The Alpine Classic. Where do I start?
I might as well start with the start: I was in the 7am start for the 140km ride to Mt Beauty and Mt Buffalo. I'd planned to be early because I wanted to take some photos of the 6:40am starters as they hurtled along the road out of Bright. I pulled up to my carefully chosen photo spot then turned on the bike computer to check the time and see how long I'd have to wait for the riders to come past. What?!? 6:59? Sh*t, that couldn't be right!
But it was right and I only just made it to the start in time to throw my throw-and-go card and go. After getting badly fried last week, I was being more careful this time so I was still slapping on sunscreen as we rolled out of town. Not the relaxed start I was hoping for…
I've no idea how the pace was going out at the front because I'd settled in to a comfortable trundle at my accustomed position well towards the rear of the pack. Things were going really well, the morning wasn't even warm yet and I was enjoying the banter with the other riders around me.
Then, not long into the climb up Tawonga Gap, I got a puncture. Fortunately it was a slow leak that allowed me to push on for a short distance so that I could find somewhere sensible to pull up and make repairs. As I stood there looking forlorn my bunch rode on then the entire field of the 130km ride to Falls Creek rolled past, with much cheerful ribbing at my expense (particularly from a few that witnessed my similar misfortune last week on the Cheryl's Choice brevet).
I was soon back on the road and working my way up through the tail of the 130km ride field, which wasn't too much trouble as we were still riding in shade at this point. A very brief stop at Tawonga Gap then down, down, down into the bright sunshine of the Kiewa Valley.
Kudos to the organisers for having the foresight to locate the Mt Beauty checkpoint right beside a café—where I took a much needed coffee, having been too late to partake before I left Bright. The dude making the corporate video was interviewing someone, and I heard him ask a rider "Are you on schedule so far?" A schedule…hmm, that might have been a good idea.
I certainly didn't linger, but on the way out of Mt Beauty I was overtaken by swarms of fast moving riders who had clearly already made the trip to Falls Creek and back (the slick bastards). And that was to be the pattern of the rest of the day.
I can never really enjoy a descent that I've got to climb up again, and the return ascent of Tawonga Gap loomed large but I didn't find it too much trouble despite the sun shining fully on this side of the hill. I just sat back and wound my way up. At the top I thought I should take in the view, so I had a quick squiz then headed on down. Although there were plenty of other riders out on the road (most of them zipping past me) I was in a peloton of one when I pulled back in to Bright.
I tried not to muck around too much at Bright but I will recall a couple of "famous last words" that I uttered there. I told someone that I felt like I'd just got out of bed, which while true (I felt great) should probably have indicated to me that I could have been working a bit harder and moving a bit faster. I also said to someone else "I've only got Buffalo to go", in the offhand sort of way you'd say "Stick the kettle on, I'm just whipping down the street for a paper." Pity the naïve in their ignorance.
So off we went, my ignorance and I, towards Porepunkah. On the way a persistent rattle from the rear wheel that I had been persistently ignoring developed into an insistent ker-thump ker-thump ker-thump. Not another flat? No. Oh no. It was a rather nasty bulge developing in the rear tyre—that's a brand new tyre with less than 1000km on it. Grrr. I removed the wheel to inspect but there was really nothing that could be done to improve the situation, other than reduce the air pressure so that the bulge would be less prominent.
On the road again, only to discover that in replacing the rear wheel I'd somehow knocked the gears out of whack (I think I must have accidentally given the SIS adjustment barrel a bit of a spin). All the way up to the gates of the National Park and beyond I stopped to make repeated and futile attempts to get the gears back into line. Eventually I decided to pull over and reset them completely rather than just twiddle and hope. These things are always much easier done at home than in the field with sweat running into your eyes, but I eventually got things working adequately and continued, with all hope of making the time limit gone.
At least I was now able to enjoy the ride, largely free from gear hassles. You can only imagine how enjoyable it was to climb up and around one bend, only to see the road rise steeply until it disappeared around the next bend. And after a while I began to enjoy some bracing cramps in my quadriceps. And the afternoon temperature was starting to become pretty enjoyable too.
The Audax volunteers placed a water drop 10km from the Chalet (that is, 8km from the top of the major climb) where the wasted bodies of exhausted cyclists lay strewn along the side of the road. It was here that I sought treatment for the cramps. Now under normal circumstances I'd be a bit dubious about accepting mysterious white powder being dispensed from the back of a truck into my water bottle by a stranger, indeed it would be the height of reckless stupidity for an elite cyclist to do so. Fortunately I'm about as far from elite as you can get and these were not normal circumstances, so the white powder (which had the consistency and taste of plaster of Paris) did its work. Much restored, and with a second bottle of plaster slurry on board, I almost bounded up the remaining slope ("almost" as in "not at all").
It may be understatement to say that I was pleased to arrive at the Mt Buffalo Chalet. The Audax volunteers had things right: big plastic cups of trifle (who'd have known that was exactly what I would want?) and thick wedges of watermelon were among the abundant goodies on offer. Another volunteer was standing-by offering to fill bottles and/or spray faces with water.
With my time limit now all but expired, I could have lounged around for the rest of the afternoon but somehow I tore myself away to make the descent. Of course, I forgot to check the state of my rear tyre but, hey, you only die once ("die" as in "have a blow-out at speed, lose control and go careening over a cliff to splatter on the rocks hundreds of metres below, and die"). Fortunately that wasn't on the agenda today.
I also forgot to check my departure time, so I don't know how long the descent took but I was rolling at well over 40km/h pretty much all the way, and over 60km/h in the lower, straighter stretches. Even then some mad bastards were overtaking me.
Once back on the flat, I remembered that the Bright Brewery backs onto Howitt Park and I got the sniff of a reviving brew—so I reached into the reserves of energy and put my head down. I was finally passing people again—obviously not beer drinkers. On arrival at Bright it was something of an irony to find that I didn't immediately feel like a beer. Again the Audax volunteers had anticipated perfectly: a couple of tubs of ice cold sludgy fruit purée stuff and a custard tart were not what I would have ordered beforehand but they were just what I needed. Then it was time to move onto a beer or two: "Blowhard" and "Fainters" seemed to be appropriate to the occasion…
Huge thanks and congratulations to all involved in organising this event—as far as I could tell the whole thing went like clockwork. Don't mention it to MLSP, but I reckon I'll want to have another crack at it next year. More "famous last words"?
Thanks Grant. It was much more fun than I made it sound.
Not sure if it works as well on a road bike as it does on a MTB, but using a plastic Aussie bank note as a tyre liner can help keep dodgy tyres intact.
The stiffness of the note (for most of us, 0 for the Colnago set) stops the tube from trying to herniate through the sidewall if the casing has lost its structural integrity.
This technique has the benefit that when the tyre really is beyond help and needs replacement, you can spend the contents of your old tyre on buying a new one.
tim
Yeah, it did occur to me that I might need to install a tyre boot (and a note was about all I had on me that would do the job) but as it turned out, reducing the tyre pressure was all I needed to do to smooth out the lump enough to get home.
The tyre was fritzed by the time I finished though. Fortunately the manufacturers replaced it just on my say-so—the replacement arrived before I'd even got the damaged one off the bike (let along sent it back).
Now it's my quads that are knackered. I think I must have strained something because I haven't been able to ride too hard or too long since, and I've had to pull out of a brevet coming up this weekend. Ho hum…
Comments
Epic report, -- congratulations on getting through.
cheers
Grant