The Coffee Ride #84, with Reece Homfray
SIMON Gerrans says there is no animosity between him and teammate Michael Matthews after the pair both finished inside the top 10 in Sunday’s UCI Road World Championships.
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GERRANS: NO RIFT AND NO REGRETS
SIMON Gerrans says there is no animosity between him and teammate Michael Matthews after the pair both finished inside the top 10 in Sunday’s UCI Road World Championships.
After finishing second to Peter Sagan in the 260km epic, Matthews told reporters he and Gerrans — who finished sixth — were sprinting against each other and he would have liked the support of the entire Australian team instead of racing with co-leaders.
Asked whether there was animosity or any uncomfortable discussion between the Orica-GreenEDGE teammates post-race, Gerrans said “not really” and they had moved on.
“Michael was pretty adamant that he wanted sole leadership going into the race and following the race and not getting the result he was hoping for I think gave him reason to highlight that again,” Gerrans explained.
A day after his post-race comments made headlines, Matthews took to Twitter yesterday to thank all of his Australian teammates.
You all where incredible and I can not thank you enough for all the support, also thank you everyone for your comments Sagan was amazing
— michael matthews (@blingmatthews) September 28, 2015Even if they had their time over again, Gerrans — who along with Cadel Evans are the two best road cyclists Australia has ever produced — said there is not a lot the team could have done differently.
“It’s always easy in hindsight but I don’t think there’s a lot we could have done differently,” he said.
“Sagan was clearly the best bike rider there and at the end of the day it was (coach Brad) McGee’s call how we were going to go about it and we debriefed afterwards and he said ‘you know what that was fantastic result, there’s not a lot we could have done differently, we went with the right approach’.
“Sagan was a class above, he really was.
“It wouldn’t matter what tactics we chose leadership wise — if anyone was good enough to chase Sagan down they were good enough to go with him and no one was good enough.
“He really was the next level above and I guess you could throw a blanket across a bunch of guys after that, it was all pretty close.
“The tactics we went in with and what we all agreed to at the start how we were going to approach the race, we followed that pretty well and there’s not a lot more we could have done.
“It obviously wasn’t the gold medal that we all hoped for but it was pretty satisfying at the end of the day.”
Gerrans will close an eventful season marred by injuries and crashes in cycling’s final monument of 2015, the Giro di Lombardia this Sunday.
The fact that he’s racing at all and finished sixth in Richmond, Virginia, on the weekend is remarkable given doctors told him after the Tour de France that he would not ride his bike again for the rest of the year so his fractured wrist could heal.
“So to basically be back on my bike a few weeks after that, get through the Tour of Spain and be right up there in the mix in the world championships, it was a pretty satisfying result and nice that all the work I put in to get back to the top level is paying off,” he said.
“The world championship was a good confidence boost that I know I’m in good shape and I’ve done the hard work, Lombardia is a fantastic race and it’s not a race that I’ve done particularly well at in the past because it’s so hard.
“But I think off the back of the Tour of Spain and world championships hopefully I can put in a good performance.
“We’ve got a really well-rounded team with the Yates brothers and Esteban Chaves so a great group of climbers and great support so we should see a good result from Orica-GreenEDGE on Sunday.”
In news that will please thousands of Australian cycling fans, Gerrans has confirmed that he intends to ride the domestic calendar including the national championships and Tour Down Under in January.
“I really hope so,” he said.
“That’s what the plan was this year — to back to defend my national title and Tour Down Under but it all went out the window with one mountain bike crash.
“But hopefully setbacks aside I’ll be on track to put in some good performances this summer.”
AUSSIES ON THE MOVE
LEAD-OUT star Mark Renshaw has been confirmed as joining Mark Cavendish at MTN-Qhubeka for next season.
The African team which rode the Tour de France this year will be known as Dimension Data from 2016 onwards.
Renshaw and Cavendish will make the move from Etixx-Quickstep for 2016.
The other Aussie transfer news this week was an announcement that Leigh Howard would leave Orica-GreenEDGE for IAM Cycling in 2016.
Meanwhile Team Sky announced on Monday that it had not renewed Chris Sutton or Nathan Earle’s contracts for next season.
CIC CERVELO TEAM ANNOUNCED
CYCLING SA has released the first squad to ride in its re-branded CIC Cervelo Super Series this summer.
The team shares naming rights with the series and will include track stars Alex Edmondson, Glenn O’Shea, Mitch Mulhern, Callum and Miles Scotson, Sam Welsford, Dan Fitter, their coach Tim Decker, Australian WorldTour academy rider Harry Carpenter and Tom Allford.
“I remember when I first took part in the elite team series concept here, I was a first year under 19 (and) the opportunity meant so much to me,” Edmondson said.
“I’m really looking forward to being a part of the series with the team, it’s always such a well-organised and run series by Cycling SA.”
The summer series begins with a criterium at Victoria Park on November 5 and this season will include the off-road race dubbed ‘Hell of the North’ on the Yorke Peninsula.
BIONIC MAN TO IRONMAN
INJURIES forced Port Adelaide’s bionic man Michael Wilson to retire from football seven years ago but he never stopped running and is bound for next month’s Hawaii Ironman.
The last man to beat Kane Cornes in a time trial at the Power and who now works at the club as a physiotherapist, Wilson has qualified for triathlon’s holy grail — a 3.8km swim, 180km ride and 42.2km run.
Last month he ran a scorching 2hr 40min Adelaide Marathon where he finished second overall by just five seconds.
For anyone who likes to run with a watch, that’s 3min 48sec kilometres and all at the ripe old age of 38 with a rebuilt knee (twice), reconstructed shoulder, his Achilles sewn back together and a repaired hernia during his 192-game AFL career.
But his training and life was put on hold 10 weeks ago when his eight-year-old son Tom was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Tom, an identical twin, had been growing at a different rate to his brother Charlie for the past year and began experiencing problems with his sight.
After a series of tests he was taken to Royal Adelaide Hospital’s emergency department where doctors diagnosed a craniopharyngioma the size of a golf ball. It is classed as a cancer but was benign and is not expected to spread.
“It was pretty sudden — it was into emergency, book in the surgery and out it came,” Wilson said.
“He’ll have lots of ongoing stuff to deal with, he’s doing bits and pieces at school and has good days and bad days and we just manage that between school, (wife) Leah, me and the hospital.
“It’s not like a broken leg where you operate, it’s fixed and you don’t worry about it again. But he’s OK and he’s got the all-clear to come with us to Hawaii which is a big relief.”
After a four-week break, Wilson resumed training in Adelaide’s winter hoping to prepare his body to race in mid-30 degree temperatures with high humidity and heat from the lava fields permeating through the bitumen on the island of Kona.
“The average temperature of a lot of the training sessions I’ve done has been five degrees, so training wise I’m getting it done and it might not match up well with Hawaii but you convince yourself that it’ll get you through,” he said.
“Usually I sit around the 18-20 hour mark (a week) for training.
“It’s time management, having four kids and a full-time job I’ve got to make sure that Leah is okay with what’s going on and I’m able to do the training.”
A heart-and-soul Port Adelaide footballer, Wilson retired from the game in 2008 with a premiership, rising star award and as one of the Power’s most-loved players.
It came at a physical cost for Wilson who endured four knee operations, two bung shoulders — which he carried into the 2004 grand final — broken ribs, a punctured lung, snapped Achilles and a hernia.
The meniscus on both sides of his right knee is “cooked” but it doesn’t stop him from pounding the pavement, clocking miles on his bike or swimming laps in the pool every day of the week.
The only injuries he has these days is because of freak accidents or kicking the footy with his kids.
“The only issue I had with my shoulders was when I put it into a windscreen when I was hit by a car and that put me out for a while,” Wilson said.
“The bike doesn’t hammer my knees too much and I know I can’t do as much running as other people would do.
“I know I can do 40 or 50km of running in a week which would be classed as low-end of training but I can still do enough to get me going quick enough for an Ironman.
“The snapped Achilles from 2007 gets me at the end of an Ironman because on my left side I’ve only got a half-sized calf so when I’m riding and go into a run, my left calf just gets really fatigued and starts to cramp.
“But that’s nothing at all really.”
Wilson had always maintained a passion for fitness during his football career which led to triathlon when he retired and he did his first Ironman in Busselton, WA, in 2013.
Busselton was where he qualified to race Hawaii when he finished an impressive fourth in his 35-39 year age group.
Hawaii on October 10 will be Wilson’s sixth Ironman.
“I’ve been thinking about this since I was a kid and when I was recovering from my injuries with footy I’d throw in a 3.8km swim or a long ride to see how I was going,” he said.
“It will be almost three years from when I started training to when I do Hawaii and I don’t know how people like Kevin Fergusson (SA world champion) do it years on end.
“I love riding a bike, swimming and running but the training load and time you put into it, I just need a break.
“I’m looking forward to fulfilling the dream of doing Hawaii, hopefully it’s a good day and spending time with the whole family.
“I’m not going to win it, I just want to go there and do well.”
PREMIERSHIP STAR DESIGNS HIS OWN TREK
ONE of the Adelaide Football Club’s all-time greats Andrew McLeod has teamed up with Trek to create an indigenous themed bike.
As James Hetherington reports, McLeod — a two-time premiership player and Norm Smith Medallist — will line up in the 2015 Redliners Classic next month to support the Adelaide Crows Children’s Foundation.
“We had a chat about the indigenous programs I oversee at the club and Trek were pretty keen to do something,” McLeod said.
“They donated the bike and we decided the best way to make use of it was a ride.”
All who make a donation towards the cause will go in the draw to win the unique bike and McLeod hopes he can get 1000 people to donate $20, totalling $20,000.
“I’d love to be able to give it to someone because it’s a special bike,” he said.
“It’s a bike that most people would ride in tours.
“It’s definitely worth a few bob, too.”
McLeod will also be joined by former Sydney premiership player Ryan O’Keefe for the Redliners Classic from October 19-21 which covers 365km from Adelaide to the Barossa and back. To donate, visit give.everydayhero.com/au/bunji-s-trek
QUOTES OF THE WEEK ...
“I’ve watched the highlights now and in the end, Sagan was untouchable. His climbing, his descending, his cornering, his ability to hold that volume of intensity all the way to the line.”
- Brad McGee on Peter Sagan’s gold medal at the world championships.
“We put ourselves out there. We showed ourselves against the world’s best, and ultimately, the best rider won. (Lizzie) Armitstead (Great Britain) has been so strong all year.”
- Tiffany Cromwell after the women’s road race at the world titles.
“Simon has excellent experience and is a very good road captain. He has the ability to help guide some of our younger riders and is capable of great achievements himself.”
- Cannondale-Garmin boss Jonathan Vaughters on signing Australian Simon Clarke.
“I could try to blame that on the reason why I lost, but I wouldn’t have beaten Kiryienka anyway, he was on an awesome ride.”
- Rohan Dennis after a puncture stalled his time trial medal hopes at the world titles.
TWEET, TWEET
#Richdmond2015 just HAPPY pic.twitter.com/IMyKXiqEvb
— Peter Sagan (@petosagan) September 28, 2015— Newly crowned world champion Peter Sagan.
Originally published as The Coffee Ride #84, with Reece Homfray
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