I haven't had time yet to write up a report on Trekworld or finish my '08 Madone review, but that'll be this week, I promise.  After yesterday's DFL in the eastern combine club champs road race (results here) and struggling to maintain 150 watts on the flat(!) I woke up today with the explanation - it's either a pretty wicked cold, or the 'flu. I was always going to come last, but I expected to be able to hold on until the hills. Nope!  Slept in for a while, watched Dr Who episodes, blew my nose, coughed, blew my nose again, then decided I could at least do something with the day.  So I cadged a lift with Vanders to Cycle Science and I put together the rest of my tow bike and used the shop rags as nose-goblin catchers.

The tow bike is a 20" Trek 7.2 FX, with a trailer and pannier rack (and the suspension seatpost removed!  urgh ... get rid of it!).  You can see the final product.  A gallery is here and Vanders is the model posing with the bikes.  At speed it's quite unstable, the instructions on the trailer say 'no more than 10m/h' which is about 16km/h.  I had it at around 25km/h before the tail started to wag.  Ok, we'll take it easy on this rig.  It's only to get the bike and my kit to Blackburn for summer track races, which is only 5km away, but is quite hilly, so the triple on the 7.2FX will get used.  Who needs a car?!

I'm going back to bed to watch more Dr Who and submarine videos, until the codeine kicks in and I get to sleep!

With Pat "Mr Motorcycle" suffering from a combination of guilty concience and a virus, it was down to John and I to chase him on Tuesday at the BBN roundabout.  Dino showed up as well, which was good.  He's getting better quite quickly.  We started off with a warmup - I had to swap a tyre over due to last week's puncture, so Dino and John chased Pat on the 250 for 20 laps (I think?).  I jumped on with about 3 to go and chased a little, but by then Pat was winding it up, John was dropped and I missed the wheel!  Doh!

So I do a couple of five lappers (86.4") with Pat winding it up to around 55km/h.

Then we do the sprinter thing - sit around and talk crap!

Next, three flying 200's on the 86", John's pushing 81 and spinning like a top, and Dino was on 84"? Dino - I'm sure you'll correct me.  Taking it up to high 50's, with a decent norwesterly wind of around 10kn meant that we were getting pushed up the bank on the southern corner, fun!

After them, it was big-gear-o-clock.  I'm using 98.4" again (I like this gear....), Dino & John are on low 90's.  Three of these each behind the motorbike, with 10-15 mins recovery.  60km/h or a bit over for each of us, and we're done.  John and I are having a healthy bit of rivalry re top speeds behind the bike.  I'm not sure who won the day, but John and Dino rode really well.

A warmdown in easy gears and then pack up and go home. I'll take jellylegs for a dollar, thankyou.  Ride home on the Madone, that little hill seems a little bigger today. Heh ...

Home, get the bolla ready for spin, and then back to the BBN velodrone clubrooms to run the spin session.  Nath's not coming so I ask if Tom minds if I pop the powertap under him for the session - I'm keen to find out what sort of wattages he's putting out.  We have a pretty good session - it's the second last session and we're upping the intensity now everyone's got plenty of endurance work in their legs.  It's been a good week for most of the suffering cyclicts, a number rode the Fruitloop and finished despite a gale, and Tom had won at Casey again on Saturday (lapping the field again ...) and then backed up to come 4th at the Bay2Bay Classic. Not bad for a bloke who's only training one day a week.   Claire (new aboc client) came along, a little flustered from being late (lost!) but soon settled in and had a productive session.

And today, I wussed out on my commute (6km ... blah .. I need to work further from home! It's too easy to be lazy) and rode the VFR, it was blowing a gale and raining when I left home, but now it's nice.  Will have to do an hour on the rollers tonight.  Joy! Tomorrow (at last ...) I'll get to ride the '08 Madone, I'll be at Trekworld in Sydney for two days and they have a demo ride on Thursday morning.  So, no DISC for me this week until Sunday.

And speaking of DISC, John'll be away, so I'll be running the session - and we're not going to let it be so disorganised this time!

30 mins warmup, then we'll split it 20 mins sprint, 20 mins enduro, repeat ... The last session was all over the shop and dangerous with people doing all sorts of things with no communication etc.  That's got to change!

If you've ever done some hard work - lifting, weight training etc, and felt ok for the first day or so, then started to feel muscle soreness, you've had DOMS.  This afternoon, it's my turn.  I generally don't get it, maybe that's because I don't train hard enough?  No way!  There's lots of explanations for it, the wikipedia article I've linked to above is a pretty good summary.  Generally I use a 4:1 carb:protein drink after hard training to reduce its effects.  According to Ed Bourke and Chris Carmichael's books this works, and generally my experience (placebo tested?  nope ... this isn't science on my part) is that it does.  C4P, or chocolate milk is my post-training drink of choice.  Whatever the cause and cure, today it's not working!  I didn't do the usual 50 lap enduro ride after my sprint training, which may have contributed, although that's contentious.  There's no proof that stretching or warmdowns reduce DOMS, but even if they don't, they're worth doing anyway if for nothing else than a bit of endurance work after strength training to keep some endurance up.

And for something simply amazing and completely unrelated on bikes, Artistic Cycling - have a look here.  It'll blow your mind.

I had a lazy Saturday (bad case of CBF), where Vanders and I did a MTB ride through Westerfold Park down to Ivanhoe and back (~100 mins riding) at moderate intensity.  Averaged low E1 mostly, it was time for more sprint work at DISC on Sunday at the Masters session.

Rich and Dino came along, and there was quite a mix of people, most of whom (myself included) had their own agendas for the session - some more willing to fit in than others, alas.  We were a bit disorganised and Rich and Dino didn't get much of a ride in. I'm sorry, in particular, Rich, next time we'll get it better organised.  There was next to nothing for general enduro riders, as the pursuiters did their thing, and we slotted in sprints behind the motorbike.  It was a bit of a dogs breakfast.  John Lewis and I discussed it afterwards and some ideas floated was a time split between sprinters and enduros, as it's getting close to worlds the sprinters are wanting to do full recovery stuff (20 mins between efforts, roughly) maybe we can do 15 min enduro drills, and then let the sprinters have 15 mins (with 5 mins leeway) and share it up that way.  That might work.  Maybe we need a Hiltonesque coach to run the session to keep it moving and organised?  How well that would work with adults, I don't know.

I did get my stuff done, 5 big gear slow starts (strength training) for 150m chasing Leah Patterson.  Standing starts in 98.4" is quite eye-popping.  Then after I did some motorpacing for a few of the others, I did 5 flying 200's (again on 98.4") with around 15-20 mins recovery, the last two I started to grovel so I'd probably overdone it a bit for the day.  That's ok though, at the moment I'm only really playing at being a sprinter, I figure it'll take at least a year of more focussed sprint training before I can do any real high speeds, I'm not peaking for anything, so this is all groundwork for next summer ('08-09, not '07-'08).  My main focus this summer is the Blackburn track season (not the TSSS, I'm running that, so I can't race it as well).  I want to be able to give the Alans (Barnes and Dorin) a hard time and make them really earn their wins. It'd be nice to be able to exert some influence at Glenvale too and work for the boys in B grade there. We'll see... Once the BBN summer track season starts I'll stop racing at DISC, I don't think two races a week will work for me, I'd rather do more structured training than just race, race, race.  Therebe a path to burnout and stagnation.

Before we got started at DISC the Brunswick mob were finishing up their session with a coaching seminar, which I listened to a bit, quite well presented, I think.  Next time though, please put all your chairs back where they're not in the way! And to whoever re-wrote the whiteboard message asking cyclists not to use the bowlers chairs, maybe learn to spell Bowler (not boler, you dumb schmuck).

In the evening I had to go out to the Lilydale flying school and replace a broken tape drive in their server, but on the way we stopped in at Cycle Science (20 mins before closing time) and put my new tow-bike (Trek 7.2FX) together - from boxed to rideable in 15 minutes!  Not bad.  I'll still have to swap out the suspension seat post and put on the tow hitch, SPD-SL's and pannier rack,  but it's ready to ride now. Trek's are generally great to assemble, the wheels are true, the gears set and tensioned well, they're a delight to put together.  This bike will be hooked up to a trailer so I can tow my T1 to the BBN velodrome in summer with an esky and a bag full of bits. It's 5km each way, but quite hilly, so a triple will be handy, especially on the way home after a day's racing.  I'm looking forward to being able to race without depending on a car for transport.  Maybe next winter if I'm keen enough I'll use that rig to tow the T1 to DISC on Thursdays and Sundays?

Out at YLIL we watched Jono Merridew land an Archer in a gusty 35kn+ crosswind. Some landing .. that boy can fly. YLIL is a 180/0 runway, and the wind was almost all coming in at 270 degrees (straight westerly).  I think Archers are rated at a 17kn crosswind?  Jono made it look like a gentle 5kn headwind landing. The tape drive needs a different cable, so I knocked up a quick(ish) tarball of their server and copied it onto their firewall so at least they have a backup, and will sort out the rest of it this week before I scoot to Skider-knee to Trekworld.

Nath, Rob M and Bev (and a few others?) went out and did the Fruitloop ride on Sunday, out at Shepparton, that would have been uber-windy. No reports back from them yet.  I hope they're all still alive!

The usual Thursday at DISC, sorta.  Who's here this week?  Of my crew?  None of my coaching clients are racing tonight, but John Lewis and Pat Dougherty are there, and ... they're riding C grade.  Ok ... I owe John a few favours as he's been looking after my T1 for me while Dino's been off the boards.  How can I help?  They ask me to try and keep the pace even for the first half of the scratch race so they're not disgraced.  Ok, I can do that.  The field is big but most of the stronger riders are absent.  Plan?  You bet ... this'll confuse a few people, but will work.

How best to control the pace?  Simple, just stay on the front and string out the field. so that's what I did.  Got on the front from the start whistle, and just stayed there, for 9 laps. Not super-fast, but a reasonable tempo, no-one keen to attack was near the front at the start, so I had a fair buffer of wheelsuckers before anyone who would exercise any initiative, and that wasn't until 10 to go (of an 18 lap race), I chased the first (rather weak!) attack down straight away, but then I'd done my job and I let the bunch roll over and I rolled down and got out of the way. A DNF, but John & Pat finished comfortably with the bunch.  Job No. 1 done.

Then, the points race.  I wanted to set John up for the first sprint, and Pat's job was to tow him back if he got dropped at any time.  Same drill, this time John's camped on my wheel from the starting lineup, and there's a girl in QC gear in front of us at the start, but she shows no interest in leading off, so I go over her straight away.  On the front, 4 laps 'til the first sprint, and John knows the plan.  I'm going to wind it right up and do the first leadout, and then I'll be blown and will probably DNF.  So at the whistle, I ramp it up and up and up each lap, keeping the field in a long line and John has an armchair ride.  With about half a lap to go John gets the hint and kicks over the top, just as well, I'm cooked. He takes the first sprint at a canter.  Perfect. I'm spent though, I make a half-arsed attempt to hold the gap I've let open up, but concede after a few laps of this once I notice John's been dropped after the second sprint and Pat isn't coming back to help him.  Bugger!  Oh well ... we got him in the points and that's good.  Job No.2 done.

Up to 98.4" for the motorpace, this time, I'll be riding for me and the confused crowd won't be wondering what's going on with this fool who rides on the front like some triathalete!  That's the plan, anyway.  The last two races have taken a lot out of my legs though, big long turns on the front have done some damage.  I'm not in my prefered position at the start and with that big gear, I let a little gap open up at the very start, I close it, but overpower the bridge and waste some matches and have to roll up the bank to slow, dumb ... and after about a lap and half my right hamstring starts to hint it's about to cramp.  I had a knee recon a decade ago on my right knee, and the surgeon did a hamstring graft, so I have less tendons in my right hamsting than the default that humans come with.  If my right hammy says something to me, I know to stop what I'm doing, pronto.  So I pull up and get out of the way, roll down and pop my pedal out, and let my right leg hang while I scrub speed and roll back into the infield.  Three DNF's for the night!  But, it was still fun and I did my duty by the riders I worked for.

Dino's come down for a look and he's worked out what was going on (all those race skill sessions *are* worthwhile, eh?!), Lisa Hocking's along for a spectate as well, and it's off to Nandos for a refuel. It was good to see big Trav take out the D grade scratch race, and Lawrence rode well, and Stu Vaughan finished the night with a great attack in the A grade motorpace and held his gap for a win. It was great to see Monique Hanley and we congratulated her on her fantastic performance in the RAAM (she was in the winning team).

Tomorrow, easy recovery ride, before doing it all again on the w'end.  Mmmm, bikes are good.

Trekworld - eh?  Trekworld is a two (or three, if you have the luxury of an extra spare day) day Trek Bicycles 'love in' (to use the IT industry term for a conference/marketing brainwashing session).  Stuff to be covered is details of the '08 range of bikes and bits that Trek do - including all the other brands - Lemond, Gary Fischer, Giant (heh ...) and sales training and so on.  I'll miss the demo day, I can't afford three days during the week, that's for sure, but I'll get the rest of the stuff.  This time I hope Mr Sales Guru from Clarence St Cyclery (the company/LBS that is Trek Australia) who is the same bloke who came down to Melb last year or early this year,  spends a little less time talking about how he used to be a twat but is now a Really Nice Guy, and a bit more on actual sales techniques.  Last time, from a two hour talk, about 45 mins was useful, and the food was good. This time, it's costing us Real Money to go to the talk, so it'd better be high on content and less on hot air! And, the food had better be good! And (Mark G, if you're reading this?) I EXPECT a t-shirt!

I'm hoping to finally be able to take an '08 Madone for a thrash, due to a minor comedy of errors I missed out on riding the one that was down here for a couple of weeks - got to look at it, but not actually ride it.  And yes, it looks pretty snazzy, but how it rides I can't say yet.

The demo day will also allow LBS people to play with a Powertap, I bet they don't get the chance to look at the way 10 speed cassettes dig into the alloy freehub bodies!  And I bet also that TBA don't know if it'll work with a Garmin 705 or any other ANT+Sport devices.  That could be a good question to ask the techies if any of them know much about Saris's stuff.  Here's a free tip, get CyclingPeaks, and ditch the Saris power software unless you have to run it.  Cyclingpeaks has a crap licence (you have to pay twice if you have two PCs, which is wrong) but it's way more advanced than the Saris Power software.

I may get a chance to ask someone who knows about the protocol, but I doubt it, it'll probably just be Trek people saying 'look at the new dualie, it's got ubershockers and megabearings  and is better because we moved the pivot....' or something.  MTB'ers are still lucky in a way, their equipment hasn't matured to the point where road and track has - we know it's not the bike that makes you faster, but MTB riders aren't there yet so they get to get really excited about some new feature, and think it'll actually make them faster or better riders etc.  Us roadies have no such illusions! Our bikes make gradual improvements, they get a little lighter, a little stiffer, a little more compliant where we want comfort in one direction but stiffness in another, but we know they are no faster or significantly better handling than the good bikes from 20 years ago.  Of course, the marketing people will spin otherwise, but that's the truth of the matter.  The big changes in road in living memory was the introduction of carbon as a frame material and the STI lever.  Other than that, most roadbikes are essentially the same as they were 20 years or more ago, the geometry that works, works and the differences are minor.  Tom Leaper won most of the A grade track races last summer at BBN on an ancient steel dunger and Jamie Goddard wasn't far behind, on another old steel dunger.  Legs and lungs ... that's what matters. 

I'm amazed (not really ..) that Ride magazine and the other road cycling mag have pages and pages of new bling that will only make riders faster by lightening their wallets and letting them pose more at Cafe Wanker, but they've never thought to do a review of coaching services - something that can actually make a real difference.  Maybe if they did a survey of what's around, who offers what, and at what price etc. Maybe if they did a dummy coaching client and found out what the different coaches offer?  That would be of real value to aspiring cyclists, I think.  What're the odds?

You can feel differences in frames and bikes, of course, but they rarely make a real performance difference, just a comfort thing, generally, but sometimes at the expense of handling, soft forks may be comfy for example, but on a high speed descent ... scary ...

So what else is going on?  While up in Skid-yer-knee I'll catch up with Hari and we'll go for a ride (matching powertaps, what fun!) and hopefully he'll be able to find me a reasonably flat place to put in an hour or two and a few little sharp hills to do some sprint training on. Maybe on an '08 Madone, maybe on mine - it depends on how generous TBA is with their '08 stuff.  I'm hoping that Trek have some posters or other material we can use to show punters why Trek bottom brackets are better (cutaways, and cutaways of other brands to compare - that was an eye opener at the tech talk we got last year - Scott BB's are full of foam filler, for example) or other such things.  I'm a fan of hard data and testrides, not marketing spin and bullshit!

DISC tonight, after Tuesday's sprint training and a reasonable chunk of more targeted training I think my kick is improving.  I'd really like to get a power meter on the track bike so I can see what's really going on.  Nath's using my Powertap at spin and it's been great to guage his improvement, we've found 200 more watts in two months, and much better duration and it's let me see what we've needed to target and see if we're really making any differences.

On a side note, Spinopsys is going away - Phil Gomes is going to a video blog on poo-tube.  IMO, a mistake, but time will be the judge of success or failure of that venture. Once the novelty of video production wears off, will Phil have anything interesting to say and will he have an audience? Most of his blog consists of commentary on lifted stuff and links to other blogs, how he goes with video, where that's much harder to do, will be interesting.

UPDATE I'll get to ride the '08 Madone on Thurs morning for a bit, but not Thurs night, so I'm taking either my old 1400 or the P1 up with me to get some riding done. 

Today I rode down to Crib Point to do the Crib Pt road race.  I was a little late getting away from home, it's 66km from aboc HQ to the start line at Crib Point, taking it easy that's about two and a half hours.  Could go quicker, but want to conserve energy for the race.

Anyway... I was a little slow getting away from home, planned depart was 10:30, and I got away at 10:45.  No big drama.  The ride down Stud Rd was uneventful, and as I got through Dandenong, I got caught by Tom Leaper and Andrew (sorry Andrew, I don't know your sirname), also on their way.  Great, A grade wheels to suck.  So I tuck in and Tom's in a hurry, it seems.  We're belting along at 38-40km/h.  Ok ... E2, dipping up into E3 on the gentle rises.  Errr ... I don't want to be going this hard before a race that I don't think I'm fit enough for anyway.  But, it's a training day, so I stay with them.  They drop me on a couple of hills, but slow down afterwards and I get back on (and this fat lazy sprinter even does a turn, on the hill dropping down towards Hastings).  Arrive with about 30 mins to spare, after averaging around 35-40km/h for the last hour and a quarter.  Eat, say g'day to Jamie and The Wizard and a few other faces, and wish Mason good luck, and then we're off.

It's a lively race, it's my first road race in a few months so I'm not sure of who needs to be watched if they go, and foolishly early in the second lap I bridge up to a pair that had got up the road. Hitting 182bpm for couple of minutes before we get swamped by the bunch - a complete waste of energy, especially at Crib Point with no significant wind.  I spend most of the race making position, and then letting the bunch soak up attacks, and moving back up when the pace slackened.  A few Hawthorn members in 6am-ers kit are doing some obvious team riding - they'd mass on the front then one would attack with the other two soft pedaled.  Kinda pointless there, more annoying than anything else, but that's their game, ok ... they'll have nothing left for the finish when it hots up.  We're doing 55-56km/h most laps through the start/finish area (slight downhill and a hint of a tailwind) so the finish is likely to be 65km/h+.  Ok, I've been hitting 60 at the BBN velodrome behind a motorbike and coming around it, if I can make it to the end I'll be a chance.

Along the way, on about lap 6 I think, one of the 6am-er/HCC riders is sitting on the wrong side of the road as we head towards the start/finish.  I'm inside him, there's no reason for him to be there.  I suggest to him that he can move in, there's plenty of room, but he says 'I'm avoiding the potholes'.  Huh?  Maybe Northern combine riders don't take the white line rule seriously, but we have to, last year Flinty's whole grade was pulled for riders crossing the line, and in this instance, there was no reasonable excuse for him being where he was. We're running low on race courses and I don't want to spend the rest of my road racing time trolling around Casey Fields.

More about this later ...

With 2 laps to go, my legs say 'enough' and I can't will them to make a bridge after missing a small split at the last turn, and I'm blown.  The ride down with Tom and Andrew and that dumb bridging effort earlier has torn off my legs and I just idle back to the finish.  So much for finishing ... and this was an easy, flat course.  The power meter tells an interesting story indeed.

At the end I speak to the commissaire, informing him that if the tail car reports that No.13 was on the wrong side of the road that I would corroborate the story.  I think that's the right thing to do.  If riders think they're above the rules and want to risk our use of one of the few flat road race circuits left, they can bugger off.

One of the other 6am-ers approaches me at the end calling me a 'dobber' and some other schoolyard stuff, but as far as I'm concerned, I did the right thing, and they can moan as much as they like - he was in the wrong, deliberatly risking our race permits, and I've no tolerance for that.  I doubt Mr Precious Pothole Dodger got any more than a stern talking to anyway.

An sms from Bev, she and Dino had a good ride today, which is excellent.  Good going, Dino!  Nath's done a big day too. Mason got 2nd in C grade, tops!

We go home in the car, with Tom and Andrew in the back.  Dinner (seafood marinara, cooked by yours trully, yummy!) and a good rest.  Tomorrow, 3 hours at DISC and then a practice run for officials to sort out our procedures for the sprint series.  I need sleep!

In my current state of fitness (read - fat bastard!) I'm not a contender for a win or even likely to finish well, but I'll be racing Crib Point on Saturday in B grade, and am offering my services as a chase monkey or leadout (if I make it that far) to a B grade aboc'er, if any of you are coming.  I'm riding down there from Vermont, but getting a lift home, if anyone wants to ride down there with me, that would be good too.

Tonight, DISC for a tootle around.  Still a bit flat from sprint work on Tues afternoon chasing Pat on the motorbike at Blackburn, but we'll see ...

UPDATE : this is the way I'm riding there

What a day!  Slept in, so I didn't get started on the road 'til about 10:45am.  Sunny, warm enough to not need arm warmers or a thermal undershirt. After a hectic week in the Real World, and no structured training for the week, I needed to get some miles in my legs and blow out some cobwebs.  I'd managed to fit in a bit of a session on Tuesday with John Lewis and Pat Dougherty at the BBN velodrone doing speed work, taking turns chasing a motorbike, and that went well, but otherwise my training diary is bare.

I make a few calls, but everyone's already out I guess, no-one wants to ride with me!  Dino's still laid up as is Nick and this will be a bit faster and further than Nath would be able to go, so I go alone. I think Bev's overseas at the moment?  Anyway ... solo ride today. Most of the serious roadies are out at Modella doing a hilly race - I'm in no condition for hills at the moment, 15kg overweight. No chance of even finishing, so I'll give that a miss for a while.

I dropped in at Cycle Science, and did a quick ride around the block with a fitting client who I hope will now be able to ride without breaking her wrists, and then off to the city via Whitehorse Rd (headwind ...) and then across to Alexander Pde via the Boule southern end.  A quick dash down Pickle St and over the Stu O'Grady memorial cobbles at Port Melb, and then it's time to open up and say ahhh.  Lisa Friend and a chum of hers were riding and I swept them up around South Melbourne, I think they must have been on a recovery tootle, I was only using 200watts at the time.  They latched on and away we go south to Mordi.  Along the way I keep lifting the tempo, hitting 500-600 watts on the rises (and 170+bpm, max was 181 for the day, good to see I could get it up that high and recover ok), we mopped up more cyclists and my little bunch grew to about 6 or 7 riders. I sat on the front intent on working hard, and most of the time the rest sat in, around Black Rock a bloke on a Look with Cosmic Carbones sat alongside me and we pulled togther for a few k, which made the hills a little tougher for your correspondant (that's when I hit 181bpm and 600 or so watts), dragging my lazy 104kg (!) carcass up those rises hurts, and when I'm not the one setting the pace .. ouch!

At one point a young lad with a lot of enthusiasm who's been sitting in for a few k jumps off the front (at the clocktower, from memory) but Mr Cosmics and I reel him back after about a k, just riding a solid tempo.  It's easy to think you can go faster when you're sucking wheel, eh?  He maybe forgot there was a 10 knot headwind and I put a pretty big hole in it for anyone on my wheel. Anyway, he got a bit of high intensity for a few moments, maybe that was his plan?

At a pedestrian crossing in Beaumaris (the one at the bottom of the hill opposite the life saving club, or maybe a yacht club .. I can't remember exactly) we get a red, and we all stop (good!) except one muppet on a MTB in a red jersey who'd been sitting in and every now and then taking a flyer off the front for about 50 metres, who flies straight through - well done, dickhead.  You could have taken out the mum and her little kid who were just about to cross the road. I bet she'll tell her kid that cyclists are a dangerous mob.  Score one for PR, muppet.

We lift it again towards Mordi, and I jump back on the front after having to chase back on after the last hill (Lisa Friend finally decided to do some work!) and hammer in to the end of Beach Rd, the rest except one bloke on a tidy looking Trek Madone 5.9 SL turn back, and he and I roll easy down through Aspendale before he turns down his street for home.

I'm toasted by now, 70km, including a pretty hard 40km burn on the front into a reasonable headwind, and turn left up Edithvale Rd to head up the hill for home.  The wind has swung *again* and it's a head/cross wind, not the tailwind I was hoping for, but it's such a nice day that even the odd bogan overtaking with 3 inches of room don't affect my mood and I just twiddle on home at 180 watts.

Drop in at Cycle Science again to say hi to the lads, discuss track racing with 'Bust a Rhyme, Sime' and suggest that if he commits to doing a significant number of Blackburn's summer track season he might get himself a free aboc jersey and knicks, "we'll talk".  There's an in-joke, Simon's spent years giving me stick about knicks, he's a former freestyle BMX'er, but I think he'll have a ball riding track, but he will have to wear knicks.  The poetry ... ha!

Home now, power meter data uploaded - yeah, it tells the story.  100k bagged for the day, that'll do just fine. The powertap says 2200kj burnt and Cycling Peaks says I had a decent endurance session. The Polar would have said 4000 kcal I bet ... random number generator. My legs have every right to be a bit lethargic this arvo. Guineapigs fed, they're happy, Vander's dog is happy (Yukon the wolf!), fish are happy.  Ace day. Tonight, a feed with my dad, Thai tucker in Mornington.  Red beef curry please, hot enough to kill a mortal.  Bring it on!

Hopefully I'll feel ok in the morning, it's the BBN/HCC time trial at Kew on the Boule, I'll be crap of course, but it's a good excuse for a 20 minute E3 ride while I make up the numbers and donate $10 to the winners, and then DISC for three hours.  Sunday night, legs up and relax, I think!  Mmmm, riding bikes ...

Get well, Dino, you would have loved this ride!

ANT+Sport.  What is this?  I'm glad you asked (go on, you've been dying to ask for years, right?).

It's a standard.  On your bike, you have many standard bits and pieces - this is a Good Thing. It means you can put on any tyre you want (clincher, 700c standard, MTB clincher, 26" standard and so on), use any groupset, mostly, and any pedals (standard thread in cranks).  Mostly we have standards for most bits and pieces, so you have a choice about handlebars, stems, saddles, seatposts etc etc - you get the point and I'm labouring it.

So, along comes your new bike computer, but you have an existing wiring set - will it work?  NO!  Will your new heartrate monitor work with your old HRM, or the speed sender, or the funky wireless cadence sender you bought (and it wasn't cheap, was it?). If your bike computer has a power recording feature (eg Polar S72x) will it work with a PowerTap, or SRM crank?  No. A wireless cadence sensor from VDO?  Nope ...

Until now.

Or, to be precise, until a year ago or so when ANT+Sport started cropping up.  The few of us who have Powertap or Garmin computers may have noticed there's a logo on the HRM strap that says ANT+Sport.  You didn't notice?  Shame!  That's what it means, so now you know.

The new Polar CS600 uses ANT+Sport, I think, the new Garmin 705 GPS bike computer not only uses it for the HRM, but also can work with suitable power sensors, including the (unreleased, this is vapour at this time) new SRM cranks and the quarq power meter.  Maybe the Polar CS600 (wild guess-o-meter when it comes to wattage, but that's not the point of this) will work with the quarq sensor or the Powertap SL 2.4 (so you -can- get accurate power readings from a Polar!).

What does this mean to you?  It means you can buy a computer that has ANT+Sport (eg the Garmin, or the quarq 'Qranium' or maybe the CS600) and be reasonably confident that you'll be able to get sensors for it in future that will work with it.  You should be able to mix and match - say you like the way a particular manufacturer's cadence sensor works with your bike, you should be able to get it to work with your other manufacturer's computer.  The big bonus is for those of us using power meters.  We should be able to use different computers with different power meters - say for example you were me (stop screaming, this is only temporary) and you have a Saris PowerTap SL 2.4 on your road wheelset.  You can then use the new SRM cranks or the (hopefully they do their sensor for track cranks, they plan to, according to emails I had with them today) quarq power meter on your track bike, but use the same computer for both - this simplifies uploading training data to your copy of CyclingPeaks WKS+, for example.  You also know by now that the Powertap computer is a bit sucky, but the Qranium has much nicer features, but you want a hub as the power meter, not your cranks - no worries! It'll work with a Powertap hub. Say you have the new Garmin 705, you'll be able to use the Garmin with both your track and road bikes with other branded sensors, and for a reasonable definition of forever, be able to replace bits as they break without having to throw the lot away.

This will probably only happen at the high end of town, K-mart bike computers won't support this standard (the cheapies are generally not wireless anyway ...) but I expect that in a year or so the smart manufacturers will all do ANT+Sport for their wireless stuff, which gives us choices to mix and match.  Good! I'm a little excited.  Now if there was a standard for wired computer wiring mounts ... don't hold your breath ... break a wire, chances are you can't get the right wiring kit anymore, you have to throw it away. A pox on that.

My Truvative Omnium cranks should arrive in a day or two, so I can ditch the old and bent Bontrager (Truvative) 'track' cranks on the T1 at last. I'm hoping that the quarq sender will work with these cranks when it ships, that would solve my power meter on track bike problem without having to get the hacked PowerTap Pro from wheelbuilder.com or forking out $fartoomuch for SRM cranks.

I missed DISC tonight, had to replace a hard drive at my real job.  Next week ...

Hi Carl,

After some frantic last minute packing, we finally boarded the plane last Friday and landed safely in gay paree on Saturday morning.

The Hotels in France are rather small and there is not enough room for the bike (or its  case) so I had to reassemble the bike  on the edge of "La rue de monge". Which is just a fancy name for the street that runs outside the front of the hotel!

We hit our first hurdle trying to check into the ride on Sunday morning. French Rail decided to do track work on the line that takes us to the start at St Quintin. They were running a replacement bus service, but I was not allowed to take the bike. So after studying one of the local tourist maps, the only option was to attempt to ride accross Paris and get on the train accross town. If you've ever looked at a road map of Paris, you will understand this is not as simple as it may sound.

As I was studying the map for the umpteenth time, a Spaniard who was also doing the ride pulled up along side me. He had a bigger road map than me and as we were headed to the same place, we road the streets of Paris together. We had a lovely ride alongside the Sienne River, Notre Dame qnd the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately we weren't supposed to be anywhere near these landmarks. It took us nearly an hour to do the 8km to get to the station. I got to St Quintin an hour and a half after my checkin time, but no major dramas. I got myself registered, bike inspected and ride card issued, ready for the  9.30pm departure on Sunday night.

The start was staggered into waves of 600 riders departing every 20 mins. I choose the wrong line to queue in and ended up leaving in the final group at about 11pm. The amosphere was fantastic. People on the streets clapping and yelling "ally, ally, ally" (Still no idea what this means, French equivelent of Aussie, Aussie,Aussie???). Volunteers were stopping traffic at the intersections to let bikes through and the drivers of the cars got out and clapped. Very different to Around The Bay ride in Melbourne where stopped motorists honked their horns and yelled abuse!

The first 50km of the ride were reasonably uneventful, except for some near misses with some low cobble stoned roundabouts that are just about impossible to see in the dark. Then the heavens opened and the rains came. I took shelter in a Patiessery at about 3.30 am and munched my way through a Cafe Eclair before continuing onto the first official food stop at the 122km mark. 

The first stop was a high school gym kitted out with seats, kitchen and a bar. I didn't really feel like a beer at 4.30 in the morning, but a nice steaming plate of spag bog went down a treat. 

I left the food stop just as the sun was coming up. The rain had stopped and although there was a wind, it started drying everything out. I really enjoyed the next 90km into the second checkpoint and got there a few hours ahead of the cutoff.

I'd had a few gear issues on this stretch, could not get the gears to run smoothely or change down properly. I found the cable had frayed and a couple of strands had jammed into the cable covering, stopping the cable sliding properly. I worked with the local bike mechanic to change it ( He had a new cable but no idea how to get the old one out of brake/gear lever - i'd never changed one either) and after paying the huge sum of two euros I was on the road again. 

The next 90km I refer to as the "hungry kms". Just could not get enough to eat. Every pattiserie or road house I would stop and look for food. Got into the next checkpoint at about 5pm on Monday.

The next stretch was a short 52km. I started having knee trouble. A pain in the top of the quads that extends into the knee. Very similar to the knee problem I had before I left, but the other knee this time. I survived into the next checkpoint (about 360km) but was in a bit of trouble. I rested for a few hours and went and saw the local ambo's who could only give me some gel to rub into the knee and they suggested I spend the night to let the swelling go down. Unfortunately, due to the cut off times I had to keep moving. The plan was to use my lowest gears, spin lightly and make it to Brest (250km away) where I would get a time bonus and a chance for a decent rest before heading back to Paris.

This plan worked well for the next 30km, then hills and a strong head wind caused me a lot of grief. I rode another 50km ( which took nearly 3 hours) in quite a bit of pain to the next major checkpoint. I couldn't stand on the pedals and had to conpensate with my good knee to keep going. 

I got 4 hours sleep at the checkpoint and and woke feeling a bit better. But a quick spin around a flat car park still caused me pain and I realized I couldn't finish the remaining 750km and withdrew after 450km.

Pretty devastated after waiting four years to compete but as Lina keeps reminding me, there is always the next one in four years time.

All that is left now is to get the bike shipped home and enjoy the next 3 weeks of our holiday as we tour around France, Switzerland, Italy and the UK.


Will catch you at spin class when we get back.

cheers,

Chris

As a few readers of the aboc site know, a few weeks ago Dino Apolito had a crash in a motorpace and got a bit of concussion etc, and just got back onto DISC to race two weeks ago.  Last night was his second night back after that crash.  He's written about it in his blog here.

So what happened last night?

Dino got to DISC a little earlier than me, and was warming up on the track when I got there.  I got sorted and we did a few efforts together to get ready for the nights' racing.  We went high up the bank and Dino reported that he was feeling better than last week about it, and feeling strong in the legs. 

After a few more efforts we were just pootling around the track keeping warm on the black line at around 30km/h or so, Dino was sucking my wheel when a rider who was up above us on the blue line (I only saw this out of peripheral vision) slipped off the bank (bad tyres?  Too slow?), slipped down into me, bounced off me, and swept Dino's bike out from under him.  I didn't actually see the crash itself, it was all right behind me, but I heard it, felt it and I heard Dino hit the boards.

Being a track bike there was no way I could stop and turn around immediatly, so I completed my lap and pulled up and saw Dino lying flat on his back and in considerable distress.  A couple of officials were milling around, I asked them to call an ambulance once we'd determined that this wasn't a quick tumble, Dino had clearly been hurt pretty badly.  A few of us with first aid tickets got Dino as comfortable as we could, and then a doctor who was there helped out so we handed over to him, and got Dino's kit all sorted out.  I called Rich who came and picked up Dino's bike and pump, and we basically waited for the ambos to arrive and tried to keep Dino as comfortable as we could.  He had a reasonably normal pulse, no obvious neck or collarbone injury, no damage to his helmet etc, but his ribs on his right side were very tender - at least bruised.  I called Ann (Dino's wife) and let her know.

The ambos arrived after about 10 minutes, and took over, gave Dino the anasthetic straw and then some morphine (no more racing tonight Dino, that's on the banned list!).  We organised to get his clothes etc sorted, one of the ambos took his bag and the ambo's oxy cviva kit away, and just after he'd left Dino's condition worsened, he started to have breathing difficulties.  One of the club officials ran off after the other ambo to get him to come back with the oxyviva.  While this was happening the other ambo had to cut Dino's jersey, knicks and undershirt (but we salvaged his Polar HRM !) to get to his chest to check for bubbles.  None evident, but Dino will need a new jersey and knicks (again!).  I think aboc will give him a new jersey as a get well present. He got back, and they put an O2 mask on and more morphine to stabilise Dino's pain.  Then we popped him on a sled, and then the ambos organised their stretcher. We called Ann again and told her Dino was going to the Austin (by co-incidence, Dino used to work there!), then the ambos took him away.

Discussing the crash with a few other people who saw it, it seems that Dino landed ribs-first on the top tube or stem of the other bike, basically spearing himself.  It was the most rotten, awful luck for this to happen.  There was just nothing we could have done.  Many crashes can be avoided and learned from, but this was a real 'struck by lightening' incident.

The rest of the night was pretty subdued, I raced as the only aboc rider there, doing a slingshot for a young lad in the scratch race but unable to hold the wheel of the motorbike in the motorpace in the last lap.  Embarrasing!  The program was shortened as Dino's crash blocked the track for about 45 minutes, so no points races for the night. Dino sent me an SMS message at about 1am with an update, he has, at this time, two broken ribs and a punctured lung.  Not much fun at all, I've had broken ribs before and they're a uniquely painful experience.

I'll keep everyone informed as to Dino's progress as soon as I know any more.

In the constant pursuit of new things to learn and fun to be had on wheel(s), I invested some of my wage from Cycle Science in a unicycle.  It just arrived today.  One of the lads here, Alex, is quite a wizz on one, and I hope to be able to have him and myself rolling around the Blackburn velodrone over summer between races for a bit of a laugh.

Now I just have to learn to ride the thing - the 1st aid kit is full of Mefix, what could go wrong?!

Details : it's a 24 inch 'Nimbus 2', which I'm told is a good size to learn on and my lardy arse won't be too heavy for it.

For some time I've been unimpressed by the stock Bontrager branded Truvativ cranks supplied on my Trek T1 track bike - they're not track cranks, they're short (165mm) road cranks.  This is probably because the T1, as shipped, isn't really a track bike - it's a track frame but comes with road bits for singlespeed road use.  Versatile, but that's not what I got it for.  They do, at least, have outboard bearings which helps stiffen up the bottom bracket area.

I've been looking for a decent set of track cranks for a while, Sugino and Shimano are still using old-school bottom brackets with square tapers.  No thanks.  My roadies have gone way past that, why hasn't track?  Luddites ... anyway ...

Nath suggested I check out the SRAM/Truvativ 'Omnium' cranks.  Seen at Interbike in '06 it would seem, as is shown here on bikehugger's blog and also seen at Monza's trade show last month (where was my invite Pete?!)  Nice ... So I'm trying to track down a set in Oz.  Rumour has it they're here already in Oz, but our wholesaler (Monza) says 'September'. Nothing on SRAM's website at the moment so I can't tease anyone with any more photos or details, but they sure do look the part.

UPDATE: These will ship from Monza on Sept 1st, and RRP is ~$400 without the GXP bottom bracket. There will be some Uber-flash ceramic bearing variant of the GXP BB for these, but I'll stick with steel bearings I think.

In today's Age, Leigh Matthews states, when talking about EPO use in AFL football :

"Blood testing is invasive. It's very different. The one thing you know is there's no health risk in taking urine. Blood requires putting a needle in your vein and the AFL didn't like us doing that with the IV hydration. It's a health risk," he said.

Uhuh .... We'll just bury our heads in the sand, Leigh.  Thankyou.

I had a pretty good weekend on the bike - the weather did the right things (mostly!) and I rode with good company and had a go at a few things new. 

After a bit of a bummer night at DISC on Thursday where I just couldn't get my legs going - spent 18 laps chasing the points race, for example (but at least I kept chasing, got a decent high intensity training session out of the night ...) and then Nandos in Ivanhoe being out of chicken(WTF?!) and having to resort to Red Rooter, I was due a positive bike experience.

On Friday Mark G from Trek brought in a new Trek Madone 5.5 (performance - read 'the old pilot') for us to look at at the LBS.  It was much prettier in the flesh than it looks on the 'net.  We poked and proded at it but I didn't get to keep it for the weekend - Maybe Mark knew I had a few hundred k planned? Mark assured me that we'll get it as a loaner for a decent test and review.  Stay tuned ...

Saturday morning, Bev & I rode in to meet Dino (late!) and then we did a tootle down the Yarra Boule, I stopped off at the crit loop for a few hillsprints and downhill sprints, then we rolled on to Port Melb for muffins and hot chocolate.  By the time we got to Port Melb a fair breeze had sprung up.  Bev and Dino rode with me to Fitzroy St before they turned back, and then I did a hard ride to Mordialloc - tailwind assisted. It was late enough in the morning that all the serious cyclists had finished for the day, so I spent the ride to Mordi chasing rabbits and trying to stay above 280 watts on the flats.  A bit of ego-flogging, no-one managed to hold my wheel for more than a k or two (even on the hills!) so I felt strong.  I caught one bloke who was in boardshorts with v.hairy legs in Mentone, but I couldn't shake him all the way to Mordi!  Including a kick to 800watts for a bit at the Parkdale yacht club and 50km/h on the last kilometer or so.  A good wheelsucker.  I eased off at the last set of pedestrian lights and he went past. 

After that flogfest, I noodled to Edithvale at around 180 watts, before turning into the headwind to ride home back up Springvale Rd.  120km for the day, that'll do.

Sunday was a race - of sorts - the Blackburn/Hawthorn ITTs had been a bit down on numbers last time, so I figured I'd donate $10 to the winner and have a bit of an E3 session.  No-one took me up on an offer of the back seat of the tandem so I had no excuse and had to ride it on my own.  Lots of bling at the ITT this time, Trek TTX's, a lot of aerobars and fancy wheelsets, and a decent turnout - even Barry 'The Wizard' Woods came along (a sprinter at an ITT?! There's two of us stupid enough to be here?!).  It was good to see Jono Lovelock back from his European jaunt, and Jamie Goddard, Steve "The Master" Martin and Tom Leaper turning out, as well as a few fresh faces and a healthy size field.  It was also nice to meet up with Wendy and Lisa, who I hope will have a go next time.  TT's are only as hard as you make them, remember?!

I pushed as hard as I could, but this fat lazy sprinter, even at 450 watts up the hills, was overtaken by his 30 second chaser after about 2km.  I came in at about 20 minutes for the course, ok I guess, it's not my baby .... I'm no climber nor am I a tempo rider, and the Boule has nary a flat centimeter.  HR peaked at about 175bpm (HRmax is 188) so I was working pretty hard - around 93% of HRmax for the last 5 minutes. 

Thanks to Nicko, Sue Dundas, Alan Barnes et at for running the 'race' (cruel ... cruel people!).

Then it was a tootle to Rich's place to drag him to DISC, but it turns out he'd been out all night on the grog and wasn't home when I got to his place.  Ok ... off to DISC - stop off en-route for a chocolate big-M and a couple of Wagon wheels.  Yum!

At DISC I met up with Nath & Dino and the rest of the old farts, it was good to see Liz Randall doing some fast laps and Lawrence Maskill turned a pedal a few times too.  Big Stu Vaughan got me by a cm in the warmup sprint, I thought I had enough gap, but not -quite- enough!  Nath & I (and Dino after one or two) did some standing 100's before I rode the DISC motorbike for the rest of the training group doing fast leadouts.  Nath & I managed to squeeze in a couple of flying 200's between my leadout sessions, and Dino looked flash with his new wheels. Nath's getting strong, he got over me on both flying 200's.  The summer sprint series is going to be interesting indeed.  Riding the motorbike is bloody cold too!  I had a jacket, but no leg warmers, so my legs were frozen stiff as I span around the velodrone on the motorbike.

After that, it was time for a 50 lap 'take a lap' grand prix.  I set myself a target of taking 5 laps, and I got 'em, a couple on my own and two with Mr Green from Albury and one with Nath.  That got rid of any coldness ... 3 hours at DISC and an ITT for the day, that'll do.  I groveled, and Nath gave me a lift home in the Rayvan. No way would I have been able to ride home, *smashed* legs. Thanks as always to John Lewis for running the session. It was good to catch up with Paul Parker (Mr Cycle Finess) and to watch his charge as she trains for the masters games.  Strong ...

Today, recovery ... 30 mins of tootling ... -easy-

*phew*

Tomorrow, more strengh work and E3's ... Summer track season approaches and I have a date with Alan Barnes and Alan Doran that I want to keep ... I'm not going to beat them much, but I will keep them honest (and will try and stay ahead of Dino, who's gunning for me too ... ), summer's going to be a lot of fun.

A couple of days ago Nick Bird posted a note about the Hawthorn/Blackburn ITT at Kew on the Bicycle Victoria forums.  This prompted a number of healthy questions, and a subtle bomb from an ATTA (Australian time trial association) member, I suspect. 

So what's the problem?  If you're a racing cyclist in Australia (let's leave out the triathletes, MTB'ers etc for the moment, just roadies for the sake of this polemic, and yes, MTBA is a special case, and a good one ...) there's now three different organisations vying for your membership.  Each one has infrastructure to a varying degree, each runs races.  Healthy competition?  No.  Why?  Read on ...

I need to establish some basis for what I think is valuable in context before I go on. 

First and foremost, racing cycling does not exist in a vacuum.  We race on public roads, closed velodromes, car race circuits, special purpose built tracks (eg Casey Fields) and so on.  Each of these types of venue has unique requirements, but of all of them, roads are probably the most difficult to organise access to, once the venues are built, that is.  It's important for a racing cycling peak body to invest in racing venues.  It's also important to invest in other infrastructure to support racing.  This includes training of officials, so we get fair and consistant rules and their enforcement, training of coaches to provide a development path for riders who wish to improve, junior development, age group racing support, managing insurance requirements for races, officials, racing organisers and coaches, managing licencing and grading and so on.

Doing all of that is a big job.  It's fair to say that Cycling Australia is far from perfect, and it's rare to find someone that hasn't butted heads or been frustrated by CA at some time, but the organisation exists, is mostly democratically run and it provides a lot of infrastructure support.  Of course, this means it costs money.  In the overall scheme of things, not a terrible lot and CA seems to me to be reasonably cost-effective in terms of what it provides compared to what it costs.

I think the service CA provides is very important and I do not complain about my membership fees to race.  I know that the money I pay is being used to support not just my racing, but racing across many disciplines.  This is, I think, important to remember.

Along comes the ATTA.

What does the ATTA do?  They run time trials.  That's all they do.  No development, no coaching, no training for officials, no infrastructure. Happy to use CA's infrastructure though, but not contributing to it.  They're cheap to join - I think it's $20 to join, so for most of us, that's 10% of a CA licence.  The ITTs they run are cheap to enter, $7 at this time, I believe. In WA, according to the ATTA website, they are affiliated with CA, but each state body appears to be intependant.  What is the state of play in Victoria?

To be fair to the ATTA, in Victoria they do appear have a significant amount of membership overlap, but that just adds to the crazyness of the situation.  This means that a racing cyclist who wants to do regular ITTs has to join yet another organisation (and one that provides very little to the racing community save to run these races).  Yet another licence.  Woe betide the rider over 35 who has three licences now, thanks to the ATTA, the Vets and CA all being different.  I'll leave the Vets out of the picture for the moment, that's the subject of another essay on stupid sports politics that costs us all.

The immediate problem for those of us who race is that there's two (or three, if we're over 35) bodies that we need to be licenced with if we want to do ITTs and mass start races.  It's inconvenient and it's more expensive than it should be.

The structural problem is deeper, and arguably more important. The ATTA and the Vets are essentially taking from CA while at the same time competing with CA.  CA provides the infrastructure to support racing cyclists all the way through from juniors to masters.  Vets and ATTA riders train on CA provided infrastructure (who pays for the upkeep of the velodromes you all do intervals on?), they copy from the CA rulebooks, CA clubs have organised permission to use roads and established precedents and so on.  ATTA and Vets clubs organise competing events using the same roads, so CA clubs and Vets clubs and ATTA events have to compete for the use of the roads through local councils etc. Fields get split between competing bodies in the same regions which means the standard of racing is compromised. The world won't cave in and the sky isn't falling, but this is far from ideal when it comes to seeing our sport grow and prosper.

So what would be the sane thing to do, given the three organisations?

Here's what I think :

Roll the Victorian ATTA body back into CA if it isn't already.   It should be if it isn't.  If the ATTA people want to just run ITTs they can run them through CA clubs.  Clearly there's a healthy demand for ITTs. Rather than buck CA, work with CA.  That's what I'm doing with the Trek Summer Sprint Series, and everyone will benefit from it.  It took some politicing to get past some club stalwarts who had reservations, but it can be done and everyone wins.

Roll the Vets back into CA as well.  Not likely?  Why not?  All it takes is some sanity and a recognition by the Vets clubs that CA provides infrastruture that lets the sport grow and that that is something that all racing cyclists should contribute to.  The Vets, without junior development, will become extinct. They need juniors, so there's people old enough to race against in 20 years who have a clue about bike racing.

What does CA need to do to make this happen? 

Review the licencing system and talk with the other organisations. 

The licences need a revamp, there's the mostly useless 'Ride It' licence that CA provides (and many of my non-racing and vets licenced riders have a Ride It so they can attend my training sessions).  Ride It needs to be upgradable to a racing licence as a first step.  It's dumb that you can't upgrade it. 

Revisit the masters licencing fees, and talk to the Vets clubs about some level of licence parity - MTBA and CA have a swapover licence system now, which while not ideal is at least a step in the right direction. Many riders in the current generation of the Vets are dual licenced, it's just dumb. AUDAX can do it, MTBA can do it.  Why can't the Vets?

Introduce a cheap CA ITT-only licence that's then upgradable to a full racing licence.  There's a huge opportunity to grow the sport by mining triathalons and the Beach Road wannabes and poseurs and ITTs are a great way to get people involved.  Bunch racing might not be for everyone but ITTs will get these people mixing with those who do bunch races and some crossover is bound to happen accordingly. This is a market that the ATTA has tapped into and CA needs to pay attention to this.

And finally, get the CA licences to be valid for 12 months from date of payment, not the current archaic system it has at the moment.  This is 2007, membership records are computerised. There's no excuse anymore.

And wouldn't it be nice if Bicycle Victoria had licence/membership links with CA too? One can but dream ...

And so it ended last night, the 2007 Tour de France.  Three weeks of some of the most intriguing and exciting racing I've ever seen, mixed in with a backdrop of doping and subterfuge. 

Remember way back in stage 1, with Robbie McEwen blasting the rest of the field to smithereens on pure adrenaline after crashing some 20km prior?  Robbie didn't recover from the crash and missed the time cut in the Alps.

Remember Cancellara winning a sprint finish in yellow?  Boonen's leadout man winning a stage (Gert Steegmans the missile).   The usual early stages with futile breaks, stages ridden at touring speeds, Brad Wiggins being hung out to dry for 100km, every time he slowed down, the peloton slowed too, torture ....

Almost everyone winning a stage early on (sprinters, that is!) - Hushovd, Boonen, McEwen, even Zabel managed to be consistantly high up, although unable to take a win, showing that cunning and positioning is just as important as raw speed yet again.

Crashes ... so many crashes this year, Obviously McEwen, but more tragic was Stuart O'Grady on a descent breaking ribs and puncturing lungs but not breaking his heart.  Mick Rogers, while virtual tour leader, crashing and dislocating his shoulder, Vino crashing early and riding on swathed in bandages and oozing blood for days.  Riders crashing into loose dogs not once, but twice. David Millar doing his best to ruin Mavic's reputation by ripping a Mavic disk wheel to bits on the startline of the final ITT.

The young German rider taking yellow and white for a day, on the podium the podium girls were tripping over his smile it was so broad.  David Millar putting on a show, bathed in sunscreen because of a bizzare allergy.

And then the hills ... Rasmussen, to cheers at first, then jeers and boos as the story unfolded, tearing the road up in the Alps before pulling a time trial from nowhere to hold his lead.  Who believed he was that strong?  Then, the controversy as he was removed by his own team after way too many mysteries about his wherabouts and missed doping controls during the leadup to the tour.

Vino winning a time trial, Vino driving Astana to split the peloton in a crosswind, destroying the French hopes by putting minutes into Moreau but seemingly to have no real purpose.  Vino cracking in the hills and losing 20 minutes, Vino attacking in the hills and winning a stage, Vino testing positive, Vino and his whole team being evicted from the tour. Vino living up to his reputation.  Never a dull moment.

And along the way, Contador going punch for punch with Cadel Evans and Rasmussen in the mountaintop finishes.  Attack, attack, attack ... Cadel driving himself beyond exhaustion to limit his losses in the hills.  Levi Leipheimer and Contador taking turns attacking Cadel until eventually getting clear.  Could Contador get enough gap to stay in front after the final ITT? Would SBS interupt a finish with an ad break to tell us all about Sniff and Stiff (with no irony at all re performance enhancing drugs) or some particularly dull car advert.  Yes to both.  Can Tomalaris say anything sensible at the end of a stage?  will Graham Gate with his Faux-French accent cribbed from Peter Sellers movies finally choke on some overstuffed foie gras?  One can but hope ... Will Paul Sherwin manage to squeeze in a mention of testicular cancer? Yes!  And David Millar .. yes!  Did anyone run a book on how many times?

The humour - Borat sightings, the usual nudity, the crazy drunken spectators in the mountains. Rasmussen waving away motorbikes (we think, still not really sure of what he was on about).

The late transitional stages where finally some breaks stayed away, the old soldiers (Jens Voight, Sandy Cesar and co.) dicing it out for a last stage win in their careers.  Sandy Cesar winning while dripping blood from an early crash.  Setting everyone up for the crunch - the final ITT.

Could Cadel catch Contador?  So close in the end, but so desperatly close also for Leipheimer, who won the ITT but Cadel held second - 31 seconds seperating first from third.  Footage of Cadel sprinting up the last 200 meters of the ITT, sweat spraying everywhere, just a few more seconds ... everyone in Australia with a bike and a TV glued to the time trial willing Cadel to find a few extra watts from somewhere, and probably quietly wishing for Contador to puncture or crack, but the race was true and Cadel got second in the end.  The Australian media being clueless about stage racing (too much time playing footy) and media pundits telling us Chicken Little stories about the death of the Tour.  The sky is not falling.  The Tour is much bigger than a couple of scandals - it wouldn't be a tour without scandals.

The amazing spectacle of riders protesting about dopers, not dope tests.  Surely one of the most promising signs that the sport is purging itself of the old guard.

Tom Boonen's vindication, taking home a stage win and the green jersey at last.

And Cadel, second place this year.  Achingly close to first, but beaten by a stronger climber with a more focussed and polished team.  Discovery/US Postal have now won 8 of the last 9 Tours. They know how to win a tour.  Bruyneel taking his team, post Lance, to a win no-one expected.  Cadel being so close that many are disappointed that he didn't win, but that's to miss the point - he did win, he won respect and he won admiration and he rode clean, and he got the best result ever by an Australian.  Next year Cadel ... Imagine if it was Cadel and Rogers fighting it out for the podium next year.

And now we can all get some sleep, no more tour lag 'til next year.  Thankyou for reading.

After some 2 months or so, the Powertap SL 2.4 is back.  It arrived on Friday, and I built it back into a 28 hole Mavic Open Pro, did a final retension today.  Now to get back to using it.  We can do power testing and power training again!  W00t!

Read this opinion piece in today's Age.  Good Stuff!

In case you can't get to The Age's copy, it's here too.