Club races

I'm not entirely sure where to begin. There hasn't been a huge amount happening since the last round of the Sprint Series as that saw the end of my race season, save for a couple of club races. I suppose I'll talk about them.

Throughout this track season there has been a new series implemented into my club calendar. I'm not sure if I have spoken about it before (mostly because I am too lazy to go back and check), but it is the John Nicholson Keirin Series, named after Blackburn Cycling Club's previous club president. He was a very successful sprint cyclist during the 60s and 70s, and holds a spot in the Sports Australia Hall of Fame. The Keirin Series ran over a number of weeks throughout the 2015/2016 track season. I managed to attend all but the first round. I also managed to win every race, however due to missing the first round, that was not enough to secure the overall lead. I came second over all. It was a fun event to turn up to, I got to support my club and race in some events that I don't normally (such as the scratch race and handicap during the support races). It was also good to go and see some of the junior riders. A number of them seem to look up to me as a role model which is very humbling and an added motivator for me to continue with my riding.

Since the Sprint Series I have had a 3 week break in which I didn't do a whole lot. Mostly enjoyed free time to the extent that I was bored out if my mind.

I've started back up at uni, around the same time I did with cycling again. So going from doing not very much to being very busy all at the same time was a little bit of a shock to the system. Although I seem to have gotten the hang of it now.

The plan for the mean time is to ride at ITS (link to last year's event) which is being held in Melbourne this year. It is an international event that will hopefully get a few names down to come and race. I am hoping to use it to get some more experience racing against some tough competition, maybe learn a few things about how people ride and look at the racing from another tactical stand point. Being able to race someone who is much faster than me will allow me to try out some new moves and focus on using different methods that I wouldn't normally use to see if it is affective against a faster opponent. Hopefully I can also pull out a PB in the flying 200. My aim this year is to hit mid 10s, so 10.5 would be fantastic. Although, the goal is more targeted at states in December when the weather is warmer.

Recently I have started with a new gym program to differently supplement my riding. There is much more of an initial focus on volume and gradually increasing the intensity and change of focus as we near the beginning of the race season to better suit where I am at in the season. We are going to be looking at more of a focus later on in the season of more Olympic style lifts, which I am quite excited for. I am keen to see how Olympic lifting can affect my power on the bike, as well as what I am capable of lifting in terms of the Snatch and Clean & Jerk.

Back to the boards.

Shenanigans

These last few weeks have been pretty eventful. Lots of racing has been run and it's been a satisfying end to a hard season. The 26th of January saw the Australia Day Madison at Blackburn Cycling Club. I'm not one to race the Madison, which I don't think is hard to believe considering my background in sprint cycling. However I did race the support races, or at least most of them. It was a fairly challenging day, as I am not used to riding endurance events. There were a number of events including scratch races, handicaps, eliminations, keirins and an "Australian Crawl". The Crawl, also know as "The World's Longest Lap" is an event that has only recently taken off. It is more of a spectator event rather than a championship event. The premise is that the riders must not pass the start/finish line before the whistle is blown. The timing is dependant on a commisaire's decision, up to 5 minutes was the ruling given on the day. You can imagine that track standing is involved and the ability to accelerate quickly is also taken into account. I lined up and expecting to do quite well considering my experience with track standing and gate starts, although the mindset made me somewhat cocky. Unfortunately over-confidence meant that I over-thought the event too much, came too close to the start/finish line too early, and managed to fall off during an attempt at over-correction. Fortunately the only thing that was hurt was my ego.

The rest of the day went reasonably well. I managed to come second in the scratch race, pipped on the line. I've had a tendency to sit on the front trying to control the race far too much as of late. It works in keirins and match sprints over less than 3 laps, but not so much when you have a lot of pressure coming, in longer events. The handicap was interesting. I was off scratch, which is unusual for me. I didn't win, and it hurt like hell. That's all there is to it. The keirins were a nice change. An event I was more familiar with, and one that I knew how to race back to front if I wanted to. I managed to win the event off the front with a late kick. Classic textbook ride. The keirins were part of an on-going series at my club with an overall aggregate prize. I missed the first round, but I am hoping that I will be able to bring back the lead over the next few rounds.

Australia Day Carnival

The following Saturday, some 4 days later, I was at Blackburn again, racing more handicaps, scratch races and keirins. This day was much more successful in which I won all of my events. I was off scratch again in the handicap as well. I think the handicapper is trying to get me back for something, although I'm not sure what at the moment. More points towards the overall keirin aggregate.

Yesterday, the 7th of February, saw the final round of the Blackburn Aboc Summer Sprint Series for the 2015/2016 track season. It was a pretty good final round. A number of my old training partners turned up to watch. A current training partner, who has been training almost solely in the gym since State's, decided he would give the round a crack. The qualifying times for A grade went from 12.7 down to 11.9. There were 5 riders. 12.7, a rider who was only new to track sprinting (although not track in general). 12.6 was done by an under 17 rider whose development has been outstanding over the last few years, and whose first experience with sprinting was as the series a few years ago. In the more pointy end of A grade a fellow squad mate pulled out a 12.1. The second fastest was ridden by my fellow Castelli-clad companion with an 11.930, and finally myself with and 11.911.

Castelli-clad Companion

I did not end up racing against the second 11.9 qualifier until the finals. It was a very quick race. My opponent began the race in the lead. It's important to note at this point, that he has started out of the gate for me in the past, which implies that he is a very explosive rider. Having him in front of me with one lap to go is not a good plan if I want to win. However, coming out of turn 2 with 2 laps to go, I coaxed him into moving up the track, just enough so that I could dive down into the lane underneath him. This allowed me to take the front of the bike race and control it. I was able to guard the sprinters lane effectively and increase the pace when necessary to avoid having a move made against me. It wasn't until halfway down the back straight that I finally put full gas into my sprint, where I managed to hit 64km/h. If that doesn't sound fast, that's because it's at the Blackburn velodrome, where it is very difficult to go much faster. I managed to hold off on the front and take the daily win. This win meant that I also won the overall aggregate of the series. The prizes were: my name put onto the Trevor Watson Trophy, my own smaller equivalent trophy, and a number of custom made Gr8 Designs track chainrings. They are a really cool black with yellow stickers to match my BT.

Gr8 Designs Chain Rings

Final Round A Grade Podium

I was, and still am, very happy to have been able to take out the win. It means a lot to me as this series has helped me develop as a rider over a number of years and is a testament to all of the time, hard work, and support that my coach Carl Brewer at Track Torque, my friends and my family have given to me, for which I am very grateful.

At the end of the day, I even managed to snag a.. well, snag off the BBQ. Can't ask for more any more than that!

Shenanigans

Impromptu training camp.

Over Christmas I had a few days off, which I felt I deserved after a long training period. Although I might not have if I was going to nationals. Unfortunately I did not make the team, which was not entirely unexpected. With that said, the decision was only recently made that individual entrants would not be accepted to race at nationals (as they have for the last couple of years). I can't help but think it was a silly decision on the part of the officials, and the timing of it was also poor. With less than two months before the event that I had been training for all year, I had hoped that they would at least wait until the following season to implement the new ruling. Politics. Fortunately, though, this did not mean the end of my race season, just the end of the major events for me. 3 days ago I raced at the Summer Sprint Series at the Blackburn Velodrome, but I'll get on to that in a minute.

Bike storage in the ghetto gym.

Over New Year's I was up in Bairnsdale having an impromptu training camp with a few of my training partners. While we were up there, we were staying up at one of the boys' houses, of whom I have a lot of respect for after the drive up. The drive up to Bairnsdale is roughly 3 and a half hours long and he was making the trip, there and back, every Sunday for a while leading up to competition. Whilst up there, we went on road rides (where I did some sprint efforts) and some of the guys did some very intense gym sessions in a very small area of the garage. The camaraderie, let alone the testosterone, during these training sessions was awesome. I'm sure the neighbours, despite them living a fair way down the road, were probably sick of all the cheering and encouragement by the end of the few days. 

Bairnsdale is quite a beautiful place. On one of our rides we went to a lookout and the view was brilliant. For New Year's Eve we went into Paynesville. The family we were staying with own a boat and we were lucky enough to be able to sit on the boat, some 50 metres from where the fireworks were being shot off in the bay. I have to say that the experience overall in the Bairnsdale area, with my best friends and training partners, was fantastic. 

The view on our bike ride.

Fireworks on NYE

Now onto the Sprint Series. Last Sunday saw the 4th, and penultimate, round of the Summer Sprint Series for the 2015/2016 track season. For this round there were only 4 people in A grade, but that's not to say that the competition wasn't tough. This round saw a number of people from interstate. Two people from QLD and two from NSW. I decided to pull out my Victorian skin suit and put an even bigger target on my back, just for the occasion. During this round we even saw the women's track record broken by less than a tenth of a second with a 12.8s F200. The qualifying times for A grade saw the fastest do a 12.0 from NSW, followed by a 12.1 who was a local, then myself with a 12.3 and lastly another 12.3 from one of the Queenslanders. I wasn't particularly happy with my qualifying time, it was a fair bit slower than in the previous round. After seeing the times, I knew that I had my work cut out for me, it was going to be down to some tactical racing.

The first round for myself was against one of my training partners who had qualified 2 tenths quicker than me. Despite this, I had the front and managed to control the race to my advantage and won. The second round ended up going a similar way against the Queensland rider. In the third round I was racing the NSW rider, who qualified fastest with a 12.0. This was a very challenging ride. He was both faster than me and had a good tactical ability. I started the race as the following rider, and knew that I needed to take the lead as soon as possible in order to control the race. The main reason for this was that he had a similar riding style to myself. A powerful kick. This meant that chances were, the person on the front doing a late kick would win. I took the front, however I moved up the track a little too far near the front straight with one lap to go and NSW snuck underneath me. At this point I knew that I desperately needed to make a move. I took height in turn 1/2 and hammered it down the straight in an attempt to get past. For those who don't know, passing around turn 3 and 4 at the BBN track is very rarely successful. However I somehow did the impossible. I stayed on his hip enough as we were coming around the bend to get the run off the bank towards the finish line and managed to win that round. At this stage I was undefeated for the day. All that was left was the 1 vs 2 final for me. This also meant that I was racing NSW again going into it. The final started the same way, I was the following rider. I told myself that I couldn't risk having to make the pass again like in the previous round. I took the lead from underneath the rider, although he shut the door very hard and I held my nerve as I took the position in front. The pace picked up almost immediately as NSW wanted to stop me from having the lead. I matched his pace and he was caught on the hip. This forced him to make a move, of which I countered entering turn 1/2 as he moved up the track. I watched and waited until the last second to make my finishing move down the back straight. I had the pressure on through turn 3/4 and managed to hold off the NSW rider and take the A grade win for the day. Interestingly enough, despite my qualifying time of 12.3 seconds, my final 200, for which I was leading the whole time in the last race, ended up being 11.9 seconds. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I am pretty sure it was marginally faster than my qualifying in the previous round when I also did 11.9. I think there's something in there about motivation and me riding faster when I've got a carrot to chase. Somehow I need to learn to channel that fire when I'm in training and when qualifying for events. 

A grade heat 1

At this point I am currently leading the overall aggregate for the Sprint Series. I am hoping that I can maintain my lead at the end of the last round in February. I'm looking forward to the next round, hopefully I can manage a F200 that I am happy with.