On Monday I was lucky to be a small part of the team helping Liz Randall set her world mark for the hour for her age.  My job was to walk the line, which is basically a simple way to show the rider how they're pacing themselves, as they're not allowed to use any computers etc on the bike during the effort.  It was a good night, some 30-odd people showed up to cheer and encourage Liz and she dug deep into herself to keep going, she explains how it all went here.  It's a good read. Sadly, even though I sent an email to news@bbn on Monday, there's still nothing on the BBN website about it.  I think the world mark is a big deal and something to make a big fuss about.  Leanne Cole was there to take photos.

And on another front, for the last month or so I've been working with Hilton Clarke and the local NTID squad, a lot on Wednesday nights and over the school holidays.  This started off as racking up time for the level two coaching qualification, and sort of evolved into an assistant role.  We (Hilton and I) had discussed the possibility of it being a formal (paid!) job, but it seems that that can't happen at the moment, which is a bummer.  I've much enjoyed working with Hilton and the squad.  I'm going to keep going along and helping for as long as I can afford the time and hopefully something will come of it, so I'll be in at DISC tonight.  I'm learning a lot from these sessions and want to be involved in some capacity.

And ... round 5 of the SSS this Sunday - entries are down, probably because of the clash with the Bendigo Madison but we'll keep haranguing people to come and race.  I've also entered the Vic Masters for MMAS2 (35-40) in the sprint and the keirin, but I learned from my lesson last summer, I'm NOT doing the kilo again!  At the moment there's three of us in the sprint and two in the keirin, so I might get a third and a second place! heh ...

MMAS2, sprint day (Saturday).

Hot, gusty northerly.

98.4", disk wheel.

Held starts (!%#$CV#$RT@#$!!!!!) not gate starts.  500m ITT, 42.02s (~0.5s faster than last year) - good enough for 3rd, beaten by the Wizard and Jamie Goddard.

Flying 200's - same gear, 13.4 (hand timing, lots of variance, one had me at 13.2 .... results as such of no value as very inconsistent).  Qualify 4th (!) - Wayne Arazny rode a 12.9ish f200!  Wow..... Very gusty northerly making for fast but inconsistent times.  A lot of luck with the gusts, or bad luck, depending on when you got a blast of wind.

I drop down to 91.8" for the sprints.

Race Jamie Goddard in the semi, he wins after leading me out for 2.5 laps.  I didn't come off his wheel with enough power, maybe a chance lost?  Jamie's bloody quick ... I dunno, if I'd come at him harder?  Maybe?

Race Wayne Arazny for 3rd place, I win, Wayne's cooked, he needs more sprint training, he's fast, but he runs out of efforts very quickly, if his 200m time was right, and we think it was close, he's much faster than he raced against me.

So two third places.  Given that The Wizard would win, and Jamie .. they're both a level above me, I'm pleased with the days efforts.  The F200 was my best for the summer, although the time is not to be trusted.

Dino won the 500 and the sprint in MMAS5.

Em won the 500 and the sprint in JW15.

It'll be a busy night at presentation night for the aboc sprint squad.

Em on fire at state team training, reports of a blisteringly quick standing 125 ... Watch out at the Aussies ...

I'm waiting on an update to my video editing software (PowerDirector 8.0, in case anyone's interested) to resolve an uploading to YouTube issue, so have a few moments to kill between editing videos for the sprint round last weekend.

I'd like to write a big report for the club teams championships last Saturday and the sprint round on Sunday, but this will be a very brief one.

CTC, a team of three of us, myself, Dino and Russell Poole are the Blackburn 'Open Masters' No.1 team.  I'm the first rider, Dino is No.2 and Pooley is our third after the Wizard couldn't commit.  We did ok, the event was a bit of a mess, no starting gates(!) and no split timing etc, but it was the same for everyone (except we'd spent a lot of time practicing gate starts!).  We ended up qualifying fourth so we just scraped into the final, to race off for 3rd place against Hawthorn's team of The V-Train, Aaron and some other guy who's name I don't know.  They'd qualified about four seconds faster than us, so we were never going to be in it,  but we went a little faster and they went a little slower but it was still three seconds too much, so we had to settle for fourth place.  Better than last year, so that's good ...

Round 4, I did my best flying 200 for the season, but still too slow, on a perfect day, I should, in hindsight, have used a bigger gear than 91.8", I'd felt strong during the week and probably would have done better on 94" or so, but it is what it is and 13.6s would have to do.  B grade was big, 10 of us, and I was one of the slower ones in qualifying. 

A very long story cut short, I beat Craig Towers, Ed Osbourne drilled me a new one, and Stewart Lucy took advantage of a huge tactical blunder on my part to win easily too, so not the best day's racing for me!  Still a lot of fun and the series continues to get good feedback.  There's a crew over in South Africa that want to copy the format and some in NSW as well, so that's very pleasing.  Our dream of a national series is gaining some momentum!  Jodie Dundas did a great job on the video camera, Lucie took ace photos and Sue ran the day like clockwork.  We got help from Will Thomas on the scoring duties as Anne Apolito was unavailable.

In other news, Emily teamed up with Caitlin Ward to roll the JW17 club team sprint by 2 seconds, quick kid, that Emily ... more medals for Dino to find homes for!  Thanks to the Thomas's and Bev for looking after Em on the day.

And if you haven't heard (get out from under the rock!) Mike Goldie from Carnegie-Caulfield was hurt in a low speed tumble at a training session at DISC last week,  from all of us we wish him a speedy and uncomplicated recovery.

Thanks to everyone who came to DISC last night for our training session.  The AIS-inspired K1 drill went well for the sprinters and the revouts .. what a blast!  Em's legs were a blur! We were very happy to have Fast Eddie come and train with us, and hopefully he'll be a regular, he's looking strong and is blisteringly quick and is one of those genuinely good guys that's great to have around.

So what else has been going on?  I've been to Adelaide and done the first part of the level 2 cycle coaching course.  Mixed feelings on that.  Some of the presenters were excellent, Craig Colduck (strength coach) and Shona (AIS recovery) in particular were superb.  Some of the presenters were presenting some quite dated material and some were clearly poorly prepared and not willing to explain what they did in much detail.  To be fair, that wasn't always their faults, John Beasley was brought in at the last minute to fill a gap and even with limited preparation he was a solid presenter.

It was a pretty intense 6 days and I met some really good people and caught up with some old aquaintances as well.  There's a lot of work to do to finish the level 2 but I don't see it as being terribly difficult, just time-consuming.

We had the third round of the SSS just after I got back, and I rode a shocker of a flying 200 (despite near perfect conditions!), a 13.8-something.  I knew I'd be flat after the 6 days in Adelaide doing bugger-all, sitting down a lot and eating sugary food too much.  My warmup in the 'Haus on the Sunday morning was no false alarm, I was flat and weak!

But I did manage to win a couple of races, despite being in a hole.  I'd qualified slowest in B grade, which wasn't a good sign, but Leon Simms didn't bring his race-face and I got him in the first heat :

But in the second, Ed Osbourne has a savage jump and he used it to smash me to bits!

Too easy, Ed!  Well done!

In the third heat I was up against Wayne Arazny.  Wayne has a habit of racing Glenvale in the morning, which means he comes tired and hasn't the snap I know he's capable of.  After a f200 and two sprints, he's toast, and it shows :

So two wins, but with a bad F200, I'm not in the finals this time.  C'est la Vie.  Next time ... There's two solid months of training between now and round 4.  I'm a bit burnt out, but with an easy week I'll be right, and I'm gunning for a 13.2-something at Blackburn this season.  That's the goal.  I've done a 13.4, I can find another 0.2s ... Somewhere!

The round went really well, our team was superb (Thanks Sue and Jodie and Anne and Lucie) and everyone had a ball.

After round 1, I felt crap for weeks.  Really weak and lethargic.  Every time I tried to lift heavy or sprint hard, nothing .. Flat and empty.  My diet, sleep and work had been out of kilter and nothing felt right.  To top it off, Lucie got crook and now we both have a cold.  Anyway .. Round 2 went ok, I qualified reasonably well with a 13.7 something, I was glad to be under 14 at least, given how I' been feeling that was pretty good.  The bye was a stroke of luck, I dealt with Wayne reasonably easily :

And Chris Hickey and I had a very very close finish

Both Chris and I though I won it, the photo was ambiguous and Sue and Kim in the middle thought Chris, so Chris got the win, and thus, I was to race for 3rd against Peta Stewart.

Peta's no slouch, that's for sure, and while I'd qualified faster and was probably a bit quicker, she drew the lead and I (foolishly) let her keep it.  She did a great job of boxing me up when I wanted to go and held off for a good win, so I got 4th again!

On Monday the cold really started to kick in and for this week I've been in and out of bed whilst setting the world record for litres of snot expelled by a human.  Hrm.  Anyway .. I have been able to do some anaerobic work, my squat strength is coming back, I ground out 3 x 3 @ 185kg this morning and got 1 x 5 170kg deadlifts, the deadlifts was a new personal best for me, so that was gratifying, and I pressed 3 x 5 @ 57.5kg, my press isn't my best lift by any stretch but that was a PR too, so despite being a snot-generator it was a good session, and young Will trained with me and did well as he learns the art of black iron training in the 'Haus. 

This arvo is keirins at Blackburn.  I still can't breathe too well, so I doubt that I'll be able to do well, but I'll have a crack at them. Once I shell this virus for good, round 3 will be a scorcher.  I'm going to go 13.2 for a flying 200 outdoors soon, I can feel it ...

And Em just rode an excellent time at Shep today (500m ITT) in windy conditions she's 2.2s faster than this time last year.  Go you good thing!

I was trolling the 'net for some trivia on sprinting ..

World professional sprint champions from Australia :

1920, Antwerp, Bob Spears (Bob was also runner up in '21 & '22)

1970, Leicester, Gordon Johnson

1975, Rocourt, John Nicholson

1976, Monteroni di Lecce, John Nicholson

1988, Ghent, Stephen Pate

1993, Hamar, Gary Neiwand

1995, Bogota, Darryn Hill

2002, Ballerup, Sean Eadie

For the women, no Australian women have won the world sprint championship (yet), Anna Meares was runner up in 2004 at the Melbourne world titles.

Known to many of us as the 'V-Train', Stuart Vaughan regained his MMAS4 pursuit world title today.  The V-Train was a guest speaker at an aboc dinner not long ago, just before he went to defend his 2007 win in 2008 (he got third).  So he's now a 2 times world champion.

Results here.

Great stuff, Stu, we'll see you at the Summer Sprint Series!

Liz Randall won her pursuit too.  Awesome ...

I've (finally!) booked in to do the Cycling Australia level 2 coaching course in November/December in Adelaide this year.  I've been wanting to do it for some time and with the move to Adelaide of the course, increase in time (6 days from 5) and more sprint focus, and thus a chance to speak with and learn from the AIS sprint team there I couldn't resist.

So I'll be away from the 28th of November 'til the 3rd of December, but will be back in time for round 3 of the aSSS.

In particular I'm hoping to get a chance to spend some time with Craig Colduck, who is the author of this post from fixedgearfever, there's a few details I want to ask him about.  I'm pretty sure that a lot of the stuff in there is really only meant to apply to elite athletes, in particular the "set a personal best, go home" bit, which is, I strongly suspect, intended only for riders working near their genetic potential where overtraining is a real concern.  This is similar to some programming data in "Practical Programming for Strength Training". 

Anyway, I'll be in Adelaide for a few days without a bike during the leadup to round 3.  I'll have to see if I can borrow one of Pete's folders and train on that!

It's great to see that Liz Randall won her first event at the UCI World Masters yesterday.  I didn't know she was doing the 500m ITT, but not only did she do it, she won it.  Another world title for Liz! She's also qualified fastest for the 2k pursuit.  There's no such thing as a dead cert, but I think she'll come back with a few more than just one world title.  I'd bet on all of them for her age group.  Go Liz!  I spent a few mornings over the past month at DISC motorpacing her, I'm not her coach, but am a small part of her team, and that's a great thing, I'm very pleased.

I was very much looking forward to round one of the aSSS yesterday.  On Saturday I was jumping out of my skin, but I woke on Sunday feeling a little flat and lethargic.  Lucie and I did all the making of the rolls for lunch etc and I did a warmup set in the 'Haus to kickstart my legs.  The warmup felt heavy.  Hrm.

Anyway .. We got to Blackburn, John Lewis and I set up the timing tapes and people started arriving.  I slapped on the replacement FFWD 5 spoke front and the disk rear wheel onto my T1 and did a few warmup laps and one surge, that felt ok.  98" was the gear for the day, not much wind and I should be strong enough to push it.

A bit of background on the 5 spoke.  I got it initially about 3 weeks ago, and tested it out at DISC only to find that it had loose bearings and shook uncontrollably at around 30km/h, so we sent it back to FRF (Aust importer) and they sent me another one which we got just in time for round 1.  Pete from CS-M glued it up during the week. On Saturday I bolted it into the bike and it didn't feel 100%, but was a lot better than the first one.

Flying 200 time, and I'm psyched for a big one.  Wind it up with a very light northerly breeze blowing (< 5km/h, perfect conditions), the front end twitches just a little up the front straight during my windup but seems ok, I hammer it into the clubroom corner to get up to speed, drop down following the Nicko-Line and feel fast crossing the start line ... then I hit the corner and the front end goes ballistic.  In motorcycling terms it did a tank-slapper.  The front end of the bike shook uncontrollably and I was heading for the fence with no control over the bike, frantically backpedaling to slow down and wash off some speed.  I managed to get around the corner with the front still wobbling all over the place and record a 15.something time.   I ask for a rerun and Sue approves.  The 5 spoke is swapped out for my older Bontrager carbon front wheel (that I trust!).   The FFWD 5 spoke is going back, and I don't want another one. A $3,000 wheel should have better quality control than these things have and as far as I'm concerned they ran shove it up their backsides and I want my money back!

I get about 30 mins to recover to do my second run.  I'm still a bit shaken (and fatigued from the first run!) and I only manage a 13.802 (52.17 km/h).  That's pretty slow.  It qualifies me as the second seed in B grade, Rob Tidey was 0.4 faster and he's the first seed in B grade.  Dino's made the cut into A grade as has Neil Robinson (his first time in A grade!).  Chris Ray and Gary Jackson are the fastest two in A grade, being the only riders on the day to get into the 12 second box.

Round 1 and I'm up against Nathan Fraser (14.174).  I should be able to get this, Nathan goes very early, very hard.  I'm on a big gear (98") and it takes a while to wind it up and I chase like a madman for a lap and a half before catching him just before the final bend, he's blown and I fly past and take a win first up.  That took a lot of energy to do!  I had to ride a 550m ITT to catch him.  Ouch. I'll pay for that (and the extra F200) later.  Final 200 : 15.036

Round 2 vs Leon Sims (14.124).   Similar race, Leon jumps around 450m so to go and gets a gap, again I'm chasing but once I get on top of the 98" I have speed and get him by a bit over a bike length.  That hurt too ... Still, two from two is the best I've ever had at an SSS round.  Final 200 : 14.121

Round three and I'm up against Andrew Steele (13.921).  Steelie's the flying 200 record holder at Blackburn, before he had a long break from the sport he rode an 11.94s. He's a very smart sprinter.  Certainly he's not in the best shape of his life, but he's still got a lot of power and a hell of a lot of race smarts.  If I'm not in front of him with 200m to go I'm toast, I figure.  Jokes at the start line about the combined weight of the field in this race being close to 300kg! I get schooled in how to ride a sprint and Steelie wins it by half a bike length after sitting up once he knew he had the win.  He has this amazing surge and back off which he kept throwing at me and I'd never raced anyone with that in their toolkit.  A really good lesson and I'm thrilled to have been able to race against him.  When he gets into some better shape he'll be very fast again. Final 200 : 13.789

Finals, I'm in the 3v4 ride off against Marc Wilson (13.905).  This is over 3 laps and he draws the lead.  I go under him and take it off him and hold him up high, I don't have the energy for a long sprint and I want this one to be a last lap drag race, I'm persisting with the 98" gear.  I haven't had a chance to watch Marc race much, he gave Rob Tidey a decent race in round 3 which I did see.  We jump around about together and it's a good race, but Marc gets it by half a bike.

So, two flying 200s, Four match sprints.  Two wins and two close losses. I shouldn't be unhappy with that.  I'm very unhappy with the (very expensive!) FFWD front wheel though!

The day itself went just about perfectly.  A full field, some brilliant racing and the series is everything we dreamed it could be.  Lots of positive feedback, the team did an amazing job (again!) - Sue ran the races with the right level of control and authority, it was all run in good spirit and we have hundreds of photos (thank you Lucie and Nathan) and loads of video for me to edit and upload over the next few days.  The electronic timing was great, thanks to John Lewis and Nathan Frazer.

Next round, I think I'll drop down to 94" or so, the 98" was too much to accelerate and while I had loads of speed on it, tactically it was the wrong gear for the day.

Some data from the powertap for today's practice round for the SSS.

First up, my flying 200.  13.51 I think, hand timed as the electronic timer was 'teething'.  Gusty west/souwesterly wind, 98.4" gear.  Not a PB, but given the weather at the time, not too bad.

After that, the first sprint vs Dino Apolito. Dino got the jump on me in front of the clubrooms from behind and I didn't quite catch him. Close, but not close enough.

Finally, my race against Craig Towers.  Craig had fallen earlier (not a crash, a mechanical as he rode to the start line!) and was a bit bruised and sore.  I jumped clear and won by quite a margin.

Last Saturday (8th August) while training in the 'Haus with the Sprint Squad guys, I managed to grind out 3 x 3 @ 185kg squats at last.  I stuttered on the second set and had to revisit it (repeat it!) because on rep 2 I lost control of the bar and had to regain balance, but I got the lifts. In the end it was 3, 1(stumbled on 2), 3, 3.  So I'm happy with that.  

We had a solid session at DISC last night, it got cold very quickly after it being quite warm at 4:30pm, but by 6 it was an icebox and we all rugged up a lot.  Come 7pm and everyone was pretty-well shattered, so job done for another Sunday.  Our 1/2 lap chase onto the bike, 1 lap paced 1/2 lap sprint drill is starting to get challenging and we'll keep making it harder (the bike goes faster!)

At the moment, according to FedEx the track Powertap wheel is in Australia!

In other news I'm pleased to see that Alan Dorin won CCCC's Lenny Hammond handicap on Saturday down at Modella.  This year it was their hilly course, way back in 2004 I won it, when it was flat!

Yesterday's Vic masters.  Got up around 7, did a warmup set of squats in the 'haus, then Pat picked me up and we scooted in to DISC.  First event is the sprint, and of course that starts with a flying 200.  We're (MMAS2) the 6th lot to go.  There's some fast lads here.   Ok.  My turn, I've got the disk wheel on the back, 98.4" inches of gear (51x14).  That's the biggest I've ever used for a F200, but it's a bit of an experiment.  The air is hot already.  My line is good and smooth, I hit the tape at flat chat and hold the hammer down.  Felt pretty good.  Look up at the clock.  12.916.  W00t!  New PB by lots!  First time sub 13s.  My revised season goal is a 13.2 at Blackburn, I didn't expect to go sub 13 at all anywhere this season, so I'll take that as a major goal achieved.  It's not fast enough to qualify though (the quick boys are doing high 11's) but I'm very happy with that.  I commentate for the match sprints. 

Then it's time trial time.  We're doing a kilo (thought it was supposed to be a 750 for MMAS2?).  Awful.  absolutely awful.  I think I rode a 90 second kilo or something.  Spent the next 15 minutes coughing.  Never again.  The V-Train (Stuart Vaughan) rides his 750m ITT (MMAS4) in a time that would have won the club team sprint last week!  And he says he's not a sprinter ... heh ... Jessica Laws sets a worlds best time for her masters age group for the 500m ITT and has to wait for the ASADA people to come, and she has to be chaperoned until they arrive.  The costs of world records!  She was pretty chuffed.  Her smile was lighting up the place.

Finally the keirin, I'm not entered, not silly enough to think I'm fast enough to mix it with Carl Cubitt and Andrew Shannon just yet.  Maybe next year ... I commentate for it as well, earning a free drink from the officials esky .. helped calm down my ravaged throat after the kilo-coughing episode.

Along the way a number of people rode really well.  Craig Towers set a few PB's, Martin Lama made it through to the finals in the sprint at his first attempt, Pat got three bronze medals after some brilliant match sprinting and a great ride in the keirin, Mick Thomas got a silver in the keirin, Cam Woolcock rode a solid Kilo, John Lewis continues to come back into form and as the only MMAS8 rider there he was far from disgraced when mixing it with the MMAS7 men.  Leah Patterson got a couple of medals too and would have got different colours if she'd carried on to contest a sprint finish after a nasty hook during a sprint round.  Lessons learned there!

I handed out a lot of promo cards for the sprint series, spruiking it as best I can to the sprinters.

All up a pretty good day.  The enduro stuff is on today, so I'm going kayaking!

While we (Pat, John & I) were training this morning at Blackburn, I kept looking at my phone .. Emily's over in Adelaide at the Nationals and today she has sprint qualifying (flying 200's) and later the 500m time trial.  Due to a misunderstanding of timing (we thought she was riding around 9am, but it was 11:30 SA time, 12:00 here) I was watching the phone for no reason, but the news came flooding in around 12.  Em set a new PB in the flying 200, with a 14.145s (50.901km/h) ride, she's qualified the fastest of the Victorian girls and has qualified 6th fastest overall in JW15.  This on an unfamiliar velodrome at the end of a long long season, is amazing in itself.  Consider also that she's just (yesterday) turned 13, and is one of the youngest of the JW15 girls and the F200 is not her favorite event.  Tonight she rides her pet race, the 500m time trial.  She won this by quite a margin at the Vics a month ago beating the older Victorian girls, and we've worked a lot on her strength and standing starts since then.  I'll be waiting for the SMS's to roll in tonight.  Go Em, you're flying!

The official results :

MASTERS MEN

Carnegie Caulfield No 1 51.91 1st

Brunswick No 1 52.06 2nd

Brunswick No 2 53.92 3rd

Carnegie Caulfield No 2 54.80 4th

Blackburn No 1 56.61 5th

Brunswick No 4 56.82 6th

Brunswick No 5 57.09 7th

Brunswick No 3 57.72 8th

Brunswick No 6 58.47 9th

Preston 59.31 10th

Blackburn No 3 60.04 11th

Blackburn No 2 60.11 12th

So we did ok, 5th by not much, given the bad start I got next year we may be in with a chance for some medals, if we can find another 3 seconds somewhere anyway. We were at least the fastest of the Blackburn teams!

One thing's for sure, Brunswick have a very strong track presence in masters racing.

It's been a long week.  I've had a headcold for days, on Friday I got stung by a European wasp, Saturday was the club teams championships at DISC, some irony, some of it was delayed by rain just after Rhys was telling us all over the PA about how good it is to have an indoor velodrome!  I was (eventually) teamed up with Dino and Martin Lama as the Blackburn 1 team for the team sprint.  After a false start from Brunswick 1, we got off to a shocker because I got stuck in the gate and must have dropped half a second at the start.  We ended up riding a 56.something 750m, Brunswick 1 rode a 52.something.  The stuck in the gate thing was entirely my fault, I tried to predict the start and must have gone a fraction early and maybe twisted a little?  Anyway ... my fault.  I don't think we would have made the final even if we'd ridden a perfect race, but it was frustrating all the same.

I've not been near the 'haus since yesterday morning's warmup sets before the teams championships, and I still haven't decided if I'll ride the sprint at the Vic Masters next weekend.  I know I'm not fast enough, but it might be worth it to do a flying 200 and see how I'm going.  The main problem is fatigue.  I was chatting with Mick Thomas while we watched the rain leak on the boards at DISC on Saturday and we're all hanging out for the end of the season.  We started racing in October and we're all burnt out.

In the Good News stakes, Emily Apolito and Bridgette Thomas won the JW15 500m team sprint this morning at the junior version of the club teams championships. Em's off to Adelaide with her family next week to ride in the Aussie titles, so Dino will miss the Vic Masters, but if he feels anything like me, that's more a relief than anything! We're all desperate for the end of season and a break from training and racing all the time.

I know what I'll be doing over most of April (break-month) - Kayaking with Lucie and whoever else wants to come along!  We'll be starting spin sessions again in April and also the DISC Sunday evening sessions.  The motorbike at DISC is now an issue, due to some problems with it recently the system's been changed and it's now $1,000 for the first 1,000km.  So our use, which is over about 25 weeks, for about 45 minutes to an hour a week (around 30km at most per session) means I'll have to find $1,000 to use the bike this winter for sprinters leadouts and paced enduro sessions.  Hrm.

I've just about finished the videos from round 5 of the BSSS, I'll have them all done today (just got 2 more finals to do!)

A dog-slow F200, 13.85s confirmed my suspicions, I was busted from Saturday's efforts.  Even my warmup squats in the Powerhaus in the morning had felt lethargic.  C'est la Vie.

I'm up first against Rob Tidey, and to cut a long story short, I won it by a very very tight margin.  Wow ... Unexpected. Rob went on to win the grade.

Second race is against Chris Dann, who is on a bender at the moment and he wins it. He went through the rounds undefeated but lost in the final to Rob.

Third is against Julian Vince, I shut the door hard on him and take another win.

Two wins! I'm in the finals!  Three of us in B grade tied on 12 points and my bad F200 time means I'm racing Peter Vlahos for 3rd overall.  Over 3 laps .. against a pursuiter who beat me in the F200.  Heh ... Anyway, he jumps 2 laps out and wins, I never caught him.  Still, very happy, a good day's racing. We raised $683 for the Red Cross and everyone left with a smile after some fantastic racing.

Will write a proper write-up tomorrow.  Bed time.  Broken tonight, everything hurts!

Unconventionally, yesterday's club champs started with pursuits.  In MMAS2 there was 4 of us (I thought only 3! Didn't realise Wayne Arazny was in his 30's.  I'm up against Alex Vaughan in qualifying.  I'm on 104" for this, as a bit of an experiment.  We take off and I basically match Alex each lap, just trying to stay in front of him, and when the bell goes for the last of our 10 laps I sprint for a bit.  Afterwards, Wayne sets a faster time than I do and Martin Lama is miles quicker than everyone.  So Alex and I get a rematch for the final.  This time I resolve to catch him quickly and get it over with.  I'm still on 104".  It takes me 5 laps to get him, and I'm absolutely trashed by the effort.  The officials blew the whistle a touch early, and if Alex had decided to kick on, I'd not have been able to go with him and he'd have got me.  Still, there you go.  3rd in the pursuit. I'm going to pay for that effort today at the Sprint Series. I wasn't really planning on riding the pursuit, the plan was to qualify for the final (1v2) then do a 2 lap sprint to see if I could catch Martin unaware, but I didn't figure on Wayne being there, being fast and being in my age group!  This got me again, later ...

Next up is the 500m ITT, I've got my new Bontrager RXL shoes on, and they are the ducks nuts.  Super-comfortable. Still on 104" (51x14).  I think I rode a 42.something for the 500. Not too bad considering the monster gear, gusty wind and fatigue from the pursuits.  Not sure if that got me a second or third in MMAS2?  Martin rode a 39.something to win it.  Dino set a PB for his in MMAS4, but Mick Thomas got him by 0.15s!

Chris Dann won everything in MMAS3 as expected.

The scratch race, and there's 4 of us, Martin, the unbackable favorite, Wayne, Alex and myself.  My plan, gap Martin off the front ASAP and then race for 2nd.  A bit negative, but Martin's been winning A grade scratch races and the rest of us are riding C or D grade scratch.  I'm on Martin's wheel from the start, and as we roll turns the first time he comes to the front I crystal-crank it (now on 86", sanity prevails!).  Martin's away 20m clear in a jiffy, but ... Wayne's jumped across the gap with him.  Ok, I figure Martin will drop him soon enough and then Alex and I will be able to pull him back.  Except that Alex and I don't combine so well and they work together and get a lap on us!  Oh noes!  After they get the lap Martin kicks away and Wayne's about half to two thirds of a lap clear and Alex and I finally rolling turns smoothly and gradually pulling him back, but he's still a lap up even if we catch him.  Racing Alex now for third.  We have a gentleman's agreement of sorts and we don't sprint until the last 100m or so, I pip Alex by half a wheel at the end.

So at the end of the day's racing I have a 3rd in the pursuit, 2nd or 3rd in the 500m ITT, 3rd in the scratch race, and a 2nd in the sprints last weekend.  Is that good enough for 2nd in the club champs for MMAS2? I don't know.  Last week the results were up very quickly (thankyou Rob and Doug!).  I know this morning the pursuit effort to catch Alex is going to have an effect on my speed at the sprint series.  No matter I guess, I'm not in a position to influence the aggregate anyway, if I can do a 13.7 or less I'll be happy with my F200 and anything after that will be a bonus.  I'd better get my backside into gear, do my warmup weights and get to the track to set it all up!

Today's club champs.  MMAS2 (35-40).  I set a new PB in qualifying with a 13.37, my previous PB at Blackburn was a 13.44, good, especially with the gusty southerly blowing.  I qualified 2nd in MMAS2 after Martin Lama, who rode a 13.1-something I think - it was quite a bit quicker than me anyway.

The format for the day is a bit brief, we get a straight out final for 1st v 2nd place, 2 laps, not best of three.  Ok.  That probably suits me anyway, Martin's a lot fitter than I am so more rounds would give him more advantage.

We ride out, Martin winning the toss and leading low down.  I go up the hill at the clubrooms, he comes up covering me, then he accelerates down into the lane before the 200m line on the first lap, not really a kick, just a (noticeable!) increase in pace, and it's on.  He's leading me out for almost two whole laps!  Right ... I'm camped on his wheel into the big headwind, he keeps speeding up, ok .. I'm still here.  The bell rings, I'm still camped comfortably on his wheel, I might just get this one.  The clubroom corner, he's increasing pace but still no real big surge, the 200m line again and it's time I went, I come off his wheel and we're side by side at the end of the back straight, I've got a nose in front at the halfway point at the southern bend, but he lifts just a touch more and I can't match it, going the long way round him, and with 50m to go he's got a bikelength and that's how it stays to the finish.  Awesome ride, given the monster leadout he could just keep on at that tempo, and he's got the gold and I'm taking a silver in MMAS2 again!  I'm pretty happy, we had a good, close race and my F200 was the best I'd ever done.  Martin was just too good.

Dino and Mick Thomas raced for MMAS4 1st and 2nd, and Dino took it, Emily won the JW15 500m ITT and the sprint after qualifying fastest by almost a full second.  A good day for the aboc crew.

Tomorrow Lucie & I are going kayaking!

A very quick report.  Went for a 6 hour kayak on Saturday down the Yarra from Reserve Rd to Warrandyte (some rapids, some flat water)

- probably not the ideal preparation for Sunday's racing!  Woke up on Sunday aching everywhere!  It was a good kayak trip though ...

To loosen up, I did a warmup set of squats, 12 x 20kg, 8 x 60kg, 5 x 100kg, 2 x 140kg.  Felt ok after that.  Packed everything into Lucie's volvo and got to the track, set everything up with help from Dino, Em, Alex, Ann, David (thankyou for the cable ties!) and then everyone else that showed up.  Warmed up on the track on 91.8", did a couple of windups to get the F200 line dialed in.  Rode a reasonably good F200, it was a howling and gusty sou-easterly and everyone was slow, but I cranked out a 13.76 (52.33km/h), second fastest in B grade once the grading was done. Dino was down on his normal times, he only(!) rode a 13.75 (0.01s between us!), all of B grade was split by less than 0.4s - Dino fastest on 13.75, Peter Vlahos slowest with a 14.07.

I drew Peter Vlahos first, he's a track pursuit/enduro rider and a very promising junior (J19) who trains with Brad Robins, I knew what he wanted to do, go early ... I won the toss and lead, and did my best to keep him jammed up for the first lap, but I gave him too much room and he seized the opportunity at about 1.5laps and got a decent gap, I chased and caught him up the front straight but the damage was done and he had enough to hold me off, a close, but not close enough, finish, and he won very well. It was a long, long sprint and it hurt! Last 200, 14.08s (51.14km/h)

Next up I'm against Dino. Why are 1st and 2nd qualifiers racing in the heats? We need to fix the draw system so this doesn't happen, we're not exactly Federer and Nadal, but it should be such that if possible, the fastest two qualifiers in a grade don't race until the final, assuming they make it there of course ... The draw is done under a lot of time pressure, Dino and I need to get together and grind out some code to do it automatically for future, and build in some of these parameters.  I think it's just too much to ask of a hand-draw that has to be done in 10 minutes, we need to improve the system for our volunteers who do that very difficult job. 

Anyway, the race ... Dino's F200 was an aberation, I know he's faster than me by more than 0.01s.  Take a punt and keep him guessing.  Dino's got the lead and I initially move quickly up the bank to see if he'll let me take it off him, but he knows better than that, and so as we get to the southern bend I slow right down and Dino slows with me.  At that point the plan was to either get him to jump early and tow me into the southerly headwind, or to steal the lead and hook him up for a drag race, his jump isn't dramatic so that might work.  He slows too, and then we're side by side, I'm up the hill and he's given me room, coming off the bank we both jump at the same time, coming around the bend into the wind I drop onto his wheel to get out of the wind and I have a good draft, I've saved some matches, but I left it a little late to come off his wheel after almost ramming it as he came into the bend and I swerved a little sharply and wash off my precious momentum.  Dino's still at full power and I know I can't catch him so I sit up and watch with 50m to go.  Final 200m : 13.54s (53.18km/h)

Last race and I'm up against Jason Plowman. Jason's F200 was 13.96, but he rode a very unusual line and is faster than that.  I had the lead and we rode slowly for most of the first lap.  I gave Jason way too much room and he rode up and over at the southern corner, and he stayed high, I got onto his wheel into the wind, but again left it too late to come past and he got me by half a wheel.  Final 200 : 13.72s (52.48km/h)

So, the summary (all to familiar!) - I got a F200 time I was happy with, but lost all my match sprints. Dino went to to win B grade comfortably from Jason, and Peter Vlahos got a solid 4th. Lucie got some great photos, the team running the day worked brilliantly and everyone left happy.  All I need to do is win a sprint every now and then!

A quick summary :

The aboc boys, Cam Woolcock and Mason Austen, rode very well. They were outclassed but learned a lot and were far from disgraced.

Vanders rode in the support races and did pretty well too.

I rode the scratch race (C grade support) and DNF'd after 8 laps (CF: 0).

I spent most of the day commentating.

Tom Leaper and Ashley Hanson won the madison by miles.  The Hawthorn team (featuring the V-Train) came second and the Brunswick boys, Shawn/Sean and Ollie, were so tough and inspiring with their efforts to hold second place.  Incredible riding.

The women's madison was a non-event. One team turned up to race (The Velvet Hammer and her Rowing Olympian teammate).  Not sure what else to do about this?  I promoted the womens madison as much as I could, maybe there's just not enough women interested to do it?

It's going to be a scorcher of a week, high 30's until Sunday ... but that's ok, Sunday can cool down, it's round 4!