Santos Great Perth Bike Smash :: 25th November, 2012

And so it was! I expected it to be hard but this morning was ridiculously hard as far as a "participation" ride is concerned. HCT put together a team of nine and we were all a-buzz and feeling confident that the rivalry with Team Access Unlimited Racing was going to live up the expectations that had been bandied about leading into the event. Problem was that nobody told the Arbitrage and Ride Advice Cyclery teams that this was a HCT-AUR showdown. Even with the 6am start, the announcers for the morning (one Gary Suckling, et al) were lively and happily identified the tension in the air at the start line, overstocked with teams, while reminding us that "it's not a race".

But it seems that neither did the 250+ riders on the grid for the 106 km, 35 km/h+ get the memo. We were warned of the road works taking place around what will be Elizabeth Quay and of course the notorious Victoria Avenue stretch, which had been resurfaced by this time, thankfully, and this did provide for a slightly easier start to the ride.

But when we hit Claremont and rounded the corner at Christchurch Grammer onto Stirling Highway, the strong riders in the group were out to prove that this was very much a race and hit the first climbs at such an intensity that it had everyone working hard to keep in touch with the lead. 20 minutes or so into the ride (which I later found was not recorded by my Garmin) and we hit what someone on Strava calls "Mosman Hill to the Water Tower" and it was all about position and maintaining a stupidly high wattage in power output. Unfortunately for Chris Singleton and myself, our position was not great and we found ourselves on the wrong side of the split that wrought the group in two.

Up until this point, the large peloton of riders had managed to mostly stick together which only highlighted the importance of position. HCT and Access Unlimited had set up residence at the front of the group leading into Mosman Hills but somehow, Chris and I found ourselves too far back into the bunch and when the split occurred, we were behind a number of riders that were not even close to the challenge and estranged us from the lead group that was enough to allow them to get away requiring too much effort to be able to get back on - even through they were enticingly close at times leading up to the freeway run.

To make matters worse, Chris and I had managed to find ourselves in no-man's land and having to work hard to maintain a decent pace to hold off the remainder of the larger group that were now chasing us down. We were eventually joined by two other riders who did their best to chip in but it still felt that Chris and I were rolling more turns on the front andm, for me at least, it felt like it was beginning to take its toll.

The four of us rolled turns along Burke Drive and managed to maintain a strong 40 km/h pace which we managed to keep for the most part through to the Canning Bridge and onto the Freeway. However, my inattentiveness resulted in a bit of a surprise when the chase group managed to reel us back in and we rode up the freeway for the first time at a strong enough pace that once again had me working considering the effort that had already been put in to try and hold the group off.

At some stage prior to reaching the freeway, we seemed to have really lost contact with with lead bunch as they were suddenly nowhere to be seen. I had anticipated determining the gap they had on us as we hit the freeway run but had not anticipated that they managed to get so far ahead of us. As it turned out, the gap had significantly increased because the lead group had been misdirected by the course marshals and sent down Kintail Rd to Canning Bridge as opposed to the route we took to the top of Fraser Rd (Majestic), down the drop over the other side, along The Strand and back up a short climb to Duncraig Rd in Applecross before making our way back around to Canning Bridge.

The course confusion was more than enough to put any chance of catching the lead group out of reach, especially given the quality of riders in that group - which included all of the HCT apart from Chris and I. As we hit the freeway run, I noted that three Access Unlimited riders, including Frans Buissink, had managed to join us and had begun to do their bit to keep the group working the front in turn. The pace up the freeway was as fast as you would expect at 47 km/h (average) when a bunch of "racing" riders hit an open lane heading into the city.

The intensity did drop off as we exited the freeway and onto Mill Point Rd and up through South Perth. The last climb of the lap was up from the Windsor Hotel on Mends St through to the top end of Perth Zoo which I managed to complete a lot easier than Mosman Hills. Chris and I were still putting in our fair share of the work at this stage and as we rolled along the full length of Mill Point Rd through to Victoria Park and Way Rd where we all anticipated to swing right and up to Canning Highway only to be directed straight on and through the car park at the back of Garland Cycleworks. We were all a little baffled by the direction that the course took here and the pot holes and speed humps were not much fun.

We hit the causeway and raised the pace again as we headed up Riverside Drive to complete the first lap. I heard Gary Suckling announce that were were some 4 minutes behind the lead group. With the possibility of rejoining them put out of our minds, we rode the second lap like a support race to the elite riders. We rode within our means which still had us riding at a pace and intensity that for the most part matched that of the leaders so it seemed they were not able to put much more of a gap on us.

The second climb through Mosman Hills to the Water Tower was equally as difficult as the first time but not so much from trying not to be spat out the back of a larger group, but more so because Chris and I hit the climbs at the head of the field with the intention that we might sag back to the middle of the bunch as the stronger hill climbers came around us. But it was not to be and we reached the water tower still at the head of the group which rapidly stretched out to a long line of riders just trying to hold on. I relaxed my effort a little at this point and let a few riders take their turn on the front as I felt I would have no trouble keeping in touch through to Fremantle.

The group remained pretty coherent through the ride along the river through to the Freeway once again where the pace picked up for another mad dash for the Narrows. By this time we had managed to pick up a couple of riders from the lead group that had popped, some of which had popped so badly they were not able to keep with us either, but the size of the group had thinned out quite a bit leaving only 15 or so riders left.

An accidental unclipped from my right pedal unexpectedly and my hamstring gathered causing a reasonable cramp which I managed to overcome relatively easily but not without some discomfort as we rode through to the Causeway for the second and last time. I was concerned that the cramp might not have completely dissipated and I was tentative heading onto Riverside Drive for the sprint to the finish line.

I was sitting in around 6th wheel as we came off the Causeway onto Riverside Drv and the pace was well up and I was holding position enough that I could draft the riders that were setting the pace. We pushed through the last traffic lights at Plain Street and within the next 50 metres, the attack came with an early sprint some 700 metres or so from the finish.

I had reached third wheel at this point and was keen to go with the sprint attempt to ensure that I kept in touch but the legs were burning and I was cautious of the previous cramp possibly causing more serious injury and returned to the saddle. At this point, I get the call "jump on Charlie" from one Chris Singleton whose position up to this point I was not aware of. He came through at such a massively strong pace that I struggled to get to his wheel.

We were still some 300 metres from the line and my earlier effort to keep with the early sprint along with the attempt to catch Chris' wheel were a little overwhelming and I lost touch with him and could only watch as he barrelled off up the road to the finish and completed the sprint at the head of the bunch. I had lost a couple of places as I crossed the line and at the time of writing this blog, I am unsure of how many places I came in behind Chris but I don't expect it to be much more than 3 or 4.

I was satisfied that I had given my all throughout the event and despite the loss of data on my Garmin, I felt that the pace was well and truly maintained at around 39 km/h for the full 106kms. It was unfortunate that we were gapped on the first lap and caught up in traffic as I feel our pace would have been suitable enough to have kept in touch with the lead bunch but the rider explosions up the Mosman Hill climb had caused too much chaos.

By comparison to the UCI World Cycling Tour event earlier this year, which also ran over a similar distance, our pace was stronger however the course might have had a few less hills (repeated) than the UWCT course. But it was by no means any easier and I felt that I still had enough to keep a solid pace and power output. This is an encouraging sign as I continue my training for the UWCT event and look forward to giving it my all to make the automatic qualification.

All in all, a great morning on the bike and I look forward to the next challenge, which at this stage may well be the Boxing Day smash fest.

As usual, thanks for reading and I hope that if you participated in this morning's event, that you enjoyed it as much as I did - and suffered just as much. I would also like to acknowledge those who dontated to the most important part of this morning's event being the three deserving charities involved, Horizon House, the Heart Foundation and Hope for Children.

Official times can be found here. Happy to have come in at 28th overall out of nearly 900 riders for the 106km course.