The Coffee Ride #50 with Reece Homfray
SIMON Gerrans has sounded an early warning to his rivals ahead of the Australian summer by declaring his national championship and Tour Down Under defence is on track.
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LOOK WHO’S SMILING: GERRANS ON TRACK
SIMON Gerrans has sounded an early warning to his rivals ahead of the Australian summer by declaring his national championship and Tour Down Under defence is on track.
Six weeks out from the national titles in Ballarat, Gerrans said his fitness was where he wanted it to be after a solid start to pre-season and testing in Canberra.
“I’m about where I should be I think, ticking along pretty well,” Gerrans said from Falls Creek where Orica-GreenEDGE held a training camp on the weekend.
“I’m still a little way off my best but I’ve got a bit of time to get there and I’m pretty much on track.
“You kind of make that call (to target January) at a later part of last season — how you’re going to target the next year and what sort of break you’re going to have and what sort of pre-season you’ve got to put in.
“We’re always looking at ways of modifying things. Even when you do have a really good season you think ‘okay how can we improve on it and make it better?’.
“You do throw a few ideas around about racing programs and preparation, but for myself personally I’ve found over the past couple of years by starting the season out strong in the early-season races in Australia it gets you at a good level for the remainder of the season.”
The biggest challenge for a rider like Gerrans who wants to win the national title and TDU in January then a world championship in September — where he was second this year — is managing his form to peak at the right times.
“It’s quite manageable for the first half of the season and then the second half can become a little bit hit and miss because you are getting tired,” he said.
“That’s the tricky part. You go out hard and hang on as long as you can really.
“Where as if you do take a bit of a slower approach then you are a much better chance of being in top nick towards the end of the year.”
CJ BACK ON THE WINNERS’ LIST
CJ SUTTON was riding with his local St George Cycling Club bunch this week when he joked with one of his mates that his win in the season-ending Japan Cup had been a long time coming.
The Sky sprinter, turned domestique, won the criterium, his first international victory since he claimed a stage of the Tour de Wallonie in 2011, which also netted him a stage of the Vuelta and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne.
“I was having a laugh with one of the lads out training and said ‘that was my first win since 2011’, apart from the summer crits,” Sutton said.
“It’s a team sport so obviously this opportunity arises and I will take it, and will get to sprint, but a lot of the races I have done I haven’t been able to sprint.
“And things change. At the Tour of Austria I was going to sprint there but Pete Kennaugh won the first stage so I was riding on the front for the rest of the week ... but I’m happy doing that and Pete held the jersey the whole eight stages.
“Like I said it’s a team sport and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”
After a relaxing end-of-season break, Sutton is back on the bike Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sundays but mostly for coffee and to catch up with friends.
He plans to ramp up his pre-season in the next fortnight after describing his 2014 season as “a bit of a roller-coaster”.
“It was good to finally get a win again. Being in the best team in the world it’s difficult because you’re always working for someone else and you don’t get many opportunities,” he said.
“I did have an opportunity in Down Under this year but crashed and broke my wrist.
“I got pretty crook in the opening weekend of the cobbled classics. It must have been food poisoning or some sort of bug.”
The 30-year-old then crashed in Gent Wevelgem and hurt his left knee, then did the Tour de Romandie and Giro d’Italia on limited preparation.
“I’d done two weeks back on the bike and hadn’t done much at all, then on the Saturday they called me up to say ‘can you do the Giro’. I was happy to do it but there was a moment of hesitation going through my head,” he said.
“I’ve done quite a few Grand Tours now and I came in fresh but I hadn’t done a lot of the work either.
“I was controlling myself on a lot of the days, especially the big climbs and the first week I was there to help Swifty and Eddy in the sprints in Ireland.
“Then when we got to Italy a few of the mountain days I’d fight and fight and when I knew I’d be safe (in the time cut) I had to cruise and limit my losses.
“Otherwise I would never get through the Giro. But even when I had a rough day I said to myself ‘you’ve only done two weeks’ training’ and I had a lot of support from all my mates who said ‘far out, you’re about to finish another Grand Tour’ and that perks you up as well.
“I’m glad I kept fighting and finished the Giro because it paid dividends in the back part of the year.”
Sutton said he may miss the national titles in January due to last season finishing in mid-October but he plans to take aim at the Tour Down Under.
“I’ll be fine for Down Under power-wise and that’s what we’re working on at the moment with all the gym work,” he said.
REMEMBER THE NAME
MIGHT pay to remember the name Michael Denton.
The 16-year-old from Adelaide won the 2014 Amy’s Ride Strava Challenge up Willunga Hill last month.
To secure the top time he had to beat former professional Stephen Cunningham, who has won back-to-back 3 Peaks titles in Victoria the past two years.
He went up the famous climb in under nine minutes and was 14 seconds clear of Cunningham at the top.
Michael is already placing in state mountain bike races at open level and in May he won the under-18 division of the 100km Otway Odyssey in Victoria — more than one hour ahead of second place.
Judging by his efforts in Amy’s Ride, the young gun looks equally at home on the road and might pay to remember the name for years to come.
AUSTRAL WHEELRACE — A LOOK BACK IN TIME
AS THE time-honoured Austral Wheelrace prepares to celebrate its 117th edition this month, information and a photograph of one of its earliest winners has surfaced.
Adelaide carpenter James Joseph Mullins, listed on the honour roll as ‘J.J. Mullins’ won the 1889 Austral Wheelrace aboard a penny-farthing and in front of an estimated 15,000 people at the MCG.
It was just the third time the wheelrace had been held and followed fellow South Australian Dick Davis winning the second edition in 1888.
According to local historians, Mullins’ prize included a silver-plated tea set and he used his Austral success to open a bike shop in the city.
Mullins also played state league football for Norwood, South Adelaide and West Adelaide in the 1880s and died in 1940, aged 83.
The Austral is the oldest track cycling event in the world and dates back to 1887 and past winners include Sid Patterson and Charlie Walsh.
The handicap race is contested over 2000m — eight laps of Hisense Arena’s 250m velodrome — in Melbourne and riders are given handicaps from scratch to 240m.
About 120 starters are expected to compete in this year’s Austral, which is held in conjunction with the Australian Madison Championships on Saturday, December 20.
DECKER RECOVERING FROM BRAIN SURGERY
IN CASE you missed the news on Monday, Australia’s men’s team pursuit coach Tim Decker is recovering in hospital after brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
Decker was supposed to travel with the national team which flew to London on Saturday for this week’s world cup but was ordered to have immediate scans after seeing a doctor for headaches on Friday.
He had been suffering from headaches for the past month after crashing his bike at 70km/h while on a training ride with the men’s track endurance team on Adelaide’s notorious Corkscrew Rd in late September.
The 41-year-old was knocked unconscious when his front wheel exploded and he slammed headfirst into the bitumen.
He later told The Advertiser that his helmet probably saved his life and he was lucky to escape with severe skin grazing.
He spent a week recovering in hospital but persistent nagging from his wife Michelle to seek follow-up medical treatment led to scans last week, revealing a subdural haematoma.
He underwent surgery in Adelaide on Monday.
Doctors told him that had he boarded the flight with the riders to London on the weekend, the bleed could have become far more serious and even fatal.
Just last month Decker was named Cycling Australia’s international coach of the year at its annual awards ceremony in Melbourne.
Decker’s wife Michelle told The Advertiser that his surgery had been a success and he was expected to remain in hospital until at least the end of the week.
“He’d been having headaches and the last couple of days you could see they were getting quite bad,” Michelle said.
“He was saying that when he got out of his chair he was in pain and when he hit a pothole on his bike he was in massive pain.
“I didn’t want him getting on that flight to London without being checked so they did the scan and there it (bleed) was sitting there.”
Decker’s team pursuiters including Alex Edmondson, Mitch Mulhern, Scott Sunderland, Luke Davison, Callum Scotson and Scott Law are set to compete in the second UCI track world cup of the season in London starting on Friday.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK ...
“I got Google maps, looked at a road and did a six-hour ride and once you got out of the concrete jungle it was amazing riding.”
- Tiffany Cromwell on what to do when you miss your flight and have to spend two days in Hong Kong.
“We’ll make a really good train and I don’t think that many other teams will be as fast as us, but of course we need to prove it.”
- Edvald Boasson Hagen tells Cyclingnews.com of MTN-Qhubeka’s strength.
“I miss riding my bike and doing those normal things, but it’s pretty exciting, I know we’re having a girl and it’s pretty exciting to imagine teaching her to ride a bike.”
- Former world champion Kate Bates tells Cycling Australia she’s excited about pregnancy and becoming a mother.
“People think because I’m a pro bike rider I don’t have to fix my bike but I’m quite handy. Can certainly fix a puncture and quite a lot more.”
- Despite winning the Tour de France, Cadel Evans tells The Weekly Review that he’s just a normal guy riding a bike and fixing punctures like everyone else.
TWEET, TWEET
Still on the farewell Tour? @thejensie checking out the Perth, WA Skyline pic.twitter.com/eEPt2SYQZP
— Paul Sherwen (@PaulSherwen) November 29, 2014— Paul Sherwen tweets a photo of Jens Voigt in Perth this week. In his Trek Factory Racing kit with the words ‘farewell fans’ on the back. Guest appearance at the TDU perhaps? UniSA team?
Originally published as The Coffee Ride #50 with Reece Homfray
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