few photos from today’s race
national time trial championships 2013
Tag Archives: time trial
State Team Time Trial – Masters – C Team
a big thanks to fellow team mates jordan, dave and mark for doing many of my turns for me while i hung on at the back. 🙂 good effort guys!
state individual time trial champsionships – dardanup
race report by peter.
hmm. time trial. the race of truth. just you and the bike versus the road. no wheels to sit on and no last minute sprint to claim glory. i was pretty realistic though as the last time trial i did was…about this time last year at the state time trial championships. so, i knew that i would be rusty and realising that my training would not include any actual time trials, i convinced ryan to make every spin for the last 4 weeks or so, focus on doing tt efforts. then to get used to the road, the tuesday and thursday morning rides i managed to take the tt bike out and just hang off the back of the group.
now i actually have a tt bike. about 5 years (2 yrs bc – before children) ago i was doing triathlons, so managed to get a proper tt bike. these things are awesome and a must if you want to do tt’s or triathlons. the straight line power that you can put out in the right setup craps all over that of a conventional bike. they suck on hills and are twitchy on descends, but cut through the wind like a plate of baked beans.
so the state ITT was always going to be a fun affair. luckily i am in the masters division so only had to do 25kms. the open men did 39kms and the open women did the same as the masters. at least i would be able to know if i got “chicked” or not. last year, holly beat me by 1 sec. and she was the third fastest women, so i got multiple chicked.
we didn’t have a big sign up for this event. in open men there was dannyboy and a couple of new members, jonno and michael. in the open women’s we had the entire field. davina, lisa, anna and bec. unfortunately that was not enough for a championship so the masters women was combined with the open women to allow a champion to be decided. in the masters men, there was myself and paul o. on the day, michael, anna and paul o (understandably) were a no-show so we were pretty light on spr-wise. we grabbed the new smaller tent and still set it up as it gave the few of us a place to park ourselves before and after.
so, tt bike – check, skinsuit – check, tt sperm helmet – check, adequate/appropriate training – ummm fail. let’s do this. regardless, i wanted to support this event anyway and south west tend to put on well run events so i knew it would be good.
a bit of time on the trainer to warm up and soon i was slipping into my skinsuit. first time for me in a one-piece and first time with the sperm helmet too. nothing like trying out your new stuff at your biggest event. snug fit for both, but hopefully that means i will slip through the air a lot quicker.
the women were off first and lisa had requested that she be first so that she could quickly head back to perth as she had tickets to some little rugby match that was going on. the U19 men were next and the masters men after that. open men took the stage last as their course was different and went well past our turnaround point.
so lisa was off first, the masters women in between and bec and davina off last. after that there was a bit of a wait till they set the U19 men off but pretty soon it was my turn. there were 6 guys off in front of me so i had a few rabbits to chase. with 7 guys behind me though, i was going to be running scared the whole time. at one minute intervals you can sit there and just watch this guys disappear down the road and wonder if you will ever make it up. hope the guy behind me is thinking the same. with john holding my saddle, i was clipped in and ready to go. bit late now for anything i had forgotten. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 hello world of hurt.
i had decided not to go out too hard, especially as the wind seem to be on my back for the first bit. i needed to have some in reserve just to keep me from being overtaken. i found a rhythm and tapped out a bit of hurt. it was feeling pretty good and the tailwind was pushing me along at well over 40kph. i could still see the guy in front of me when the road allowed and i thought i was making up some time.
after about 4 kms, the road changed a bit and headed ever so slightly uphill and was slightly rougher as well. i suddenly felt sapped and my legs didn’t want to play anymore. it wasn’t even a hill, more like a slight bump in the landscape. i was flicking down through the gears like a car radio, trying to find something that i liked. i stated to worry that i was about to get overtaken but didn’t dare look back. the sperm helmet works to give you the best aerodynamic advantage if you are in the right position. that is, body down but head facing forward. not the most natural position, but i have been forcing my head up at spin for the last month. my chiro certainly noticed when i went to see her on thursday.
anyway, my aero helmet said “no turning around” so i just pushed on despite my legs arguing otherwise. my minute man was still just up the road, but all the gains i seemed to make on the nice smooth section seem to be disappearing fast. there are a few slight undulations in this section and i thought i could gain some ground on the climbs, before the only real hill on our course. it came at the 10km mark and i remembered this from when i was dropped at the dardanup open race a few weeks back. as we got closer i thought i was going to be within stinking distance but i suffered on the climb a bit and didn’t make up any ground. i did manage to pass holly’s dad who started about 5 min in front of me so i kind of got to avenge the 1 sec drubbing i received from her last year.
a quick descent that took me a bit by surprise when the bike felt like it was about to leave the road due to the bumps and we were almost at the turn around point. at least here i could see the rest of the masters men as i had already waved (not very aero) to lisa and davina heading the other way. i could see that most of the guys i was chasing were pretty bunched up and weren’t that far in front.
i came towards the u-turn and totally stuffed up the deceleration. i had down-geared and started free-wheeling way too soon and probably lost a few seconds spinning out to keep moving. 18min 32 sec at the turn and i was now homeward bound. i was going to make the effort to chase down the guys in front of me. i was heading home so had managed to get past that fear of blowing up before the halfway point. the wind was a bit erratic through here as it seemed to swirl around the small hills we were circumnavigating. i came past another guy before the hill and could see a couple more on the actual climb.
i decided to try to pull back as much time as i could and hit the climb pretty hard. this is harder than it sounds as the tt bike isn’t that good out of the saddle. the upright position means that my arse is still pretty much on the seat, but now my knees are hitting the bar extensions. i made it to the top and started to power down the other side. there was that awfully familiar feeling of a hot flush when i realised that the double push had sent me into the redzone. i tried to settle down, but to no avail and next thing i know i was dry retching and had a couple of small vomit/burps. nice. a flush out with the drink bottle and a few second of easy riding to settle back down before i could make chase again.
ok, no more hills, just a few more rabbits and a finish line. i found my rhythm again and began to tap out a nice pace. the next 2 riders were pretty much on top of each other, and i passed them both as one had just overtaken the other. now i kind of lost track here and am not sure how many guys i passed. i just remember the last one had a car trailing him with hazard lights on. i assumed that it was the commasaire’s car but i wasn’t really thinking about anything but getting home.
i passed this final guy just before the road opened up and we hit the farmland again. the wind picked up a bit and i was now scared that i was going to be overtaken by someone. still wasn’t game to look behind so i just concentrated on the road ahead and thought of the long efforts that ryan made us do. i could see the town up ahead and was willing my legs to just keep going. i needed jens there to tell my legs to “shut up”, but i was coaxing them on with the promise that it will all be over soon.
1km to go and i tried to keep the pace on. 500m to go and i increased my effort and tried to hold it to the line. i could see the finish, it was hurting, i can just remember ryan at spin making us push harder for the last 30 sec of a 5 min effort. i gritted my teeth and kept stomping on the pedals until i was finally there. amazing how much 25kms can really hurt you. glad i am too old for the open division.
my intended warm down of an hour on the trainer was replaced with a lap of the bock and a need to just get off the damn bike. my return time was 18min 32 sec. exactly the same as the way out for a total of 37min 04sec. i wasn’t really aiming for a particular time and just wanted to go as hard as i could. i was pretty happy as my average was 39kph and i was exactly 1min faster than last year. if this trend continues, i will win the masters division in three more years time.
the women were back in and davina took out the title in a faster time than me (chicked again), so now we were just waiting for jonno and dannyboy to come home. they were on a longer hillier course that me and were aiming for around the 1 hour mark. dannyboy was just on his road bike so was doing it tough in comparison to the new swish looking giant trinity that jonno was astride. they both came in at 1:02:34 for jonno and 1:09:54 for dannyboy.
| Pos | Lap 1 | Lap 2 | Lap 3 | Total | Speed | Comment | |
| Open Men 39.4km | |||||||
| 13 | Jonathan Bolton | 0:18:40 | 0:25:20 | 0:18:34 | 1:02:34 | 37.8 | |
| 17 | Daniel Berry | 0:20:41 | 0:28:18 | 0:20:55 | 1:09:54 | 33.8 | |
| Open and Masters Women 24.1km | |||||||
| 1 | Davina Summers | 0:18:33 | 0:18:11 | 0:36:44 | 39.4 | ||
| 2 | Bec Halliday | 0:19:17 | 0:19:08 | 0:38:25 | 37.6 | PB | |
| 4 | Lisa Wood | 0:20:24 | 0:20:25 | 0:40:49 | 35.4 | ||
| Masters Men 24.1km | |||||||
| 7 | Peter Mah | 0:18:32 | 0:18:32 | 0:37:04 | 39.0 | PB | |
the rest of the results can be found on the atta website here.
it was a good day and well run by swcc and atta. i actually enjoyed myself despite the way that i wrote this report and can see myself actually doing a few more of these events in the future. jerry is our club contact if anyone is wanting to have a go at the atta events and he can answer any question you may have about time trialling.
photo’s thanks to luke.
State Individual Time Trial Championships
UPDATE – entries for this event close tonight. currently there are not enough entries for some of the divisions to be run as a state championship. we need to support this event and this club, so i urge you to give it a go.
on the 12th of june, atta and the south west cycle club will be holding the state individual time trial down at dardanup. for those of you that raced the dardanup open the other week, it is pretty much the same course. the championships are aged based so if you are over 35 you get to ride in the masters division and not have to push your old bones quite a far. for those under 35 it is only 39kms for the men and 25kms for the women.
this is a great opportunity for anyone in the club to see how they are going against their peers. you don’t need to have a fancy $10,000 time trial bike just a recreational licence (as a minimum) and you can get a day licence. as this is a state championship, you need to be a member of a club.
for those that haven’t taken that step to do a race yet, then this is the perfect opportunityto have a go as you don’t have to race shoulder to shoulder with others. just you and the clock.
so challenge some of your peers to a race and claim true bragging rights at the coffee shop next time they just sit in and take the sprint at the end.
add your name to the comments if you are looking at heading down. we will have the tent set up and provide drinks etc as per usual.
hope to see you down there.
peter
the information flyer can be found here.
a map can be found here.
registration can be found here.
state time trial championships – dardanup
race report by peter.
like most things, time trials are something that you have to practice and compete in to be really good at them. there are lots of opportunities to do this as atta runs events across the whole year and you could basically be doing one every second weekend. my last time trial was the team time trial around sept/oct last year.
one benefit is that i do have a time trial bike harking back from my triathlon days. since those days are not that long ago, the bike is still quite modern and was a lot better than just slapping some tt bars on the road bike. i was originally setup by budgie and taking into account my crap flexibility and the fact that i would have to run off the bike, it was very high at the front. in the week leading up to the event i made some adjustments to the height of the handle bars. (it is always good to change your position come race day, right???). effectively i dropped the front end down about 7cm while leaving the saddle pretty much the same height. there is a fine line here as the lower you are, the more aerodynamic you are but you start to lose power as you are in a more cramped position. not only that, there are parts of your anatomy that don’t really like to get squashed against a bike seat. i have scope to lower the front about another 2 or 3 cms, but may need to either get a smp cut away saddle or a visit to one of our urologist to get it all chopped off.
anyway, i do actually take the time trial bike out about once a week and managed to get a ride in on the new position. it didn’t seem too bad in the efforts that i was doing around the river. unfortunately my nice clean, ready to race bike was now filthy as it rained last wednesday when i took it out. a quick hose and chain lube and i was almost ready to go. i managed to borrow chris’ deeper dish cosmics to try to get some form of aero advantage, but i was sure that i was grasping at straws by this time.
so, race day comes around and i made the loooong trip down to dardanup with judd. i am sure that we can find a nice circuit closer to perth for the state championships. also signed up for the day was stu, rob, lorraine, nicole and the fleet girls. paul o had also signed up, but bloused it as he had a flight to catch… the next day. the event was scheduled for a 2pm start which gave everyone lots of time to make the trip down and not having to get up at 5am was a nice change.
stu, rob and myself were in the masters division and our course was only 25kms. the women did the same course, while judd, being the young buck, had to compete in the open division over 39kms. this was the same course that we did at the dardanup road race not so long ago and had a few sharp climbs in it. the open course had a few sharp climbs as well as a big hill. glad i am an old man now.
with no atta results or previous form to go off, rob and i were to leave quite early, while stu was going off with the big boys. the pointy end of the start list looked like an atta results page with a bunch of the regulars making the most of the state champs in their preferred discipline. the women were next to leave followed by the u19 and open men. judd’s start time was almost an hour after mine and he was doing a longer course.
we arrived early enough to pitch the spr sunshade and set up underneath to start our warmup. with a 25km race, i was going to need about an hour of warmup as, unlike a road race, there would be no cruisey start to proceedings. stu, judd and myself were stationed on our trainers under the shade and spun out some k’s. i am sure that i was still not fully warmed up when all of a sudden i saw rob take off from the line. i grabbed the bike off the trainer and zoomed up the road a couple of times to make sure the biek wouldn’t fall apart on me.
pretty soon i was on the startline with john holding the back of my saddle and a lady giving me a countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and i was off. damn the bars are low now when i am holding onto the bull horns. i quickly settled into the aero position and made my way up the gears to get up to speed.
we were being set off at minute intervals so i had rabbits to chase and wolves to be chased by. once i cleared the town the road straightened up and i could actually see my minute man up the road. time is a really deceptive thing when you are riding a bike in this situation. you assume that as you can see the other rider, you mustn’t be that far behind. if you actually pick a landmark and count the seconds that it takes for you to also pass it, you soon realise how much time you need to make up.
the wind was low but i am still not 100% sure of the direction as it seemed to spin around during the event. i was in the big ring and powering along but soon realised that my hammys were not that warmed up for big efforts and had to ease back a bit. longer efforts needed during warmup. i kept the pace up as best i could but started to worry about the guy chasing me. i didn’t dare look behind just in case i could actually see him. our course was supposedly flat with a couple of small bumps and a power climb. turn around and head home over the same bumps. at the end of the day it is actually uphill on the way out and downhill on the return, but not enough to make it really count.
as we started to tackle the small bumps, i realised that i was actually making up some time on my minute man. he seemed to be struggling a bit on the ups but still doing ok on the flats. at about the 9.5km mark we hit the main climb and i was catching him fast. i left it in the big ring and powered past him before we crested the top. i was now a bit worried that i would get past as the road flattened out so i kept the power on going down the other side to stay ahead.
a couple of riders were now heading the other way as i approached the turnaround and i was still ahead of my rabbit. i tried to work out how far ahead the next guy was and set my goal to catch him before the end. within two kms we were on the power climb again and i hit it hard to catch and pass my two minute man. congratulated me as i past him, but i was maxing out at 189 bpm, so may have just grunted an acknowledgement. it did make me feel better though.
homeward bound and i was now looking at my average speed to try to get it up as high as possible. i knew that it would not be in the 40’s but i was disappointed to see it around the 36 mark. as the return was flatter, i was determined to keep the bike over the 40 mark as much as possible. i couldn’t see any other riders in front of me, so now i was riding scared and making sure i stayed ahead of the chasers.
the faster pace and new position began to catch up with me as my left upper calf started to feel tight. basically from there to my hamstrings were feeling the pinch and i started to feel the onset of a cramp. bugger. just keep pushing.
putting more power through my right leg, i managed to stave off any real cramp that would have stopped me in my tracks. the final run into town was tough but fast and i could just see a rider up the road as we approached the town. he managed to stay 30 sec in front of me as i crossed the line.
a quick cool down and then back onto the trainer to spin the legs out again. rob started in front of me but was a little slower. he out it down to stuffing up the turn around and having to turn back around again. i was worried about his time as he recently did the half-ironman so had some form leading into the day. stu came through next and took about a minute and half out of my time for a great ride. as we waited for the women to finish, judd was still warming up waiting for his start time.
all the girls came it with anna suffering from new bike syndrome and taking second overall with holly third. i had to give holly crap as she beat me by 1 sec. bec came in 5th, nicole 8th and lorraine and jill came in the exact same time in 9th and 10th.
we had a long wait for judd, who did a respectable 1:03:31 to come in 12th. with two fleet girls on the podium the spr hats made another appearance as we packed up and made the long trek home.
results can be found here.
tour de perth support race – stage 02
well with the first road race over and the rain continuing to fall, the time trial was looking to be an ordeal. with four corners and a roundabout to negotiate, you really wanted some grip on the road. i had brought a second riding kit with me and had stuffed newspaper into my shoes to get them to dry out so at least i would feel dry to start with.
the initial info had told us that the time trial would start at 2:00pm but the registration told us that we would start at 1:23pm and go off in 30 sec intervals. people began to warm up and get ready, when the first guys came back up from the start line to say that it wouldn’t start till 2:00 as originally advised. there were a few pissed off people around especially the opens who were already into their warm up routine. it didn’t worry me that much as my warm up consisted of riding down to the start line.
so with a bit more time to kill it was back to the car to stay out of the rain. by this time i was concerned about getting my car off the oval as it was very, very wet and the exits were muddy and slightly uphill. not much i could do about it, so i didn’t let it worry me too much. anyway, by the time my race time approached, the rain had totally stopped and the sun had come out. in such a short amount of time it had warmed up so much that it was hot in the arm warmers.
the order was reverse number with the support men and women leading out the opens. the cantankerous but funny old guy that was calling out the race numbers as riders needed to line up was a source of amusement for all who were watching. he would call a number and then keep yelling it if they didn’t show up. then when they did and tried to get to their position in the line he would yell at them for trying to come past the start line. funny all round.
well brendan was a few spots in front of me and justin was directly behind me. i was pretty sure that in just 5 km i would not be catching brendan, but i was hoping like hell that justin would not catch me. i didn’t bother with the time trial bike as i didn’t think that the course warranted it enough. it was mostly hilly with 90 degree corners that were still a bit wet. there were only two sections that i could see where you could really benefit from being down on the aero bars. the rest of the time you would be climbing or cornering.
i was given the count down and too off. it was only a short distance before the corner and i was worried about putting it on the deck, so eased off a bit to take the corner wide. as i accelerated out i realized how much my quads hurt from the morning’s effort. i kept pushing through to hope that i could squeeze something more from them. damn, it was only the first side of the rectangle course. another left hand turn, with a bit more confidence this time, and i felt like i was in a better rhythm. i guess that this was mainly because the road was kind of heading down hill.
this was the section of road that we had ridden to the finish earlier in the day but it sure felt better when i could draft behind someone else. the road eventually kicked up and i tried to maintain a steady pace without blowing it all so early. the ride was going remarkably quick in my mind, but i was still worried about being overtaken.
another left hand onto peet rd with a bit of a downhill reprieve as the road only went up after that. a last left onto raeburn rd and a sharp pinch past the fruit guy and you can just about see the finish line in the distance. it is deceptive though as it looks fairly flat but is a steady rise to the roundabout before it does flatten. this is the calm before the storm as the last couple of hundred metres are climbing to the finish.
by this time my legs were burning and my lungs were screaming, but i didn’t want to be overtaken so kept going. panting like a dog, i managed to get myself up the last section and cross the line, not knowing whether it was a good time or not but just happy to be finished. i caught up with a few of the other guys before wandering back up to get changed again and pack all my stuff into the car.
all fresh again i came back down to watch the open women and men do their times. eventually all our times were posted and i was around mid pack so i was happy that i wasn’t last. stu and justin managed better times then me but i managed to get ahead of brendan by a few seconds. josie, though, blitzed the open women’s field to get a time that was only beaten by three of the support men. results here
davina also managed a good time to come in third in a time that was also better than stu, brendan and mine.
so, with stage two down and my legs questioning me at every step, i made my way home to have two dinners and hope that tomorrow would be a nice day.