The Coffee Ride #92, with Reece Homfray
AUSTRALIAN cycling legend Phil Anderson will be rattling tins for the Country Fire Authority this weekend after the Great Ocean Road bushfire came frighteningly close to his home.
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ANDERSON THANKS FIREIES AFTER EVACUATION
AUSTRALIAN cycling legend Phil Anderson will be rattling tins for the Country Fire Authority this weekend after the Great Ocean Road bushfire came frighteningly close to his home.
Anderson and his family were twice evacuated from their home in the past week as the fire came within 3km of their property.
The first Australian to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, Anderson has been living at Grey River for five years and said it was a beautiful part of the world.
His house is 8km from Wye River where fire destroyed more than 100 homes and the flames were just 200m from reaching Kennett River, which is the nearest town to where Anderson lives.
“It’s quite isolated, it’s a community of six or seven homes and we’re the only permanents,” Anderson said.
“We were evacuated a couple of times but the CFA and Department of Planning and Resources have been great, they’ve thrown a lot at it with machinery doing some clearing and they also saved a lot of homes at Wye River.”
Anderson is full of praise for firefighters and plans a fund-raiser at Buninyong during the men’s and women’s road races at the national championships this Sunday.
”We’ll be rattling tins for the CFA and I might even get on my bike and do a lap with a few of the CFA guys,” Anderson said.
Anderson, 57, is one of Australia’s greatest ever road cyclists, having won stages of the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia as well as the Amstel Gold Race and Criterium du Dauphine overall.
SUPER STEELE DREAMING OF DOWN UNDER RETURN
SPRINTER Steele Von Hoff hopes a three-peat in tonight’s criterium and a bold showing in Sunday’s road race at the national championships will stamp his ticket to return to the Tour Down Under.
The 28-year-old has switched teams from NFTO to One Pro Cycling in the off-season but remains a rung below the WorldTour, meaning he must fight for a wildcard spot with Team UniSA-Australia for the TDU in Adelaide later this month.
Von Hoff rode the WorldTour with Garmin in 2013-2014 and last year proved he’s still got it by upstaging the peloton to win Stage 4 of the TDU with UniSA.
It followed his back-to-back victory in the criterium to open the national titles in Ballarat when he held off Orica-AIS star Caleb Ewan and emerging sprinter Scott Sunderland, who will again pose major threats tonight.
“Three would be nice because no one had ever won two but as usual the road race (on Sunday) is the most prestigious race you can win in Australia and if I could try to get that jersey and take it to Europe in the One pro colours would be fantastic,” Von Hoff said.
“Caleb will be there (at the front on Wednesday night) and the Avanti boys are always strong in the crit and Neil Van Der Ploeg is riding really well so it will be fantastic to race against them.”
Von Hoff warmed up for the national championships by racing the Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic in Geelong last week. That followed a three-week training camp with his new team, which is owned by former England Test cricketer Matt Prior.
After a disappointing 2015 season in which he was promised starts in European races with NFTO only for the team to be denied an invite, Von Hoff is looking forward to a fresh start.
“I had the best start to a year that I’ve ever had but throughout the year my race schedule kept changing and diminishing and I didn’t end up racing outside the UK for the season,” he said.
“We’ve done a lot of teamwork (at One) and bonding so the atmosphere is set for a really good year.
“I’m hopeful of getting a start at the TDU but it just depends on my nationals form and how I go in the road race.
“Of course if you get on the podium that is pretty much guaranteeing it so that’s the goal, then our One pro team is racing the Cadel Evans race and Herald Sun Tour so it’s racing as usual.”
The 2016 Cycling Australia Road Nationals begin with the men’s and women’s criteriums in Ballarat tonight and continue with time trials tomorrow and road races on the weekend.
Kimberley Wells will be among the favourites for the women’s criterium where she will be aiming for her third title to go with those from 2013 and 2015.
SCOTT STILL KICKING ON
THE man behind this week’s national cycling championships in Ballarat is still riding his bike with the best of them 16 years after his Olympic gold medal.
Scott McGrory is senior project manager of Cycling Australia’s national road championships, which begin today.
He also hosts a cycling television program called Full Cycle which is aired on Fox Sports, meaning he is still very much involved in the sport he loves.
“My training bunch in Bendigo is basically a National Road Series peloton and the group I would normally ride with when everybody is in town includes Darren Lapthorne, Robbie Hucker, Lachie Norris, Zak Dempster, Jack Haig, Peta Mullens,” McGrory said.
“So you’ve got to be in reasonable shape to ride with those guys and for me it was a nice little goal to make sure I didn’t have to putt around on my own.”
However, McGrory admits increasing work commitments have meant less time on the bike this summer.
“I’ve been commuting a lot to Melbourne and that’s created new challenges about how to get the time to actually get out and ride as much as I did,” he said.
The 46-year-old won a bronze medal in the team pursuit at the 1988 Seoul Olympics but the pinnacle of his career arrived in Sydney in 2000 when he teamed with Brett Aitken to win Olympic gold in the madison.
His career finished by racing six-day events on the track in 2006 and like many professional athletes, he needed some time away from the sport.
“There was a period of about six months where I was quite happy to walk away,” he said.
“While it’s a passion it’s still a job and towards the end I was quite happy to say ‘you know what, I don’t do that job anymore’.
“But I got to a point where I thought ‘I do like riding bikes’ and got back out there again. I rode for about a kilometre and had this feeling of peacefulness.
“That was until I hit the first hill, six months of not riding, eating and drinking too much I’d put on 15kg or so and I hit that first hill and thought ‘oh wow’ but it got me going again.”
Now working for Cycling Australia, McGrory is responsible for delivering the national championships which will feature Australia’s best road cyclists next week.
“I’m really enjoying it, it’s the sport I love and I want to see it grow and if I can play a role in assisting that in any way then I’m happy,” he said.
“I’ve always been around the perimeter a bit, a team rider, manager or media, where as this is a bit more inner sanctum and making decisions and I’m really enjoying it.”
QUOTES OF THE WEEK ...
“You can never underestimate Lappers. He always looks calm on the outside but when it comes to racing, he has a good bit of mongrel in him.”
- Drapac’s Lachlan Norris on Darren Lapthorne who announced his retirement this week.
“I said to him one day I want to win Devonport for you and I am just so stoked to be able to do it for him.”
- Alex Edmondson wins the Devonport Wheel Race and dedicates it to the memory of his late friend Shamus Liptrot.
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time on the track in Manchester, we’ve been doing squad sessions with the team pursuit boys twice a week in the velodrome and I’ve done some extra sessions on my own behind the derny.”
- Mark Cavendish tells The Telegraph of his training ahead of the Hong Kong track world cup this month.
“In January 2014 I honestly thought that was career over.”
- Kaarle McCulloch on how far she’s come to be in contention for the Rio Olympics.
TWEET, TWEET
Happy New Year tweeps. Here's to a happy, healthy and even better 2016! New season has begun, Adelaide bound... 😎👌
— Geraint Thomas (@GeraintThomas86) January 1, 2016
- Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas prepares to fly to Adelaide for the TDU.
Originally published as The Coffee Ride #92, with Reece Homfray
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