Post date: Jun 22, 2015 1:50:1 PM
Hello Vets,
In this week's Bleat;
• Pedal Power First Aid Course
• Lindy Hou's Guide Dog
• Everesting for Nepal - Done and Dusted
• From the Desk of the Handicapper
• Racing this Week
• Race Report
Please send me your contributions at: TheBleat@actvets.cc
Ian Morton
Pedal Power is running a First Aid course. The Club will pay for any members who with enrol.
Details are at: www.pedalpower.org.au/news/entry-has-opened-for-a-first-aid-course/
Rob Langridge
After 11 years of faithful service, Lindy's guide dog, Harper lost a short battle with pneumonia last Wednesday. For those of us who take the ability to navigate our community for granted, it may be difficult to appreciate the depth of their interdependent relationship.
When off duty in his younger days, no doubt inspired by his triathlete mistress, Harper enjoyed a swim in Lindy's pool and a run (with me and my Labrador). My fondest memory of Harper is from our Ride4retina when Lindy, Harper and I were sharing a motel. In Coff's Harbour I was awakened by the sound of Harper's tail enthusiastically slapping the wall, to see a male intruder at the foot of my bed. The alarm was raised and the intruder fled the scene empty handed.
This is just one example of Harper's life, lived in constant support of Lindy. A life well spent! Vale' Harper. You will be sadly missed.
Rosemary
Good afternoon all… last time I promise… I know you were wondering how did we go on Saturday? Well… done and dusted – the 5 riders that started 4 completed the epic ride (unfortunately Luke had to withdraw just over 5 hours in due to injury).
Marcus O’Toole, Gaye Bourke, Justin Ling and I finished the lovely roll. The weather was awesome (besides the minus 3 temps during the ride).
So here is a few deets on what I takes to Everest on a bike
Start - 12.21 midnight
Finish - 6.30pm
Riding time 14hrs 20 mins
Laps - 74 laps
Kms - 230.9km
Average temperature - 3 deg (it did get down to minus 3)
www.strava.com/activities/329072067/overview
this is the Hall of fame (Gaye appears in this 6 times, Marcus and I appear twice and Justin once) www.everesting.cc/hall-of-fame/
The Girls from BOSS racing showed up and raised over $1500 towards the goal and you still have time to donate @ - www.morethansport.org/team/hells-500/canberra-everesting-for-nepal
Cheers and thank you for all your support
Chris Simpson
The Handicapper's adjudications for this week;
Stuart Roseler C -> B
Malcolm Parker - new rider in E
Martin Graham C -> B
Neil Davis - new rider in E
Rob Langridge
Where: Gunning
When: 1:30 pm
Sign on: 15 mins before scheduled start time wearing your registered number.
Race Description: Gunning - Breadalbane
Race Director: tba
Contact: Email tba Ph tba
Please Note: we do not currently have a designated Race Director for this event. If we don't have an RD, the race may not proceed. Please contact Ben Davis Ben.Davis@Teradata.com if you are prepared to fill in.
The nominated marshals for this event are;
• Ed Garnett
• Michael Carr
• Polly Templeton
• Ben Davis
• Chris Short
The nominated marshals for upcoming events are;
- Jul 04 @ Old Fed H'way: Sean Ifland, Paul Ledbrook, Bob Perkins, Ian Preston, Warwick Wilson
- Jul 11 @ Kevin Hennessy, Denis Jessop Sean Smith, John Wilson
- Jul 18 @ Dairy Flat: Bruce Griffin, Andrew Murrell
- Jul 25 @ Dalton: Johnathan Chowns, More volunteers required
The abbreviated version (much like my race directors brief): We had a race, some people won, some people didn’t and some people just did not finish.
The long version: 57 riders fronted up on a lovely sunny winters afternoon to race for is an increasing rarity with the Vets - a normal criterium. No silly teams, no silly points just a good old fashioned crit with a decent race length!
E, F and G grade were off first doing 30 minutes and 2 laps. I thought keeping track of 3 grades on the track at once would be of some concern but in the end the 3 grades all stayed together resulting in bunch sprints for all grades. E grade saw Bernie Shaw grade take out first place, followed by Ross Robinson and Malcolm Parker. With only 3 riders everyone in F grade was guaranteed a podium place with Mike Spoliaric first across the line followed by James Meredith and Barbs coming in third. G grade was taken out by Lindsay Graham followed by Bruce Jones.
Next up was C and D grades doing 40 minutes. C grade was the only grade that really split up with 3 or 4 riders eventually managing to get away halfway through the race. The eventual winners being Stuart Roseler 1st, John Barlow 2nd and Bruce Griffin in 3rd. D grade all stayed together to the finish with the two Phil's contesting a sprint with Phil Walker prevailing to take the win.
Last up for the day was A and B grades. Of the two grades B was a bit of a non-event to watch despite Al Bontjer insisting that he did numerous attacks and the race director was obviously not looking. Having said that - the eventual winner Anthony Murffitt was noticed several times trying to get away and thanks to his persistence finally succeed resulting in a very comfortable B grade win. The rest of B grade “eventually" crossed the finish line in a bunch sprint with Tony Rowley taking second place and Jeff Gough rounding it out in third place.
With a tandem mixing it up in A grade it would be fair to say the usual dynamics of the typical A grade crit were not in play. Despite the best efforts of Paul Scherl and Mar Vroomans to get away, the guys on the tandem just kept reeling them back in. If anything it was more often the case of the tandem getting away from them! In the end however the tandem was caught and it all came down to a bunch sprint finish with Marc taking first place, followed by Paul Scherl and rounded out by the Frenchie Christopher Barberet.
Some words of thanks:
To me (Jason Parkes) for a magnificently run event and David Johnson who ably assisted me. Also thanks to Graham Hendrie for manning the rego desk and generally helping out.
A special note of thanks to Rob Diamond who somehow managed to stitch me up to do his race directors duties all the way from France. Bravo! :-)
Jason Parkes
A tale of terrain.
As Mr. Scott said, “You canna change the laws of Physics.”
Unlike the undersized pipsqueaks who populate the higher echelons of this sport, I weigh in at a bit under 88kg and I’m fairly sure that the only rider in D grade who is heavier than me is John. When you put both of us on the same bike you end up with a whole lot of mass. The force of gravity works pretty powerfully on us so our rate of climb has been compared to a wrought-iron hanglider. We do go downhill ok though.
The problem is that our downhill gains don’t make up for our uphill losses. This is particularly so when others can benefit from our descending prowess (which is why we frequently try to prevent it), but we don’t have the same opportunity to benefit from their climbing prowess in return. As a consequence our races are greatly influenced by terrain.
As far as unfavourable terrain for a heavy tandem goes, this course is as bad as it gets. For this race the start line is not the same as the finish, since starting a race with a technical descent is probably not a good idea. A couple of years ago on our only previous attempt at this race, we failed to even make it to the start line when our rims heated to the point that the tubular glue melted and we tore the valve out of the front tyre when it moved around the rim. That incident wasn’t going to be repeated for us this year since I fitted disc brakes the night before (and the 11-34 cassette).
The race isn’t long and consists of a short preamble over Mt Tennant followed by the climb up Apollo Rd. Mt Tennant is a significant hill, but the race is really all about the climb up Apollo Rd to Honeysuckle Creek. So much so that there would be little difference to the results if the race simply started in the other direction to go straight up the hill, however I suppose that it is important to get a warm-up in first I suppose.
Not wanting to just roll over and accept our fate, John and I did go on the attack right from the gun and not surprisingly the others were happy enough to let us go. We built a bit of a lead, however it was not enough as the bunch caught and passed us on the way back up Mt Tennant, but we were at least close enough to know that we could chase back on and at least get onto Apollo Rd with company.
Sure enough the 30x34 got a good workout on the steeper bits of the hill and we muddled our way up as best we could. Our time up Apollo Rd wasn’t fast, and we were minutes behind our nearest D grade competitor and we were even overtaken by some F grade riders, however that wasn’t the real point of the day. For this race, we were happy enough to just finish.
In fact several people expressed surprise that we’d bothered to turn up at all, however as far as we’re concerned, if there is an opportunity to pin a number on, we’ll be there. We’re not going to get scared by a bit of tarmac even if it does have a slope. Mind you our result shouldn’t be taken as too indicative of tandem performance generally. Ashley and Don turned up to this race in B grade and were only just beaten into second, proving that a tandem can go fast uphill if it is ridden by better climbers.
Well this course is more like our style. It was a little disappointing that there were only half a dozen in C grade, and clockwise is not our preferred direction since the bike has low BBs and we will ground a pedal at speed in both Collarbone corner and the final left bend.
The bunch headed off fairly steadily with not a lot happening. There was a brief moment of excitement when moved off to the left side to clear my nose, and Stuart took that as an invitation to attack down the right side, but seeing as it was at the top of the hill, we were able to chase back on easily enough.
After about 20min when everyone was nicely warmed up I thought that we would put in a little dig to liven the race up. No-one came with us at first so we just dangled off the front for a lap or two, then Stuart and Alain joined us and all of a sudden it was a race of three. I didn’t particularly intend to leave people behind, but it is always easier to win a place when there are three in contention rather than six. The pace settled into an uneasy truce with the bulk of the work being shared between ourselves and Stuart, with Alain only coming through occasionally, so there was always the suspicion that he was just going to roll us at the end. As a result, the pace was not hugely fast and we didn’t catch the D grade bunch until it was close to the end.
There was a little bit of feeling each other out, as Stuart attacked up the hill, and we would chase back on the back straight. We put a move on up the hill ourselves, partly as a show of strength to dissuade any further attacks, and also because the time was starting to run out and I thought it would be handy to get past D grade cleanly before the finish and not get the bunches mixed. It resulted in us sitting on the front for longer than I wanted to, near the end, but that’s how it goes. When the bell rang for the final lap I was waiting for either Stuart or Alain to attack us up the hill, but it didn’t happen and I realized that we were going to be left on the front for the rest of the way. We took it fairly easily down the back straight and into Collarbone corner, and started to wind up into the southern loop before finally opening it up from the final bend. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough explosive power to open a gap, but we did at least make Stuart work for the win as he fought his way past by half a bike length. Alain honourably decided to not contest the sprint and rolled in for third.
Cheers,
Cameron Ermert