The Coffee Ride #49 with Reece Homfray
AUSTRALIA’S best female road cyclist Tiffany Cromwell did not win an individual bike race this year but her ultra-consistent performances on the big stage represented a coming of age.
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CROMWELL’S COMING OF AGE
AUSTRALIA’S best female road cyclist Tiffany Cromwell did not win an individual bike race this year but her ultra-consistent performances on the big stage represented a coming of age.
Fourth in the Commonwealth Games road race, fifth at the world championships in Spain and top 10s at the national titles, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Tour of Flanders and the Lotto Belisol Tour has put her on the path towards the Rio Olympics.
The Adelaide 26-year-old is pleased but not satisfied as she reloads for the Australian summer with rebranded team Velocio-SRAM.
“As a whole it was certainly a great year but I was still missing some results I was really hoping for,” Cromwell said this week.
“I was very consistent with top 10s, top 5s, but I didn’t get any individual victories. I had one team victory in a time trial.
“My sprint improved dramatically and that was one area I’d been working on ... but I’m still hungry for a lot more.”
The majority of Cromwell’s progress this season came from minor disappointments and learning things the hard way.
She admits she “messed up” slightly on the last lap of the road race in Glasgow and didn’t quite time her sprint to perfection to be denied a medal by the barest of margins.
Then at the world championships she fell victim to an indecisive chase group that couldn’t reel in eventual winner Pauline Ferrand-Prevot of France.
“It’s about doing the right attack at the right time,” Cromwell said.
“I’ve settled down a lot over the years by people telling me I attack a lot, but it’s about using the attacks better.”
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH CROMWELL IN THE ADVERTISER ON SATURDAY IN WHICH SHE DISCUSSES:
— Working with coach Eric Haakonssen
— Missing out on La Course and the worlds team time trial
— Her globetrotting off-season
— Taking aim at national championships in Ballarat
— Dreaming of Rio 2016
CADEL EVANS RIDE FETCHES $27,000
HOW much would you pay for a private training ride with Cadel Evans?
How about $27,000?
That was the winning bid for a social auction at the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in Melbourne last week.
The prize, donated by Evans, included a personal training ride with the 2011 Tour de France champion and entry into the People’s Ride to be held as part of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
All proceeds from the auction go to the winner of the social entrepreneurship category, which was Street Swags.
Street Swags provides practical support for people experiencing homelessness, reducing the dangers and negative health effects of sleeping outdoors.
Jean Madden from Street Swags was named the 2014 EY national social entrepreneur of the year at the awards ceremony.
The Street Swags story touched the hearts of those in the room with many attending the event also pledging donations over and above the $27,000 raised by the auction.
Fair to say the winning bidder is a big supporter of Street Swags and a big fan of Cadel Evans.
PHIL WHO?
PHIL Liggett, the voice of cycling, is known all over the world.
But not, apparently, in a pub less than 8km from his home in Hertfordshire.
An Australian friend of Liggett’s phoned the local tavern to arrange two bottles of Australian shiraz to be gifted to Liggett when he was to call in for his birthday party earlier this year.
The party went ahead but the problem was the bar staff weren’t aware who Phil Liggett was and hence the wine was left unopened.
It’s understood Liggett was then told to call back the next day to collect his gift — two bottles of Wynns Coonawarra Shiraz.
SUNDERLAND THUNDERS TO CRITERIUM VICTORY
COMMONWEALTH Games champion Scott Sunderland unleashed his devastating finishing speed to win Round 3 of the Bowden Elite Teams Series at Victoria Park on Sunday.
The two-time reigning 1km Commonwealth champion on the track finished off the work of his ISC Godfrey Pembroke teammates who managed to reel in a dangerous breakaway on the final lap.
Sunderland sprinted home to beat George Tansley (Whippets Seer) and Alex Edmondson (Cervelo) to climb to third place in the series behind leader Chris Jongewaard.
He has a near-perfect record at Victoria Park this summer, winning four of five races at the Clipsal circuit.
The 26-year-old, who missed the opening round of the Bowden Series while riding the Revolution Series in the UK, is set to return to London with the national track team for the second world cup of the season next month.
“Every time I ride the team pursuit I’m getting stronger so I’m hoping to get selected for London,” he said earlier in the week.
The former team sprint world champion said he was pleased to get the win on Sunday which came after a big week of training with the men’s track endurance team in Adelaide.
“I was really stoked to get the win for the team ISC Godfrey Pembroke and Focus bikes,” he said.
“It was a hard race to read because the conditions changed when the wind picked up.
“There was a lot of teams represented in the breakaway and we were lucky to have one of our riders in Freddy (Fred Bonail) in there and it was good to finish it off.”
The Bowden Series continues with a twilight criterium at Victoria Park on Thursday, December 4.
EDMONDSONS TAKE SANTOS FOR A RIDE
THE Santos peloton has turned to Commonwealth champions Alex and Annette Edmondson for advice as they mark two months to next year’s Bupa Challenge Tour.
Adelaide’s star cycling siblings led a 40-strong bunch ride of Santos employees through the hills on Sunday morning where they clocked up 100km.
“The weather was perfect and everyone was excited to hear a few tips on bunch riding because quite a few of them are commuters to and from work each day,” Annette said.
“We broke into two groups and did some swapping off, rolling through and taking turns on the front and it was really good fun.”
Annette, who won the scratch race at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July, is just coming off a 10-day break after she finished her season at the Mexico track world cup earlier this month.
She is now training with the women’s national endurance team ahead of next year’s Australian track titles and world championships.
Alex, who won the team pursuit in Glasgow, is in a training camp in preparation for the London world cup next month.
Team Santos has 188 riders who are preparing for the mass participation ride held on Friday, January, 23 during the Tour Down Under.
Riders can choose from four distances from 27km to 151km as they make their way from Glenelg to Mount Barker before the professional peloton arrives.
For more information or to register for the Bupa Challenge Tour, visit www.tourdownunder.com.au
QUOTES OF THE WEEK ...
“My job here is to win medals not friends. Brad will know that I’m sat here looking at his numbers and thinking: ‘Right, Brad, this is going to be a big ask for you to make this team.”
- British cycling’s head coach Shane Sutton tells The Telegraph Sir Bradley Wiggins is no walk-up start in the team pursuit for Rio.
“The funny ones are funny, the ones that studied a lot are building satellites and the one guy at school who rode a lot ...”
- Cadel Evans tells host Matthew Keenan about his 20-year school reunion of which Keenan finishes his sentence by saying ‘the one who rode a lot won the Tour de France’.
“It’s a huge honour to win the Oppy and have my name alongside previous winners like Russell Mockridge, Cadel Evans, Anna Meares and Caroline Buchanan who have all done great things for cycling in Australia.”
- The ever modest Simon Gerrans after being named Cycling Australia’s Cyclist of the Year on Friday night.
“That was the dream as it’s always been my ambition to finish on the podium in the Tour, but then it turned into a nightmare. Obviously I think about it as a missed opportunity, but you’ve got to get on with it.”
- Richie Porte on his 2014 Tour de France which was ruined by illness and injury when he had to take over from Chris Froome.
“Ultimately, I want to try to get a couple of wins at pro level and I’d like to see myself as being a general classification contender in a stage race. That’s my biggest goal.”
- Jack Haig after signing with Orica-GreenEDGE from 2016.
TWEET, TWEET
My dad on his first ever bike podium! Very cool to see how bikes can become a lifestyle at any point in life. Gohassy pic.twitter.com/a9SrPCY81j
— Nathan Haas (@NathanPeterHaas) November 24, 2014— Proud son Nathan Haas on watching his dad follow in his footsteps on the bike.
Originally published as The Coffee Ride #49 with Reece Homfray
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