Archive for February, 2008

Back in old Shanghai

Published
by
Bif
on February 28, 2008
in News
. 0 Comments

Just back from another trip to Shanghai so I feel compelled to post a blog as things have been quiet for a while. With the temperature generally between 2 and 6 there was not much temptation to try my luck in the traffic. The locals battle the cold with giant fur-lined gloves permanently attached to the handlebar grips. I was tempted to get a pair for that one day of the year, but not sure if they will fit on drop bars.

“Western” brands are starting to have an impact on the local market as there are Giant shops all over town, and Trek have at least one outlet. I only went into one of these (Giant) shops and it was mostly cheap folding bikes and MTBs, though they did have one $100 road bike. I didn’t make it to the up-market shop I found on the internet. No bargains to be expected but I was hoping to pick up a locally-themed jersey. I was curious to find out about their customer base though, as I can’t imagine where you’d ride your top-end machine in Shanghai…

We have only a couple of weeks til the Cyclosportif season opens with the Freeway Bike Hike, so it’s time to get your machines serviced and think about whether a new set of rubber is in order. Thanks BTW to The Doctor for registering the team name for the 60km bash. It will be a decent day’s ride by the time I’ve cruised to Kwinana, sprinted to Joondalup and then cruised back home again. A chip stop will no doubt be required.

Fremantle Gift

Published
by
O'Dirty
on February 13, 2008
in Product Review and Ride Report
. 1 Comment

Following is the only true account of the “Fremantle Gift” as recounted by our handicapper on the day, John “Digger” Brookes. Postscript from the victor at the end.

Those who’ve done both will tell you that Cycling is much more interesting than swimming, but after 18 years, even the Sunday Freo ride can start to lose its zing. To be sure the ride has evolved over time, changing its starting point a couple of times, and gradually incorporating the best hills available. Last year saw it become part of our Coglioni training for Cyclosportif, but when all is said and done, it remained a stock standard race to Freo. It was time for something new, and Sunday February 10 2008 was marked by the inaugural Fremantle Gift - a handicap race to Freo (OK, its still just a race to Freo, but discarding that basic concept is like drinking non-alcoholic wine, dancing with your sister or supporting the Eagles)

The normal Narrows bridge start was abandoned due to work on the freeway cycle path. If one wants the whole truth, it is that some of our number did not trust themselves to ride safely on the pedestrian overpass detours in the heat of battle, while others showed rather less self awareness. So the start was from the car park at the back of the public library just over Canning bridge The handicaps were:

Rider Handicap
Cookie 0 Seconds
Digger 30
Blinder 60
Paddles 90
The Doctor 120
Stuey 150
O’Dirty 180
Babel 210

The finish line was the traffic lights just before Freo train station, making a distance of ~16km. Drafting was allowed, however where riders finished in a pack (i.e. would be credited with the same time in the Tour de France), the rider who started latest would be the winner, provided he/she had led at some stage of the race.

With a fresh easterly behind him, Cookie was off first, a concession that will not be repeated. Digger set off next, followed by Blinder. Blinder and Paddles, it should be noted, had got together before the ride to work on strategy. Blinder would take it easy until Paddles caught him, and then they would work together. To make it easier to catch Blinder, Paddles jumped the gun and went early. The race referees allowed this reckless disregard for the rules, but God works in mysterious ways, as Paddles found out later. O’Dirty also had a strategy - go bloody hard early. So hard that he had passed Stuey (struggling after riding 70km on Saturday) and caught Paul by the base of the Stock Rd hill, the same place that Blinder and Paddles caught Digger. Cookie was nowhere to be seen, and Babel couldn’t see anyone. The Doctor had the Paddles group in his sights as he started up Stock Road, confident that he would make significant inroads into their lead, but Blinder led Paddles and Digger at a cracking pace, and the Doctor didn’t close much. O’Dirty proceeded to “rest” up Stock Road, lulling the Doctor into a false sense of security, before putting the hammer down and flying past him on the Reserve St descent. The Paddles group almost came to a stop at the base of Reserve St obstructed by a couple of cafe cyclists dawdling along. Beach Rd hill saw the Paddles group slow somewhat, despite the exhortations of Paddles. O’Dirty was closing. Paddles earlier cheating caught up with him as he came around the roundabout off Preston Point Rd. A flat tyre saw him nearly fall, and he was forced to withdraw. Digger, who had been clinging to Paddles and Blinder now lost Blinder, and then seconds later O’Dirty flew past. O’Dirty caught Blinder, but needed a rest and sat on Blinder’s wheel for a while, before deciding to chase down Cookie (an uncharitable person might say that O’Dirty sat on Blinder’s wheel until he was sure he had enough kick to drop Blinder…). Anyway, O’Dirty finally had Cookie in his sights, until Cookie decided that since he had never ridden all the way into Freo, he wasn’t going to today, and so abandoned the race to head off up the coast (although it is possible Cookie thought the set of lights he stopped at was the finishing line). This left O’Dirty to come in a clear winner, followed by Blinder, Digger, The Doctor, Stuey and Babel. Babel, off the back mark, claimed not to have seen any other riders for the duration. None the less, in the absence of Bif, Babel will still be back marker, a punishment for all those rides where he goes to the front and sets the sort of pace which causes pain for everyone else. Blinder wins the Daniel Kerr award for hurting himself the most, although O’Dirty wasn’t far behind.

A quick coffee in Freo was followed by a scenic ride to Blinder’s for a swim, a sumptuous breakfast and a chance to meet Rhett, the latest addition to the Davies clan.

The final times are a bit dodgy, but as no one was going to volunteer to wait at the finish line with a stopwatch, what can you expect?

Here are the nett times, as given by the riders, where known:

Rider Result Average speed
O’Dirty 27.30 (28:00) 37.1
Blinder 30.00 (30:30) 34.0
Digger 30.52 33.1
The Doctor 29.39 34.4
Stuey 30.00 (a guesstimate) 34.0
Babel 30.22 33.6
Paddles Mechanical: Puncture not Spoke! n/a
Cookie DNF n/a

There is a problem with these, in that if Blinder did 30.30 he should have finished 8 seconds behind Digger, but in fact finished about 20 seconds in front. However Digger and The Doctor’s timing agreed, which means that O’Dirty and Blinder probably did 27.30 and 30.00 respectively. (O’Dirty: I have adjusted the table cos it made me look better!)

A fantastic and true rendition of the days events. As editor my only comments were:

  1. Cookie probably pulled over at the shame of having duped the handicapper into letting him be the limit marker
  2. The handicapper did a great job considering the lack of maths involved in a 30 second interval for everyone. Most riders finished within a minute of each other.
  3. Had the cheating, albeit only 5 meters, Paddles not flatted the finish would have been interesting. Paddles was strong and up for it mentally, already planning how to outwit me in the run in. It would have been hard to shake the gallant trio off my wheel but once Paddles flatted and the 3 became two ones, it really changed the final run in.
  4. Diggers comment that I sat on Blinder until I had enough energy to drop him… Well not entirely true, although I did rest a moment and then go hard again for fear of others latching onto us. Blinder could have followed I am sure but was obviously aware of the psychological anguish I suffered after Bif pipped me on the Kalamunda Christmas Handicap, so being the true professional he is, let me win to ease my psycho pain inside.

TDU - the main event

Published
by
Bif
on February 8, 2008
in Ride Report
. 0 Comments

Curiously the topic of this posting is not the Tour Down Under itself, but rather the étape stage that is our excuse for being in Adelaide this time of year. To digress briefly to the TDU, O’Dirty did manage to catch some action before the rest of the Coglioni contingent arrived, and O’Dirty, myself and accomplices did stop briefly on Old Willunga Hill to witness some pain and suffering as the pros tackled the toughest climb of the race.

It had been my intention to rewrite what follows as some kind of trinocular view of the étape, but pressed for time I am now content to post what is essentially O’Dirty’s most excellent retelling of the day’s events. I can only add that in a curious piece of self-delusion I managed to convince myself that getting up at 3.00 am was not getting up unhealthily early, but in fact getting up decidedly late because I had only been in Adelaide a day and therefore Perth time applied so it was really 1.30 am.


The ride started badly by having to be up at 3:30, however I felt slightly better after I received a text from Bif stating he was up, at 3am, knowing I had another 30 minutes sleep ahead of me. The ride to the transition buses went without a hitch and soon we were on our way to Mannum, on schedule. Things got worse. On arrival our bikes were delivered at the other side of the oval. This meant a long cleat-wearing trudge over carbon-scratching gravel. Glad I need new shoes. However I also need a new bike computer as mine fell from my bag somewhere on this trudge. Additionally a brilliant plan for breakfast hatched by me earlier in the week was to come dramatically unstuck. I had purchased weetbix, disposable Glad “tupperware-like” containers and Bananas. The plan was to bring milk and have a healthy brekky. Forgot the milk didn’t I. Nowhere to buy any at the start. So the great plan was tossed in the bin. At least we still had the banana. There was a silver lining to this cloud. Bif bought Babel and myself a bacon and egg sanger. To be honest, it worked out really well.

So off we rolled to the start, full of a good brekky and with grumpy-guts O’Dirty still moaning about the loss of a $200 bike computer that took him 3 years to find.

Not much to say about the start, except we were probably behind about 2000 riders. After a few minutes we rolled past the 20kph start line. emmm, must be a lot of fast riders out there. Not the case today as we passed hundreds on our way to the main climb of the day. A fairly uneventful start really, no near misses, just the Coglioni boys setting a steady pace to pick our way through the hoards. The main climb after about 16km was about 4km long and a bit steeper than I expected. But it all went OK, just meant all that hill training we had done paid off as we passed another 100 riders. I struggled a bit as Babel and Bif put the hammer down, I wasn’t climbing well, maybe 3 hilly rides that week were taking their toll on my old legs.

We regrouped at the next feed and set off again. Once more the three Coglioni were closing the gaps on groups up the road without much help from anyone else. A lot of soft riders in South Australia this time of year. This pattern continued for the next 50km. Chase a group down, sit on for a while, then Babel gets bored and set’s off up the road with Bif and O’Dirty cursing and moaning as they set off after him. He was warned that it was futile to chase every single rider in orange down, but did he listen…

At the 70km feed we stocked up with water and energy bars and set off again. It was not long after this that there was a shortish, maybe 1.5km climb. This was a pivotal moment in the ride for our gallant trio. Babel, yes readers you guessed it, set off at a cracking pace up the hill. Bif was straight onto his wheel. Unfortunately I was momentarily distracted by a very short pair of Assos shorts, but the damage was done, a gap had opened on the climb between myself and my compatriots. A small but elite group of obviously “A” grade riders had also latched onto the fast moving Coglioni express train. I had to limit my losses and drag myself off the wheel of the Assos shorts and give chase up the hill. Unfortunately I did not get on, and no matter how hard I tried on the descent they kept moving away from me, obviously Babel was on the front. I chased this group for maybe 20km, with them gaining a little over each km. I was gutted as I could see it was the group of the ride, all working together, and I had missed it. I kept time-trailing after them as there was no-one behind me to wait for. But it was futile, they were gone and I was riding solo.

With about 40 to go I got picked up by a small group and I sat on the back for a moment. The rest did me good and was soon pulling turns at the front. But they were rubbish as they kept trying to drop people in the group rather than ride a steady pace to work together. Then a big South African fellow with his daughter/younger sister (maybe 13), on his wheel came by me. I jumped on and was 4th wheel behind some fellow in questionable shorts. It soon became evident that no one wanted to help my South African soon-to-be friend. So I moved to the front and did a turn which got a “thank-you”. Tiring I dropped back, only to be let in at 4th wheel again. Obviously the other 10 wheel-suckers had no intention of doing any work. Apparently neither did the useless lump in front of me at 3rd wheel. Mate, if you are not going to take a turn, f*ck off down the back with all the other wheel-suckers. What this meant was I had to go around 3 riders to get to the front to do my turn. I was incensed enough to ride them off my wheel, but was enjoying my alliance with my South African friends and wasn’t going to leave them to the mercy of this chapter of the Wheel-sucking Association.

The next feed came soon enough and the limpets dropped off. They must have been thirsty after all the work they did…NOT. So a few of us pushed on. It was at this point I saw Babel just up ahead, and he was stopping as there had been a crash. Fearing Bif was the rider prone in the dirt I bid my South African duo farewell and pulled over to see what was going on. Turned out it wasn’t Bif, but some other fellow who had cramped and come unstuck when he crashed. So Babel and I set off by ourselves at a moderate pace for the last 10km. It wasn’t long before the wheel-suckers were back on our wheel chit-chatting. They are like flies, can’t get rid of them. How I wanted to hurt them, but Babel’s efforts to drop me on every climb of the day had taken a toll on his legs. So we plodded on without complaining. Soon enough the 5km sign came and then the countdown into town. The ride was over as we crossed the line together. Unfortunately I could not tell how long it had taken or what my average was as I had lost my bloody computer! But we were about 10 minutes behind Bif, so recorded something just under 35kph I guess. Not a bad days work.

After some lunch and cold drinks Bif and I bade farewell to Babel, as he was too soft to ride to Middleton and was getting the bus back to Adelaide to fly home. We then set off on a miserable 40km ride from Strathalbyn to Middleton, on the south coast, where we were staying. Nothing much to say about that ride except we wished it would end. It did eventually. Man that cold beer tasted good…

My recollection of the split is similar to O’Dirty’s in that young Babel took off up the climb and a little voice compelled me to follow. The “select group” whooshed past us on the descent and I figured I had to latch on. I rationalised my guilt at leaving O’Dirty behind by telling myself he was a crack descender and was probably in the bunch. After two or three turns I hadn’t seen him, but then I didn’t see Babel either til the fourth or fifth turn. The truth is it was too good a group to miss, rolling along at 40-45kph and chewing up the road with everyone taking turns.

This continued for 40km or so until it fell apart at the last feed station as some stopped for refreshments and a sharp left-hander followed by a pinch split the bunch. I lost track of the key wheels and simultaneously suffered a moment of weakness so had to grind my way up the rise. After a while I found myself in another group, unfortunately full of wheel-suckers. I took a few turns with two or three others helping out but eventually had to give in to the uphill finish and let those others better than I lead this weary bunch home.

After an evil pinch on the streets of Strathalbyn there was a nice run in to the finish. The remnants of that last bunch had split up on the pinch so I cruised in alone. Four hours and three minutes elapsed for an average of 35kph over 134km seemed like a reasonable day out. I decided to wait for Babel and O’Dirty in the food line, though what I really craved was nice cold Coca Cola.

All in all another fine visit to Adelaide, the only black mark being that we once again failed to ride up Old Willunga Hill. Maybe next time. The fine meal we had at Russell’s Pizza in Willunga is a big incentive to head down that way, though best we do the climb before we dine off the all-you-can-eat menu.

SOFT! Again!

Published
by
O'Dirty
on February 8, 2008
in Ride Report
. 0 Comments

I am more to blame than anyone as I should know better. The 5 Coglioni that were good enough to escort Bif to the start of the ATTA time trial, Paddles, Babel, Stuey, Blinder and myself, O’Dirty should hang our heads in shame. Yes it was a noble effort giving Bif some moral support. But if you are going to ride up a hill anyway, you may as well do it with a number on your back/sleeve and get an official time. Even if you go at the same speed! If all 5 of us had registered then 20% of the starters in the TT would have been Coglioni, which would have been a proud moment.

I am ashamed of myself and have thrashed myself with a birch every night since…

ATTA Hillclimb TT

Published
by
Bif
on February 5, 2008
in Ride Report
. 2 Comments

It was a happy clutch of Coglioni that rode east on Sunday morning. Paddles, Blinder, Stuey, O’Dirty and Babel (formerly Water Boy) were all happy that they weren’t doing the annual ATTA hillclimb time-trial, and I was happy that I had five such fine companions to escort me to the start.

The weather was fairly happy with us too, as the expected easterly was yet to gather full strength, and we made good time to the start near Richardson Park in Kelmscott. My erstwhile companions left me to gather my nerves and tackled the climb at a sensible pace to gain a suitable vantage point near the top. I rode up past the start a few times to keep the legs warm, thinking to myself that one day I should learn some proper warm-up techniques.

Out the back of the start I said hello to Emma Pooley, who would be starting just in front of me, and happened to come eighth in the time-trial at last year’s world championships, and oh yeah, third in La Grande Boucle Feminine. Not much chance of catching her then. I had hoped of a quick C.C.C. jersey sale but she was obviously too polite to ask where such finery could be acquired.

There was a guy at the start to hold her bike up so she could click both feet in for a trouble-free take-off. When my turn came I wondered if this service was only available to the Beijing-bound, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was good for all comers. I guess it’s easier to find someone willing to do this job when there are only a couple of dozen in the field.

The starter called 30 seconds to go then 10, and I waited ready to start my computer on 5 to go. It seemed a long five seconds when he said, “Oops, oh you better go then…”. The side-street start was downhill to a left turn at a roundabout before things got serious. I had forgotten how steep this hill was, though did remember that it was relentless so I was soon on the 39×23 and trying to find a rhythm.

Before I got half-way the guy who started behind me went flying past, which was disconcerting. Too late to bail out now, just grit the teeth and hope the next guy doesn’t catch me too. Fleetingly I saw someone up the road being passed as well, and thought I might catch him myself, but he must have had a second wind as I didn’t see him again.

The rest of the ride was a long grind just holding the 39×23 against the seven per cent gradient, but never quite getting on top of it. Once again I was struggling to push myself into the ultra-pain zone, and could feel I wasn’t at my best. Perhaps an hour of baby-coddling at 2.00 am wasn’t the best preparation after all?

Finally the terrain opened out signalling the top of the hill and the gradient eased slightly. It was here that my Coglioni companions had chosen to wait and cheer me on. I was too knackered to smile but lifted the pace a little as the end was now in sight. The last time I looked at my computer I saw 10:40 on the clock so I thought I’d at least cracked eleven minutes, though I’d hoped to go under ten.

After a brief rest we enjoyed the roaring descent. It seemed strangely further on the way down. The weather continued to smile on us as the easterly had now picked up and blew us home at a ripping pace. When I checked the official results later in the day I was surprised to see my official time was 11:16. Obviously I had shut down periperal functions like eyesight in the rush to the line, because the data from my computer confirmed the time. It also showed that in three kilometres I’d climbed 221m at an average gradient of 7.5%, at 15-16 km/hr. Another half-dozen ascents like that and I’d be up Ventoux in a laudable time. On the plus side I was pleased to note that the guy who had flashed past me had done the best time of the day with 9:06 and Emma Pooley had beaten me by a mere two minutes at 9:16, setting a new course record.