A year in the life of a wannabe racer- Season 12.5

[LDRcycles]

A long time ago (2012) in a galaxy far away (the soon to be dearly departed bicycles.net.au forum), I started writing about my attempts to ride a bike fast.

With 14 years of life changes the title is now about as accurate as McDonald’s use of the term “restaurant”; there’s almost as much photography, farming, and family life as there is cycling.

That said, cycling is still the big priority especially this year. The original focus on road racing under the umbrella of the cartoon villains that are the UCI is totally gone (I’m hopeless in a bunch) and since 2018 the target is city to city records. These are overseen by the Road Record Association of Australia which I co-founded and currently head- which means long distance trips every so often as an official, one highlight being the finish of Lachlan Morton’s Around Australia record.

My number one target this year is the Warwick-Brisbane record. A touch over 100 miles with a current record of 6:16:33. I’ve been wanting to go after it since 2018 without success.

The first obstacle was getting a permit. Section 85 of the Qld road rules explicitly bans racing or record-setting (by vehicle or animal, so no alpaca racing) without police approval. Getting police approval meant getting Main Roads approval, and TMR Darling Downs said no. Why did they say no? Because they spoke to Warwick Police and they said no. Or to be more precise “no way on God’s green earth”.

Given it’s perfectly legal to ride those roads solo at any time, saying no to riding with a retired cop in a chase car in the wee hours of a Sunday morning is, let’s be charitable and say “short-sighted”. So with the help of my local independent MP I went over their heads to TMR head office and got a letter saying that I would be “travelling as a normal road user” and so no permit was needed.

By this stage QPS were so eager to avoid the flood of paperwork I was sending their way they leapt at the mention of “normal road user” and declared that RR85 “does not apply to individual riders” and therefore no permits were needed, please don’t contact us again.

But then I ran out of time to make an attempt that year, my son was born, and I spent all of the next year sick March 2023 was the next try, and I was in excellent shape, it would be in the bag. Except for getting Covid for the first time and being smacked down so hard it was 3 years before I was able to hit 160km again.

Well I’m finally back on the right track now with 5,200km so far this year. The attempt is penciled in for late October or early November, because I’ve ridden out of Warwick in winter before and I have no intention of repeating that horror

The “warmup” scheduled for the first weekend of October is a 24 hour ride around my hometown of Kin Kin to raise money for the school P&C. The loop on the 3 main roads around the district still has a couple of kms of gravel so I’m building up a 2006 Jamis Coda as a gravel bike with 32mm tyres to suit. With a bit of luck I’ll have that ready for a test ride next weekend to firm up the target distance.

[LDRcycles]

With the mercury down around 5 degrees on Wednesday morning getting on the bike before work wasn’t happening. A man’s got to know his limits, and mine is at least 9 or 10 degrees :lol:

But miles need to be had, and some intense ones at that, so after finishing work it was time for some hot laps of Noosa. Along Eenie Creek Road to Keyser Island, past the Aldi to the Junction, over Noosa Hill to Hastings Street then right along the river to Tewantin and back along Beckmans Road. 21km per lap, and with minimal climbing and lots of smooth hotmix 3 laps should fit within 2 hours.

Well it almost did. The legs aren’t doing a whole lot beyond 34-35kmh at the moment, particularly with a decent southerly cross/headwind blowing. I was able to pass a few electric rabbits though, and made some reasonable chases of cars in 40 zones. The highlight of the evening was clinging onto the slipstream of a Mercedes SUV on Noosa Parade as a teenager going the other way on an electric moto popped a wheelie and screamed “YEAH MAAAATE” at me :lol: Training in Noosa is entertaining to put it mildly!

The next morning the temperature was more reasonable so I was up early to head to Boreen Point. My body was most unimpressed with this, so it was a short and gentle ride. A few km from home I noticed a light some distance behind, so upped the pace a little (perish the thought of being caught on my home turf!) The light closed FAST, so I admitted defeat and said good morning as the gnarliest, most chiseled calves you’ve ever seen rolled by. The disappointment of being dropped was gone once I checked Strava to find it was Ryan from the Noosa mob DZL Racing, who’s covered well over 10,000km already this year :shock: .

There was no morning ride again yesterday, this time not because of weather but because Mrs LDR’s insane orange kitten brought a bird into the house at 12:37am and DID NOT want to give it up. So out into the Noosa evening mayhem I went again. Wednesday night had woken up the parts of the legs that actually go fast, but I wasn’t going to go 100% and overdo it. Until a Land Rover provided enough draft to hold 44kmh past the AFL grounds, and then I chased a small bus halfway up Noosa Hill :lol: The unhelpful wind was still at it, and quite cold this time so I was happy to do just 2 laps for 42km.

Off to a massage this afternoon, and then some time in the workshop to have the new gravel bike ready for (hopefully) a 100-160km shakedown test tomorrow morning on the 24 hour course.

Off the bike, I got my and Miss Winter’s entries into the Ridgewood Hall photo comp. This one didn’t make the final cut, but I’m still happy with it.

[jasonc]

I rode in the sunny coast hinterlands on Wednesday. It was cool, especially in the dips. Was very dark for the first hour and a bit (started riding at 5) and not a significant amount of street lights. Light traffic was the bonus. Sufficient clothing means i wasn’t cold

[LDRcycles]

Now it’s one thing to look at a map of the course and guess what a sustainable moving average speed would be for 24 hours, but the sensible approach would be doing a good few laps of it to get some real numbers. By the time I got home Saturday evening I didn’t feel like spending an hour or two in the shed finishing the gravel bike build, so instead popped a new chain (el cheapo SRAM from the nearest 99 Bikes store) on the Polygon Stratos. The dirt section of Wahpunga Lane is in pretty good shape at the moment so the big fat 28mm tyres would probably do (well they look big and fat to me!)

Not being familiar with that dirt section I decided on a rather late 6am start to reduce the chances of clobbering a pothole in the dark. It also let a patch of rain move through, but the forecast was for more so I was fully prepared to get very wet and muddy.

With only 3 through roads in the district course selection was an open and shut case Each lap is 16.8km, so just over 100km from 6 laps, and I wanted 8, maybe 9 or 10 if things went well.

None of the hills are big or particularly steep but there are plenty and they add up to 223m per lap. It took a couple of runs to work out the best line through the gravel but after a few nervous moments I got it dialed and was able to zip through quickly. The rougher sections really respond to extra speed to skim over the top, but that does take a fair bit of energy to do.

I was expecting to get bored with doing the same loop again and again at a modest pace, but maybe because of the length of each lap I didn’t have any issue. With 5 laps done I decided to open the throttle for lap 6 to see what sort of time it would be worth. Well it was worth 33:56, as compared to my schedule of 45:49. Now obviously I can’t go at that pace for 24 hours, but at a more realistic pace my slowest lap was still under 39 minutes so it’s looking very good indeed with 14 weeks to go.

With the late start and plenty of farm work waiting for me I decided to call it a morning after 8 laps. 135km with a very healthy 1,786m of climbing! My plan of forcing myself to stop for a 10-15 minute break every 4 hours also looks like a smart choice. In due course I’ll do another trial of up to 12 hours to confirm that.

I was heading home for a nice hot shower when I found Mrs LDR and a neighbour getting some of our agistment cows back in from a little adventure. They’re very well behaved so getting them home wasn’t difficult, and I soon found where a tree branch had come down on the fence which was easily sorted.

Cows dealt with, hot shower had, and pancakes with bacon and eggs thanks to Mrs LDR, and after a bit of rest it was off over the other side of town to drop some camphor laurels for my old man’s goats to eat (they’ve eaten their current paddock bare and it’ll be a week or so before a new paddock is ready).

[LDRcycles]

This morning was dry, still, and surprisingly mild, perfect weather for riding. Except it was also a foggy winter morning, which means daddy/daughter Mount Cooroora sunrise climb. We’ve done the climb at least once each winter since Winnie was 6 years old, and this year was young Hamilton’s first time. With not one but two kids to watch I was happy to have their Uncle Randy along for the hike.

Winnie hadn’t let on that she was feeling unwell, but with the effort of the climb she soon couldn’t hide it, and we had to stop at the halfway lookout while Hami and Randy continued on to the summit. There was still a nice view for us and she recovered quickly and was able to get back to the car without trouble. The summit can wait for another day.

[LDRcycles]

No cycling to report as a cold has reinforced the rest week I was already going to have. But in much better news, the Ridgewood Hall Photo Fair awards were held last night and a certain Miss Winnie took a serious haul!

Two 1st places, and Best in Show Junior

[LDRcycles]

Even for me that was a busy weekend.

Friday morning Winnie and I went down to Brisbane to meet Stacey Duffy as she set off on an Around Australia record attempt, before swinging out to Cashmere to pick up some car parts, then home for the Photo Fair.

Saturday was work until midday, then lunch with friends followed by cleaning up a 27 year old Camry for sale and cutting fodder for goats.

After all that I wasn’t getting up early on Sunday, and with a fair bit of wind about I called it a day at 74km. Still enough to keep my active streak going into Week 50

Then it was in to Noosa to help a friend pack for moving house before picking up another camera. With Winnie’s success and her little brother also keen on getting into photography it was time to add to the collection. The old 450D goes to the young fella, Winnie now has a 500 (with an exquisite 50mm prime), and I have a 760.

While I unloaded furniture Mrs LDR and the kids popped over to Main Beach where Winnie immediately put her new kit to good use.

[LDRcycles]

I had Monday off work, so that would have been another try at 100km. The wind had other ideas though, and I was more than happy to be done at 30km.

After several dozen inquiries (mostly rude or moronic) Ye Olde Camry sold and went onto a truck. I don’t know how the thing started and ran faultlessly after several years of sitting unused, on fuel that must be halfway back to crude oil, with 415,000km on the clock, but that’s Camry reliability for you!