

Well I said that with this race, either I will blow early or be there all the way. Last year racing in the rain I finished 14th, 19seconds behind the winner and 4th in the M5+ division, which they didn't have this year. Time was 2h27m40s an average of 36,5kph, which was the 90k route, same as this years 70k route but we went out further before turning around.

I was handicapped in bunch 4, 16 minutes behind limit, the hardest handicap of all DHBC riders in the race and it was pretty soon after the start that I found my bunch too hot, my heart rate was sitting on 182, I knew it wasn't sustainable and I was dropped out the back at 5k with 2 other riders.

The 3 of us worked together and we got to 15k where we got caught by the next bunch, which I lasted in for 3k.

This time I found myself solo and while every so often I caught other riders, none of them were in a position to work. Steve Cassidy (waratah's) and another rider were holding my wheel. Wind conditions were the worse I've ever encountered in a race, I recall seeing 10kph on one small hill. Then we hit the big hill and I found good rhythm, dropped the riders and kept on picking various other riders as I came upon them.

Then I got to turn around and what a relief after 22k solo into the head wind. Down the hill I hit 84.2kph, this race has given me the slowest I've ever done and the fastest I've ever done in a race.

After a couple of K I was caught by another rider from behind and the 2 of us worked together for about 25k, just before Nowra airport, where we were catching a group of 5, who upped the pace and splintered, the other rider took off dropping me.

So it was the last 5k? solo, I caught 3 of the 5 riders in that group and the finish came as a relief.

Result wise I was something like 76th on handicap and 66th fastest time, about mid field. An average speed of 31.8kph, same as Grafton to Inverall 2011. Time wise the other DHBC boys had done much better on the day, some impressive figures;
2h10m - Mark
2h12m - Adrian
2h13m - John
2h15m - me

Strava: http://app.strava.com/activities/68870766
mikesbytes wrote:Here's the vid of my start and you can see the wind in the trees. It was a lot worse up the road. Note the lack of deep dish wheels on the start line.

http://youtu.be/GWqp9P1tsQ8
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby stevecassidy » Mon Aug 05, 2013 10:05 am

Hi Mike, yeah that was a hard race, your wheel was very welcome at that point in the race but when I saw that last hill my enthusiasm left me, the wind must have been gusting over 30km/h at the top. On the big descent I got the speed wobbles which freaked me out, after surviving that I just plodded on to the end but it was hard work all the way.

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Tue Aug 06, 2013 9:27 am

Steve, I recon the wind was even stronger than that. This is the first race where I've hit 10kph while racing and 84.2kph over a rough surface with wind gusting was plain scary. Didn't hear of anyone coming off, so perhaps everyone was lucky.

I didn't realise I had dropped you and the other guy on the hill till I was 20mtrs off you, so I realised that it was solo for me from there on.
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Sep 16, 2013 11:08 am

Oh dear, I'm seriously behind with my racing blog
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Sep 16, 2013 11:18 am

Cootamundra, as posted on my club web site

24th August 2013 Cootamundra Road race - Strava Garmin
25th August 2013 Cootamundra Recovery race - Strava Garmin
mikesbytes wrote:Race report, better late than never. Lacey and I were in the same bunch Sat and Sun.

Saturday 105k handicap
We were in a bunch of about 12 riders. By 30k there was 6 of us left, 35k and we got caught by the bunch behind about 20 riders. A couple of times I was off the back and rode myself back on. 50k and Lacey and I were struggling in the fish tail off the back, which broke off, Lacey and I managed to ride across the gap back on but it took its toll on Lacey and he was gone.

Ironically the pace soften a tad a few k's later, just enough to make the difference and I was back in working with the bunch. Turning into the crosswind for the second lap, I found myself with no wind protection, so I powered up the windward side, a risky maneuver but it paid off as a gap appeared and I got myself back in the paceline.

At 85k I suffered cramps in both hamstrings when on the front of the paceline and rolled off the back, roughly to the following car, managed to fix them and rode myself back on, but it took its toll on me and I was dropped on the next hill, cruised back with Scott Mills in 2h42m for 100k.

Was awarded the combative award 8) a bit like most aggressive rider
Image

Sunday 65k handicap
Small bunch of 8 riders. We lost one rider early on and the 7 of us worked pretty good. We were on schedule to catch Limit on the climbs before the finish and were feeling like we could take this one when we got caught from behind by a huge bunch. I realised that we were in a bad position and really pumped it over the hill and then I attacked on the down hill, moving myself way up to halfway in what was a rubber band about to break but even that wasn't enough as we turned left into the cross wind the pelaton completely broke up, I rode across several gaps to make it to a small bunch of 4 that were chasing the front bunch but we didn't get back on. Then Scratch came by and I jumped on, but I was completely on the wrong side of the ride almost in the right gutter. With the comminsure beeping I us I decided it wasn't worth it and quit at 50k. Cruised back with a large bunch at a nice casual pace.

Overall I was happy with both days racing

Sunday BBQ
We decided to add a day to the trip and go skiing, so we drove to Tumut where I had booked a 2 bed cottage on a farm. Entertained the cows, before digging into a massive BBQ feast
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The place we stayed at would be great for setting up base for a cycling holiday http://www.ribbonwoodcottages.com.au/

Monday Skiing
Went skiing at Mt Selwin. Never been there before, but figured it should be OK for one days skiing. Cycling fitness translates well to Skiing, much easier than my usual assortment of spin classes. Will do it again next year, perhaps after Wagga racing
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Mar 16, 2014 12:39 pm

Thought I'd restart this thread.

2013, think I haven't reported NSW and Australian Road Racing champs
NSW ITT - finished about mid field, need to improve by about 1m20s next year, a tall order I know
NSW Crit - Felt quite competitive, finished in the group off the podium
NSW Road - went off the front several times. At the end I was off the front with 2 riders in front of me who I was planning to catch with 400mtrs to go, hopefully catch them napping. Then I cramped with 800mtrs to go. Al I could do is sit up and watch the bunch catch and go past. End result was about mid field as half were dropped.

Same courses for Aust as NSW
Aust ITT - missed my start window, opps. Despite not warming up I did about the same time as NSW, according to garmin. The M5 winner (my category) was the fasted ITT of all ages.
Aust Crit - Attacked once, missed the big attack, we ended up in groups of 2 were we needed a group of about 6 to catch the 2 ahead. finished in the bunch again. Highest ever average heart rate of 181, about 35min all up.
Aust Road - Lap 1 I was on the back on the big hill when there was an attack, I rode thru the riders who were dropping by flys, was the only rider at the rear to get back on. Got caught out on the u-turn on lap one (3 lap race), I got in with 3 quality riders but we were unsuccessful, got within about 20 meters.

2013-2014 track season. I missed all races until January for various reasons. Will post soon
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Ross
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby Ross » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:06 pm

mikesbytes wrote: Image
Is that a "proper" disc wheel or a Wheelbuilder cover? If it's a cover then am I right in asuming officials don't worry about it too much and allow you to race with it?
I have a Wheelbuilder cover on my 404 rear wheel and normally do club TTs and nobody worries about it but I'm thinking of coming up to Calga later this year to do the champs and was wondering if I need to swap the wheel for a proper disc (which I do have but would prefer to run the lighter cover if I could). Last time I raced the champs there a couple of years or so ago I was all in a lather in the weeks leading up to the event over the legality of my saddle but at the race no one looked at it or at anything else on my bike (or other people's bikes).

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby dalai47 » Sun Mar 16, 2014 9:54 pm

Ross wrote:Is that a "proper" disc wheel or a Wheelbuilder cover?
Pro Lite Padova disc wheel - not cover http://2011.pro-lite.net/?option=com_co ... id=5&id=37

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Mar 16, 2014 10:18 pm

Since that picture was taken I've got a new front wheel and I've changed the helmet.

I use the disk wheel for the track, it comes with 2 axles
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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sun Mar 16, 2014 10:24 pm

Ride Ettalong Central Coast Track Open Sat 18th January 2014

I signed up for the endurance competition, which consisted of Individual Pursuit, Points Race and Scratch Race. Also a wheel race.

Individual Pursuit 2,300mtr - 5 laps
Before leaving home I modified my TT setup to get the elbow pads lower, which I did but at the cost of having them wider. I don't know what the torso vs arms aero change did, but it was certainly more comfortable.

With the Gosford track being so big, they had 4 riders on the track at once and there seemed to be little issue with that. Took me about 2 laps to truly find my rhythm and went well to the end. A time of 3.11.66 seemed a bit slow, but so were the others, the track was slower than my other pursuits which have all been at DGV. That put me 13th outright out of 46 competitors and placed me 2nd in B grade for 3 points.

Imagend

The highlight of the day was meeting Ucihe Giovanetti. Ucihe lived in Petersham and rode for Enfield in his day. He has taken national titles and is best known for holding the Gouldburn to City old course record, which he set in 1959
Image


Wheel race qualification
I had a handicap of 170mtrs for the 3 lap race and that was the cutoff so I was on effectively scratch with Ucihe's son Andrew for the 2 3/4 laps. Andrew kicked well and got straight on, I took almost 3/4 of a lap to get on and immediately went to the outside. With one lap to go I attacked as did a number of other riders and then I found that I had seriously rooted legs, a result of almost no exercise while on holiday in NZ followed by 4 spin classes on the 2 days prior to the race. End result was I went across the line 8th about 2 bike lengths shy of qualifying.

The juniors had arrived but it was so hot that Andrew, Ucihie, Becky and I decided to go Gosford RSL, where I stayed for 2 hours in the aircon.

Points Race - 15 laps, points at 5, 10 & 15
Sprinted for the first set of points, my legs just couldn't do it, so changed strategy and went for a 2 lap breakaway for the second set of points but was reeled in, so I went again, this time with 4 laps to go and quickly built up an solid lead which I took all the way to win the last sprint. B grade had shown itself to be really even and the end result was there were 4 of us on 5 points, 2 with a win each and Andrew who took a second and a third. As I won the last one, I was awarded with first, so 5 points taking my tally to 8 points

Scratch Race - 15 laps (I think)
Going into the last even as the series leader on 8 points I was a marked man, I attacked and attacked and attacked and every time the other riders responded. End result was no placing.

but my 8 points was still enough to make me the overall winner, walking away with $100. A good start to the year.
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If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Mon Mar 17, 2014 9:51 am

2014 NSW Masters track champs

I was entered for the Individual Pursuit, Points and Scratch races. Had to withdraw due to sickness.

A week later I was scheduled for the Team Pursuit. Still sick I fronted and what a disaster, I dropped my riders, came home in 2m44s, the slowest Pursuit I've ever done, even slower than the NSW 2013 Individual Pursuit where I blew up. For the other riders it was their first experience at pursuiting. I had lent one a disk wheel and that was the only aero equipment they used, no clip on's no aero helmet. The good thing for them was that they didn't come last and they learn't a lot.

I spent the rest of the day lying on the sofa.

Next year they will come back stronger, faster
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Tour de Mike

Postby mikesbytes » Sat Mar 22, 2014 7:55 pm

Missed one, I turned up to the LACC Friday night racing at Lidcome oval one Friday as prep for the NSW champs (which I didn't do)

I put myself in B grade, but I did think about going C having done a spin class at 6.15am then another at 5.30pm prior (then drove straight to the track. Got 3rd in the scratch race. Stuffed up the derby getting myself caught at the back. 5th in the graded handicap (split into 2 groups, 5 on scratch including me and 4 in the group with about 1/2 lap handicap).

Last event was the italian pursuit. You ride a long way when a lap is about 425mtrs (BFV can correct me on the distance) and there's 15 riders a team. There was a noticeable kick in speed when John from my club was on the front. Browne was last rider in my group. The Crafty/John/Mike/Browne team lost out the other team, who were much quicker when the juniors were doing their stint up early.

Some video's



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