Tag Archives: peter clark memorial

peter clark classic – race pack

attached below is the race pack for those doing the peter clark classic.

it shows which of the spr riders will be competing in the different divisions and it looks like almost half of the ‘c’ grade men’s race will be wearing green.  the race times, course distance, map and directions to get there are all included.  we will have the spr tent set up so there will be a meeting point and somewhere for any spectators to sit while we are racing.  refreshments will be on hand for after the event for any south perth riders.

spr race pack – peter clark classic

peter clark classic – aborted attempt

race (kind of) report by peter.

 

here is my tale of woe, and it really started back on the monday before the race.

monday night 8 – 10ish : ben very unsettled and whinging in his sleep.

tuesday morning 12:00am : ben comes in covered in spew.

tuesday morning 01: 00am : ben comes in covered in spew.

tuesday morning 02: 00am : ben comes in covered in spew.

tuesday morning 03: 00am : ben comes in covered in spew.

tuesday morning 05:00am : reset the alarm so i miss my bike ride.

wednesday morning 05:00am : do vicky’s kings park ride.

thursday morning 05:00am : get to do our group ride and manage to hang on till the end for a change.

thursday evening : kate starts complaining of a sore throat.

saturday arvo : i start to get a sore throat.

saturday night :  bad night sleep, can’t swallow properly and starting to feel like crap.

sunday morning 06:00am : in denial.  will start the race and see how i go.

sunday morning 08:00am : register and see start list for “b” grade has 60 riders.  haven’t seen the course, but a draft from 60 riders should mean that i can hang on for a while.

sunday morning 09:00am : a bunch of other spr riders arrive – brendan doing “a” grade, ben, stu and myself doing “b”, james and bruce doing “c” with brett, lisa and lorraine doing women’s “a” with the fleet girls (holly, bec & anna) and nicole doing women’s “b”.

sunday morning 09:35am : race starts.  sitting right at the back.  cannot see the front.  road too skinny so can’t move forward either.  complete first lap, thinking it’s not too bad.

sunday morning 09:50am : doing second lap.  keep falling off the back on the corners.  need to sprint to catch back up.  left heart rate strap at home so i can’t see that my heart is probably maxing out.  guy actually pushes me so that i can keep holding a wheel.

sunday morning 10:05am : just holding on out of corners 1 & 2.  drop off on corner 3 and even with the assist of the tailwind, can’t keep up.  throat hell dry and it hurts to swallow water.  sit up and call it a day.  i’m not the first to drop off either.  stu comes past as he had been spat out earlier and asked if i was continuing of pulling pin.  enough for me for the day.

sunday morning 10:15am : hand my race number back in, get changed and watch the rest of the day with ronny, jerry, steve, chevaun & jody. 

sunday morning 11:00 onwards : brendan hangs on with the main group in “a” grade.  “b” grade has a breakaway that stays away but ben manages to stay out of trouble in the crash on the last corner to finish with the group. stu got his money worth by completing the required laps mostly by himself. bruce sprints for 4th in “c” grade after james spent a lot of time working at the front.  lorraine finishes in the group for women’s “a” grade after a breakaway stays away.  lisa had a mistimed attack and paid the price by getting dropped, but finished all the same.  nicole finished on the podium in third in women’s “b” grade.

lorriane did provide brownies which made the pain go away momentarily.  we have a few races in the calender coming up and we would like to see a few more people out there giving it a go.  for those that are relatively new to racing, there is often a men’s “c” grade or women’s “b” grade that would be a good start.  if you can hold a wheel on the saturday rides, then you should be right in these races.

the online membership is STILL not up and running  even though cycling wa have been hassling cycling aust on a daily basis.  they obviously don’t want our money.  if you are thinking of racing or need some more kit or are new to the group and want to feel a part of it, have a look at the kit page on the website and send an email through.  once we reach the minimum for a piece of kit we will do an order for that piece.  it will probably be jerseys first.

 

footnote –

monday & tuesday : have time off work because i am still sick.

sunday 13th april – peter clark memorial part 02

peter clark memorial support race
race report by peter

so after tackling the tour de perth last week i thought that i really needed more practice in the hills and was going to skip this race. after a bit of e-mail banter, chris and bruce said that they were in as chris claimed that it was a flat circuit. i had a think about it and decided that i needed race km’s in my legs rather than just hills, so even though i really enjoy the sunday hills ride, i needed to play boy racer instead. there were a lot of excuses flying around team p0rn0 and i finally had enough and said that this will be an event that we will be doing, so make sure your excuses are good. from that we had five starters out a possible eleven. perhaps i should explain team p0rn0.

there are quite a few teams that race in perth and quite a few bike shops that have people riding for them. we have been happy riding with the guys that we ride with and therefore decided to form our own team and race together. an initial discussion on team kit and sponsors, threw up the potential to be sponsored by a company such as adultshop.com and therefore we nick-named ourselves “team p0rn0”. most of the regulars from saturday and sunday have been involved and the new jersey design is what we will be racing under once we get it made.

so come race day, bruce, chris, ryan, stu and i were all registered and ready to play. jerry potentially was going to turn up on the day after talking to the race organisers, but an early morning text from him claiming a late night involving wine paid heed to that. other excuses ranged from being in france to no excuse what so ever, just a big blouse.

so the race was being held out in gnangara which was well to the north and unknown territory for this southerner. i checked google maps and found the start line and course. i printed out a map and headed up the freeway for an early morning cruise. unfortunately, google maps was not exactly accurate and tried to make me take a road that doesn’t exist yet. luckily i had the backup ubd on hand to guide my path. i have no idea of anywhere that far north so i could have been driving around for hours otherwise.

anyway, i collected my race number and noticed that our field had 62 riders. pretty big pack for not so big roads. i thought that it would make positioning interesting if you wanted to make a move. ryan, chris, bruce and myself took a quick lap around the course, for three main reasons. 1. chris said that there was a hill in it so we wanted to see how big. 2. there was an hour till our start time so we needed to kill some time. 3. we all needed to find a secluded part of the course to take a pee as the portable toilet had not turned up yet. so after chris claiming that it was a flat course, and the main reason that he was doing it, it turns out that there were a number of hills that would cause some concern when tackled at pace. as chris said, i did get the bike trainer out to do some warm-up. after watching all the open divisions do it last week at the tour de perth, i guessed that ther must be something in it. also it takes about 35km for my hamstrings to even attempt to feel normal, so if there was a surge before then, there was a good chance i would be left behind.

there were nine divisions racing today and we took off after the open men with a lot of juniors already on the circuit. with quite a big pack you received a good draft at the back but at the expense of the yo-yo effect that the constant speed changes cause down the line. the first half of the circuit doesn’t really have any flat ground and there were little accelerations on the small climbs and out of the corners that made you keep alert. we had eight laps to complete to make up our 70kms while the open men did ten.

the main hill came after turn two and you started climbing straight out of the corner. it wasn’t long, or steep, but just enough to break people’s rhythm and make them sit after half the climb. this meant that each lap, we were up and sprinting to keep together, then sat down once we caught up halfway up the hill.

so, i took up my usual position at the back of the field with the other boys not to far away. i was surprised that ryan spent so long towards the back with us as he usually likes to be in the thick of things. the thin roads and sections of double white lines made positioning hard as you really needed to sprint around a lot of people to make it near the front. i wasn’t too worried as i was only there for experience not to make an impact.

we yo-yoed around for a couple of laps with the occasional one or two making a break but not getting very far. not sure when, but a group of around six or seven broke clear and scooted up the road. it was hard to gauge if they were support men or what as there were so many others on the road already. we were constantly overtaking single riders and small groups that had been dropped from other divisions. it seemed that each time we went over the hill we would lose a few off the back and a couple would scamper up the road. the strange thing was, that after the hill the road really flattened out and the pace was turned off and became almost pedestrian. this then allowed those dropped off the back to get back on with relative ease and those that escaped, a free run at catching the break.

on the fourth lap i was up out of the saddle as usual on the hill, but this time stayed standing and kept the power on over the top. when the rest of the pack sat to finish the hill, i basically sprinted around them and got myself a nice gap. unfortunately there was no-one else around me as i had gone from the back of the field and the next couple of guys were quite a bit up the road. the nice flat section also had the bonus of a slight head wind as well which made the chase a little bit too hard. by the time i caught them i was pretty much spent and could only manage one turn at the front. i thought about it and decided that i probably didn’t have another four laps at this pace so let the other three guys go. i looked back and saw how far the field was behind, so knew i didn’t have to wait long. i really only went off the front to see what was inside of me. should i have saved it for the end??? maybe, but i also wanted to know if i could escape during a race.

i past the open women’s section just before the finish line and continued to rol down the other side of the hill. a guy past by and i thought that he pack was about to swallow me up. next thing i know there is a hand on my back and another guy is trying to push me in front of himself so i can work for him. i sat up and said that i was waiting. giving him the benefit of the doubt that he probably could hear me in the wind, he pushed me again. i gave him the flick of the elbow and looked back at him saying that he can do it himself, i was waiting. so off he went. the pack was so close by then, that by the time i exited the first corner, they were all over me. luckily, as i had rested sufficiently, i could easily pace back up and not just be spat out the back.

the last few laps saw ryan and a few others doing a lot of time on the front trying to pull back the break. by about lap six, i was around mid pack with chris and we were discussing ryan’s tactics for expending all his energy before the finish. we thought that he would be the great hope for us especially with an uphill finish, but were concerned that he was going to be out of gas by the end. if we were smarter, we could have used him to pull back the break, and then one of us positioned ourselves for the sprint. it was not to be and we basically did the race as a bunch of individuals.

the last couple of laps and the pace and distance were starting to take there toll. a guy two bikes in front of me connected with someone when the shoulder disappeared on the edge of the road. he was so close to coming off that i

sunday 13th april – peter clark memorial part 01

peter clark memorial
race report by chriswith much cajoling several of us had agreed to enter this race, our loose “team” went in with good intentions. things weren’t looking to great; with bruce’s recent form not really up to much due to the little annabelle, peter complaining of flu symptoms, stuart thinking the course wouldn’t suit him and my heavy legs and a sleepless night, ryan was never really going to get much support from us lot. anyway with a nice field of 65 riders there was going to be plenty of places for the rest of us to hide.

so my aim was to complete the race with the bunch and if at all possible give ryan a hand for the finish. i completed the race but was of no real help to ryan unfortunately.

peter was far too professional, warming up on his rollers. i like most of the others would rely on the tried and proven method of using the first 10-15km or so to warm up. my experience in perth has shown me that typically the bunch takes the first lap reasonably steadily and then the fun begins.

things went according to the script and unfortunately for me this usually means i suffer from about a third of the way into the race until the continued surging abates. today it was impressive to see the bunch strung out as we chased breaks, 65 guys hammering along at 50km/h stretched over 100metres.
anyway my legs came good after about the fourth lap when peter made an attack to get onto the back of a couple of guys. he didn’t stay there for long rejoining the bunch a little while later. i maintained my position in the rear of the bunch and figured i’d see how things went on the last couple of laps.

the work done on the front, including a fair portion by our own pool boy, brought the break back. i had already told him don’t go near the front and to save himself for the sprint but i guess he wanted to do a bit of work before we got to that point. after several attempts to get around the bunch but getting foiled each time by the pace of the bunch or the double white lines, i gave up.

i was expecting the pace to pick up on the last lap, particularly over the last climb at the south of the circuit. i prepared my self for one last push with the aim of getting closer to the front of the bunch. mission accomplished i settled in to hear guys crying out that some guy was going to stay away.

at this stage with one corner to go and an uphill sprint finish i didn’t think my position or legs would allow me to accomplish anything flash. as usual though

there were the usual bunch of guys who thought they had something but didn’t have anything. so the last 200m were littered with guys rolling for the line. i still had some gas in the tank and like peter had to find a path to the line. i was pretty happy that i had managed to look after myself and have the legs for the sprint. a quick head count of riders in front of me over the line had me in the top 15. no money, but i hadn’t expected to finish.

whilst peter got back on the rollers to spin his legs out i shot the shit with michael and bruce whilst we all enjoyed a coke and a sausage in a bun.
a great event put on by the ndcc and lets hope the numbers continue to improve.

next week, the b grade trophy race.