Today's stage was what I know know is called a 'dead' stage- that is, all the teams with hot gc contenders just sat tight and watched, saving their legs for this arvo's stage. A break of 4 got away early, but because none were a gc threat, teams were under instruction not to worry too much. The break actually stayed away- just- they were almost pipped on the line but Prime Estate's Irene Diginis, who had been in the break all day, held everyone off to claim the win.
I was in the bunch, trying to stay near the front and ready to go if a big attack went.So with a bunch kick finish, nothing much changed in the overall standings.
And the rain miraculously stopped for us! Awesome.
This afternoon we have an 11km TT, starting at 5pm.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Looking toward stage 3
We've just finished breakfast on day 3 of the tour. I'm getting a new appreciation for exactly what tour de france riders go through for 23 days. The hotel we're in now we have for 2 nights- a real treat after shifting around each night. It's nice to unpack and not have to pack everything up again in the morning. And we're luckily that our stages finish right near our hotels, so we don't have to worry about lengthy transfers between stages. But the hotel food, well, that's another story... But Andy, you'll be chuffed to hear we had sausage surprise last night! Your signature dish has crossed the tasman!!
Today is 87km around Palmerston Nth. Although the long-range weather forecast had looked good, it is now raining quite heavily and doesn't look like letting up in the hour and a half we have before race start. Looks like another wet day. We also have 2 stages today with a TT this afternoon.
Today is 87km around Palmerston Nth. Although the long-range weather forecast had looked good, it is now raining quite heavily and doesn't look like letting up in the hour and a half we have before race start. Looks like another wet day. We also have 2 stages today with a TT this afternoon.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Stage 2: Crazy times
Wow. What a day. Today's stage had everything- gusty winds, rain, large portions of unsealed road, slick descents and surprise climbs. The stage was 114km from Masterton to Palmerston Nth. Not as hilly as I'd have liked, but with a few pinches to break it up.And so many crashes. 3 of the team crashed, luckily not too bad but the road claimed a lot of skin today from a lot of riders.
Sarah 'Bernard' Roy got in an early break and held it for around 40km. Top effort. Alex overcame an incident with a creative bike handler (and has the ripped knicks to prove it) to finish just back from the front bunch. Bec 'I'll just finish this stage before knocking out some REAL work' Halliday and Bron 'Does the left side of my arse look big in this photo or is that just the haemotoma?' Ryan stuck with Alex and helped her limit time losses.
Meanwhile, Laura 'is there an AA for compulsive stretchers?'Luxford and myself found ourselves at the pointy end of the field and in a break. We put in a lot of work and caught Ruth and the NZ chick before being caught by the chase bunch.We both finished in the front bunch of around 40 riders. It was disappointing to put so much work into the break and still be caught but that's life. The good news is that we have some good legs in the team and some good chances coming up. For now, i'm just happy that stage is over.
Sarah 'Bernard' Roy got in an early break and held it for around 40km. Top effort. Alex overcame an incident with a creative bike handler (and has the ripped knicks to prove it) to finish just back from the front bunch. Bec 'I'll just finish this stage before knocking out some REAL work' Halliday and Bron 'Does the left side of my arse look big in this photo or is that just the haemotoma?' Ryan stuck with Alex and helped her limit time losses.
Meanwhile, Laura 'is there an AA for compulsive stretchers?'Luxford and myself found ourselves at the pointy end of the field and in a break. We put in a lot of work and caught Ruth and the NZ chick before being caught by the chase bunch.We both finished in the front bunch of around 40 riders. It was disappointing to put so much work into the break and still be caught but that's life. The good news is that we have some good legs in the team and some good chances coming up. For now, i'm just happy that stage is over.
getting ready for Stage 2
Stage 2 starts in around 2hrs and just outside our hotel, so i'm taking some time to relax beforehand.
Unlike last year's tour, when we were controversially billeted with local families (I loved it, but that's only because our family was grouse), this year all the teams are staying at the same hotels together. We move around almost every night so after the stage we go straight to the new hotel.
Our team manager Ben Cook and mechanic extraordinaire Paul Larkin are working their butts off to make sure we just need to concentrate on racing. They prep our bikes, get us food, run our ice baths and do our washing. It's a huge luxury to have a support team this good. A big thanks to Tammie Ebert at Australian Sports Commission for making all this possible.
Last night I think everyone found it hard to sleep. A 5.30pm race finish, new hotel and 10am start time today doesn't leave much time for recovery. But it's the same for everyone. Today is 114km with some longer hills. My job is to keep good position at the front of the bunch as we expect a break to go, particularly if the wind picks up.
I'll keep you posted.right now, it's time to put my race numbers on.
Unlike last year's tour, when we were controversially billeted with local families (I loved it, but that's only because our family was grouse), this year all the teams are staying at the same hotels together. We move around almost every night so after the stage we go straight to the new hotel.
Our team manager Ben Cook and mechanic extraordinaire Paul Larkin are working their butts off to make sure we just need to concentrate on racing. They prep our bikes, get us food, run our ice baths and do our washing. It's a huge luxury to have a support team this good. A big thanks to Tammie Ebert at Australian Sports Commission for making all this possible.
Last night I think everyone found it hard to sleep. A 5.30pm race finish, new hotel and 10am start time today doesn't leave much time for recovery. But it's the same for everyone. Today is 114km with some longer hills. My job is to keep good position at the front of the bunch as we expect a break to go, particularly if the wind picks up.
I'll keep you posted.right now, it's time to put my race numbers on.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Stage 1 - a hard start!
Stage 1 started off easy enough- in fact, the race director threatened to pull us all from the field at the 30km mark if the pace got any more pedestrian. (The phrase 'if you just want to have fun, go home now' made me giggle a bit, but then I realised that put me in serious danger of having fun so I put my race face on again)
The fun soon stopped once the hills started. The main climb was at 69km and that was the main selection, with Ruth and Vicki setting off, then Ruth solo, and me around 8th wheel.
I finished in the front bunch of 15-20 girls, very happy, as did another teammate, Alex, even better. But if tomorrow is as hard as today, we are in for a long week.
The fun soon stopped once the hills started. The main climb was at 69km and that was the main selection, with Ruth and Vicki setting off, then Ruth solo, and me around 8th wheel.
I finished in the front bunch of 15-20 girls, very happy, as did another teammate, Alex, even better. But if tomorrow is as hard as today, we are in for a long week.
Arrived in NZ
Hi all, this is a quick experiment to see whether my setup of email-to-blog works. The Australia NTID team arrived in Wellington yesterday arvo. All the teams are staying in the same hotel in Lower Hutt, just outside Wellington. So far not much has happened- we met everyone, built our bikes, went for a quick spin and had dinner. NTID looks to be a good team, with a good spread of talents and a good bunch of chicks, ably led by team manager Ben Cook (SASI) and Paul Larkin (mechanic, token kiwi and local interpreter).
Athletes comprise:
Bec 'Pride of the West' Halliday
Sarah 'Crash Test Dummy' Roy
Bron 'Legs of Steel' Ryan
Laura 'I'm Not From Sydney, Even Though I'm Blonde' Luxford
Alex 'Ranga Pride' Carle
Lisa 'Spends Too Much Time Blogging' Jacobs
Our stage today is 98km from Martinborough to Masterton. There's one Sprint and KOM up for grabs, but mostly it's about getting a feel for racing and the other riders. It looks like one of the hardest stages is stage 2 so some will be saving their legs.
We're pumped! I'll keep you posted.
Athletes comprise:
Bec 'Pride of the West' Halliday
Sarah 'Crash Test Dummy' Roy
Bron 'Legs of Steel' Ryan
Laura 'I'm Not From Sydney, Even Though I'm Blonde' Luxford
Alex 'Ranga Pride' Carle
Lisa 'Spends Too Much Time Blogging' Jacobs
Our stage today is 98km from Martinborough to Masterton. There's one Sprint and KOM up for grabs, but mostly it's about getting a feel for racing and the other riders. It looks like one of the hardest stages is stage 2 so some will be saving their legs.
We're pumped! I'll keep you posted.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Quick update
Hi guys, after the hustle and bustle of TDU, Lisa's Mum has been packed off to a sunlounge in the Carribbean and I'm back. Phew. Let me tell you, wrestling the keyboard off Mum was no easy matter. She'll be back soon but for now I thought a brief race update might be in order.
In just over a week's time I'm off to NZ for the Tour of NZ, a 5-day, 6 stage tour in the North Island. Following the nationals road race I was invited to join the national talent id/development team for the tour. I'm pretty pumped and the team looks pretty darn awesome. The last 6 weeks or so since nationals have been a lot of hard work and I'm really pleased with where my form is at. It'll be a tough tour and there are a lot of top class riders going so I'm looking forward to it.
My race calendar after that will depend on how NZ goes, but it's likely I'll take it easy for a week or so to recover before starting on the domestic racing season. There are some good races coming up early in the year like the Baw Baw Classic and the Aust mtb marathon champs.
In other news, the lovely Andrew is being sent to Canberra for work for the next few months, and so from late March-ish I'll be doing a fairly regular weekly commute between Canberra and Melbourne to spend as much time with him up there as possible in between work. I haven't done a lot of riding up there yet and I've heard it's great, both for mtb and road. I'm looking forward to checking it out and catching up with the Canberra cycling chicks who are still in town.
Thanks, as always, to the sponsors whom I'm looking forward to representing for another year, in particular major sponsors Fitzroy Revolution, Australian Sports Commission and High5/Fastgear. I've been trying out some of the new High5 products - in particular a newbie called 'Zero', a zero sugar electrolyte tablet, which has been fantastic for Summer training when you need to be hydrated without taking on too much sugar. My other favourite of the moment is their Energy Bars, which are basically pressed fruit. They've just changed their recipe and they are AMAZING. And they don't melt in your pocket or break your jaw. Winner winner, chicken dinner.
And finally - today in training, I headed out with some of the TE bunch to do the 'crucifixion' in the Dandenongs - 4 major climbs over 5 hours. We did almost 2500m of vertical climbing and don't my legs know it now! I'll keep most of the stats for the mathematicians but we did a 15:20 up the 1 in 20 which is a PB for me by a fair way. At one point we were sitting on 38.5kph on the false flat section - I had to look at my speedo twice.
Stay safe and stay pedalling
Gunz
In just over a week's time I'm off to NZ for the Tour of NZ, a 5-day, 6 stage tour in the North Island. Following the nationals road race I was invited to join the national talent id/development team for the tour. I'm pretty pumped and the team looks pretty darn awesome. The last 6 weeks or so since nationals have been a lot of hard work and I'm really pleased with where my form is at. It'll be a tough tour and there are a lot of top class riders going so I'm looking forward to it.
My race calendar after that will depend on how NZ goes, but it's likely I'll take it easy for a week or so to recover before starting on the domestic racing season. There are some good races coming up early in the year like the Baw Baw Classic and the Aust mtb marathon champs.
In other news, the lovely Andrew is being sent to Canberra for work for the next few months, and so from late March-ish I'll be doing a fairly regular weekly commute between Canberra and Melbourne to spend as much time with him up there as possible in between work. I haven't done a lot of riding up there yet and I've heard it's great, both for mtb and road. I'm looking forward to checking it out and catching up with the Canberra cycling chicks who are still in town.
Thanks, as always, to the sponsors whom I'm looking forward to representing for another year, in particular major sponsors Fitzroy Revolution, Australian Sports Commission and High5/Fastgear. I've been trying out some of the new High5 products - in particular a newbie called 'Zero', a zero sugar electrolyte tablet, which has been fantastic for Summer training when you need to be hydrated without taking on too much sugar. My other favourite of the moment is their Energy Bars, which are basically pressed fruit. They've just changed their recipe and they are AMAZING. And they don't melt in your pocket or break your jaw. Winner winner, chicken dinner.
And finally - today in training, I headed out with some of the TE bunch to do the 'crucifixion' in the Dandenongs - 4 major climbs over 5 hours. We did almost 2500m of vertical climbing and don't my legs know it now! I'll keep most of the stats for the mathematicians but we did a 15:20 up the 1 in 20 which is a PB for me by a fair way. At one point we were sitting on 38.5kph on the false flat section - I had to look at my speedo twice.
Stay safe and stay pedalling
Gunz
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