cyclo-sportif - swan valley

race report by peter.

so today was the first cyclo-sportif race that didn’t clash with any other wacf race and we took advantage of it. it was nice and close and would be the flattest course available across the season. last year this race was both a success and a disaster for the organisors. they had their biggest turn out with over 600 riders, but it was also the day one of the worst storm to hit perth happened. rain was belting in sideways and a few people were blown off their bikes. this year they had over 800 riders register and the rain that did hit was nowhere near as cyclonic as last year. starting at the velodrome in midland, the groups first had to roll out to the actual course which was over the other side of the roe hwy at herne hill. once there, the circuit required five laps for us to complete the 78kms. it was unfortunately not just a nice rectangular circuit but had a number of left and right turns that would complicate things during the race.

but before we jump ahead to far, how did we get there. well we had a team of eight riders registered. this was great as the maximum allowed was nine, so we would have enough people to share the load. the team consisted of the usual race boys; myself, michael, chris, mark, ryan, jerry, stan and bruce. by saturday arvo i had received a text from bruce saying that he would not be available to race. on the way to the venue i received a call from stan saying that as his wife was due this coming friday, he was not coming either. so we were down to six. since our south perth kits had not yet arrived, we raced under the old rio tinto colours as this is who we raced for last year, and i could get enough jerseys to make sure the team was all wearing the same.

the intermittent showers that sprinkled us on saturday, persisted into sunday and the radar showed a number of them heading our way. they were not too bad though and would pass quickly. we registered, kitted up and headed out to the real start point. with over 800 rider in over 100 teams, they needed to start the teams at 30 second intervals.

maybe i should explain just what cyclo-sportif is and why it is so popular. it is touted as participation not racing and as such is structured so that there are no winners. the format is basic team time trial, but you must finish with all the riders you started with (barring injury or serious mechanical). so if someone is slow on the hills, you wait for them; if they get a flat you wait for them. this format is so very popular as anyone can enter and you get to ride with the people you like rather than a basic group race. times are posted, but not ordered and you actually need to import them into excel and reorder them to see how well you did. it offers all abilities something and hence it’s popularity has grown.

the core of our team had been doing these types of races for three years and it took us a while, but we finally got it together to learn to stick together. this meant pushing weaker riders up hills and a lot of yelling to make sure people knew what was going on. our strategy was simple. single file, 30 sec to a minute on the front, then peel off and jump on the back. this allowed us to go the fastest, and people could regulate their time on the front depending how buggered/fresh they were. it also meant that even if you did a 10 sec turn, that was a rest that someone else was getting.

the teams are ordered, based on their previous performance. as we had not raced this season, the organisors would not have any idea where to put us, but as we were a rio tinto team, they would probably use the other rio teams previous time. we ended up mid pack about eight minutes back from the other rio team. this was good and bad for us. good, cause i didn’t think that there would be any other teams that would pass us as most of the really good teams would start last. bad, cause we would not have as much clear road ahead of us.

our race number was “kk”. it starts at “a”, completes the alphabet, moves to double letter, then moves back to numbers. for the other distances (60ish and 30ish) they use different coloured numbers. what it really meant was a lot of congestion.

at the start line, gary suckling did the race commentary and introduced the teams. in three years he has never been able to pronounce my name properly. i mean, it is only three letters so it can’t really be that hard, but i have never heard him say it the same way twice. soon, we were off.

the cold that my young lad had given me on thursday was being held at bay by the cold and flu tablets that had formed part of my healthy breakfast. i was feeling good and ready to go hard. we past the team that started 30 sec ahead of us before we even hit the first corner. picked up two more before the back straight and kept passing teams the whole way around the first lap. i was totally unsure of the wind direction as we seemed to doing over 40km/h up the rolling hills of the back straight. a couple of the boys had the early ride struggles and we had to back off a bit but were still going relatively hard. the first lap was really just to get to know the course as i had not done it before. i really was not expecting so many corners and had not really researched the race too well. very unlike me.

we were being held up on many of the corners as it was unsafe to try to slip by some of the less skillful teams with the damp road conditions. there was a lot of yelling going on as we had to warn a lot of teams that we were coming past. as approached the finish of the first lap, i saw up the road that they were still starting the shorter distance teams. damn, there were a lot of people riding today.

sometime on the second lap, it started to rain. it also brought about a change in the wind as it picked up to throw the rain in our faces. it became a crosswind on some of the straights and we had to echelon across the road in order to maintain speed. this proved difficult in two respects. we had to continuously pull back into single file to pass other groups, especially those that were all over the road. and the constant corners and changes of direction meant that we had to form off to the left, then the right and back again. this meant a lot more yelling from the bunch to make sure everyone was in the right spot.

halfway down the back straight, michael informs us that his rear tyre is going down. protocol required us to all wait for him as he changed the tube. he suggested we treat it more like a criterium and he will sit out a lap and we can pick him up next lap. fine with us, we powered on.

more teams were overtaken and it was hard to know where we really stood as no-one was catching us. on the back straight of lap three we past the other rio tinto team who had an eight minute head start on us. we had expected to pass them but it was a good gauge of how we were going. a little bit later we picked up michael from the side of the road.

lap four began to not feel as good for me. the first three laps were ace. i wished i felt like that more often. the only memorial part of lap four was mark putting his head down when on the front and missing a marshal indicating for us to turn. we all turned, he sent straight. he didn’t get far before realising his mistake, but he was hammering along before the corner. we all thought that he was going to take it too fast.

at the start of lap five, the final lap, we caught group “gg” who looked like they had stopped for a mechanical. we past them by but not long after they past us back again. with a full complement of riders, they were fresher than us and managed to keep on going. ryan wanted to pass them back, but i was on my limit and some of the other guys were not going to go any faster. he was very disappointed, but he was not feeling what my legs were feeling, which was pure crap.

the final lap involved a lot of yelling to slow down as my quads had started to cramp if i got out of the saddle. i was having trouble holding a wheel and was really running out of steam. the final couple of km’s were an absolute struggle and ryan had to drop back to help me. we ended up riding two abreast to block the wind and get everybody home. we finished in 2hr 06min according to my clock and had cover 80kms at an average of 38.3 km/hr. the official results had not come out yet, so this may change.

a slow ride back to the velodrome where we at least get changed out of the rain. the track racing was well under way and there were stalls from all the major bike shops in town. as we were passing through, josie had her wheelrace heat and her boyfriend, cj sutton was pushing her for the start. we watched her race then grabbed our meal and sat down to watch the rest of the events. in the final of the wheelrace the scratchmen were both riding for european pro teams and cj buried himself to lead out graeme brown back to the main pack. brownie had an enourmous turn of speed and past almost everyone except one new zealand rider who hung on for the win.

so we will only be available for three of the races this year and our first was quite a good hit out. next race we will be riding under the south perth rouleurs banner and i hope to get a few more of the guys involved across a few teams so we can get our group out there.