Criterium Season for 2014

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St Kilda Criteriums


My next goal race for 2014 was the Masters Criterium Championships, so I was trying to fit in a few more crits before the big day. I just received a parcel of new Kosdown Performance Cycling kit to wear and in it was an extra sleek speed suit. The guys have been sporting these high end suits for the last few years and finally it was my turn to get the aero fabric, women's specific chamois and design so it fit in the right places.

High collar vest, long socks, fully seam sealed spray jacket and more! YAY!

Unfortunately the first opportunity I got to wear it was on a drizzly day at St Kilda Crits a few weeks back. It was looking pretty greasy out but I needed a good sprint session so I rolled up to the start line with my suit on ready to get moving. There was only one other woman on the line for A-Grade until I started calling out to a small group on the side-lines who were deciding whether or not to race. We were going to get wet riding home anyway - so if they race, we'll play it safe.

Sock Shot - muddy and gritty conditions


In the end there were 6 of us who started in A-Grade and we rolled around for 30mins keeping warm and trying to decide if it was going to get worse and we would pull out or it would ease up and we could turn it up a notch. It turned out that it got worse AND we turned it up a notch. The next 20mins were attack - chase - fox - attack combo from Nicole Whitburn, myself and Amy Bradley (for whom it was her first race back post collarbone break at Tour Down Under Crits).  There was a very vocal agreement that no shenanigans would occur through the corners, but it was racing at every other point.

Dodging Puddles

I was having a great time - it didn't really matter how it all ended up, we were drenched, covered in grit, and laughing. Nicole attacked very early in the final back straight, and entered the last corner cleanly. I was in 3rd wheel behind Amy as we sprinted up the final straight and made some ground but I couldn't quite get over the top of her by the line. Crazy race day, but was glad to give it a go in the end.


Happy to finish Women's A-Grade

Hawthorn Crits


In the last month the Hawthorn Cycling Club criteriums have finished up and I managed to squeeze in one last mid week brutal race after work. There is a great little review with extra links on the Hawthorn Cycling Club site.
And a mini vid from HCC with my face on there and helping out fellow racers by pinning on numbers.

Victorian Masters Crit Champs & Show Woman's Crit


That final race at Kew was the last part of the preparation for my goal race of the season - the Masters Crit Champs. It was on a new course in Hardcourt this year that would make for some great spectating and was a little more suited to my strengths. The morning of the race it was pouring down in Melbourne, but it was clearing as we left town. When we arrived in Hardcourt the races before lunch were cut down to ridiculous times of around 10-15mins. Our race was scheduled to be only 20mins, which was less than half of what I am used to racing flat out at St Kilda. The other difference was the course was being run in reverse from the advertised route to take out the fast corner.

I was totally psyched up for this race, after eating clean and healthy all week, resting up and itching to WIN! Last year on the old circuit I came home with a silver in the final sprint by 1/2 a wheel. This time I was confident that I would try everything to ensure it was not going to happen again.

Nicole Mcnamara on the front of the train into the headwind
 We had a combined group of each age range in the Women's Masters group and it was something I could use to my advantage. There was no neutral lap and no time to waste, so as soon as we were released, I took off to the first corner. My main competition was Nik Mcnamara and she was hot on my heels.

A rider from another age group took off up the road and allowed us to re-organise for a lap or two, then slowly we reeled her back in. When she was close I counter attacked to keep the pace high. The course was pretty good and it was fun to try pushing the pace and jumping at different points to see how the group would react and to see how far I could get away.

Keeping my cool in the group, getting ready to pounce
At 2 laps to go Nicole was caught on the front, and lead out the main part of the last lap. I called up Jo O'Shaughnessy to take the lead into the last straight and into the last corner. I took off from her wheel into a sprint up the last rise, across the finishing line and it was one of those moments where everything just clicked and felt great!

Sprint to the line
I came in first across the line and first in my age group. Jo came in first in her age group and second across the line, and Nicole came in third across the line and second in our age group. After the race when I rolled back to claim the place and find out when the presentations would be, the officials from Cycling Victoria mentioned that they were going to open up entries to the elite Women's Crit that would start in a few hours, if I wanted to pay and enter right then. They had got me on an emotional high. I quickly renegotiated my departure time to later in the day and entered before I could change my mind.


The lineup for the Show Women's Crit was a little more serious with the whole Building Champion Squad from Bendigo, a few other local riders, and one or two from Melbourne for the race.

Calibrating...
It was good to see Emma Pane racing again with a new club, team and bike! We were going to have some fun today. Ten minutes before the start they announce the circuit would be raced in the opposite direction to the previous races and on the line our race time was cut to 20mins as "there are not many of you here to race".  About five minutes into the race Lauretta Hanson attacks and we are blocked by her whole team and chased down on every move to bring her back. After about ten minutes she had lapped us and it was a race for podium positions.

Attacking and countering again and again. Legs = toasted.
As we came into the final lap, I thought I was in a good spot to give it a good shot towards the line, but when I accelerated out of the last corner, the first 3 riders were already out and sprinting up the road leaving me in 6th place overall and no ground to be made up. It was good fun, but again I learnt the lesson about being in the right spot to get an armchair ride to the finish.

Photo of the top 7 riders - without me as I had to leave before presentations.  (L to R:  Marquessa Jelbart, Tayla Evans, Lauretta Hanson, Emma Pane, Nik Mcnamara and Jessica Lane)

The Ride Cycles Women's Ride 


Each Friday there is a women's shop ride for The Ride Cycles in East Kew which is ridiculously close to my house, but I rarely ride in that direction unless I am going for long kms. I was keen to check out the route and back roads with the ladies and chat over coffee on my recovery day.

I put my party lights on the bike and it only took ten minutes to ride there! Everywhere I go it takes me 30mins to ride places, so I was happy and fresh to start the ride.



I was excited to meet Cazz Clarke, Barb and Angela and her sister (to name a few regulars) and check out the trails around the back blocks of the east. There was one great bike path section I am definitely going to check out more of that crosses over Whitehorse Road with a cafe on the corner.

There was a steady amount of climbing as out in the eastern suburbs there are hills, but also there are good downhill sections. It's a "no drop ride" and everyone was taken care of, including me who stopped at one point to turn off my phone alarm telling me to WAKE UP!

At the end of the route, we finished back at the shop and just a few doors up at the local cafe for a free coffee, delicious mini treat (diet sized) and to discuss great massages for cyclists. Always good to get a local tip, I'll be back again for more.


SKCC Club Crit Champs


Finally the last crit of the season was upon us with the biggest finale of the St Kilda Club Crit Champs. Each week they run three women's grades, three times a season they run Latte Laps (crit training sessions) and this year we were back with another big 50min (+3laps) race.

The women's crit champs are an "ALL IN" style of race where you claim for a place in different age categories. For example you can be WMAS4, race with the elite category and sit on to the sprint finish and win your age group. Or you can be WMAS3 win the overall race and your age category etc. Again this year they broke the age categories up into 10yr blocks instead of the usual 5yrs (I still can't see the reason for this).

 There is often a little bit of teams racing in A-Grade, but this time we had 4 riders from Stay True (ST), 3 riders from Total Rush (TR) and 4 riders from Bike Bug Next Gen (BBNG). The rest of the field was randoms from A & B grades that I've seen racing throughout the year.

Doing my nails on the start line. Photo curtesy of Dale Maizels

We had a lead out car for the first 2 laps that went at over 40km/h and blew the field away until we got settled, then somewhere after the flurry of first attacks around 10mins in Prue (BBNG) and Hannah (ST) took off into an early break. There was a lot of blocking and pacing tactics where I got to have a chat to welcome back Jenny Macpherson (ST) for the championships in those first 20-30 mins till TR and I closed the gap and brought it back to another attack fest. 

The last 15mins was attack after counter attack from each group. Nothing was getting away, I was jumping at different spots on the course to see if I could snap away, at one point I thought I had a wining break but it was shut down again (even with the main teams represented). 

On the last lap Bridie(TR) attacked in the 3rd corner and I couldn't quite go with it. I managed to catch back up by the last corner, but Jenny came in first and Liz (BBNG) had broken away with her around the last corner and came second to a close finishing third for Bridie. We were just spectators in the bunch and I did forget that others in the group were fighting out for age group placings so I promptly got out of the way and rolled in about 7th or 9th overall (electronic timing would have been nice to sort this out for us). 

Champagne for the winners!
I was very happy with my activity in the race. I had no team mates and nothing to lose, so it was a bit of fun to mix it up and finish up the season. Again it was a well run event by St Kilda. I hope they lobby to run some of the state events in the coming year as it would be a great credit to the club for all riders that compete at these events to see how great we've got it!


Only the best ALLPRESS coffee served by real hipsters!

Podium Pics with awesome crowd because we like to celebrate in our club

Always testing and a random regional Handicap thrown in for good measure

10:45 pm Unknown 0 Comments


After an indoor power test during the first week of April, my coach had lined me up to do an outdoor power session on a climb. I had not tried to give Kinglake a real crack before, so I headed out there to kick my weekend off in style. I was pretty motivated to do a good time, but was not really sure where the start of the climb was, so I didn't hit my lap counter until I was sure the road was consistently going up. The problem after that moment was my gears were not consistently changing! I had some real grinding and crunching issues all the way up and probably scared off all the remaining wildlife and one Hells500 grey striper that I passed while doing the unintentional strength effort. I had flash backs to my hideous Masters Nationals Time Trial where the gears were slipping around on my TT bike and I had to just find a gear that worked and mash it to the top. I'll be going back to give it another go in the coming months for sure.


The next stop on the way out of town with Shane was to pick up Stephen Lane fresh from winning the Coburg Club Crit Champs in A-Grade and we headed straight out to Seymour.
They put on great club racing each week - check out their Facebook page to see the schedule when the Northern Combine is full or the weather is a bit uncertain and you can get a start for $10 entry on the day!

I got a fair handicap starting with three other guys at about C-Grade level for the 60km race. We worked even turns out to just past the turn around where we zoomed back in towards home on the same road to see the scratch bunch coming. Shane was on the front of the bunch and had a massive grin on his face as he past us. It struck fear into our bunch that immediately went to pieces and stopped working together.

They caught us at the 39km mark and I was on the front as they came by and sprinted to get across to the back of the train. My average speed jumped from around 36 km/h to 42 km/h and all I could think of was to hang on as long as possible to get me closer to the finish and to try and finish with this group.

It was really cool to see my team mates rolling turns up the front in a massive pace line smashing each other and trying to soften up the rest of the group. At one point I see Shane grab a drink and water goes EVERYWHERE! He's pouring it all over himself like he's on fire. A few minutes later we're on another small rise and I can see the guys driving it into the head wind as the group of now 10 riders snakes along behind them with me near the tail. My mind wandered off for a moment to a conversation in the car on the way to the race how there are B and C-Grade riders who can hang on to a sprint finish in some races without even hitting the wind - I had a chuckle to myself at that point as I was benefiting from the slipstream and essentially "I was that guy"!

It was going to be easier said than done to hang on though as I didn’t know the route and we had a technical section through town where I had to sprint out of each corner to stay with the guys and then we hit the hills. I remember from the rough overview Shane had mentioned there was a double kick in the final hills. Initially there was a small climb out of town that Stephen had perfectly paced the group halfway up and dropped back through the group to rejoin in front of me. Just as the next rider was looking to roll off, he attacks up over the top of the climb and disappears off into the distance. I manage to hold on with the group as they respond up over the top of the climb and scramble on to the back.

We are 51km into the race and each kilometer I can hang onto is one less I have to ride home solo. I realize that there is another hill coming up and it must be the last one. I can still see Stephen up the road, but I think we are starting to make some time back up on him. So Shane sets a tempo on the climb at the front that is pushing it for me and just hard enough that it seems that nobody is going to counter. Sam Fuhrmeister was the next to roll through to set tempo, then I was next and ready to try my best at blocking, but Shane pushed me off the front and promptly counter attacked on the other side of the road. This was bad timing for me, I was already in the red zone and then the explosion from the group to respond to Shane jumping across to Stephen who was fading up the road was the end of me. There was a little more hill to go and someone was still on my wheel. I swung my elbow once, twice, but they didn’t come through. Bad mistake, as I was starting to go backwards fast and lost contact with the front of the race.

There was about 7-8kms left to go and I could see the group up the road but nothing behind. That means I was guaranteed a top 10 placing if I could keep the pressure on.

We worked together towards the line and then I jumped early to try a sprint and rolled in for 7th overall. Totally ecstatic with the result, I rolled around to find Shane who had brown gel goo all over himself. During the race the gel pack had split when he opened it and covered his face, hands and he’d tried to wash it off unsuccessfully during the ride. That was the gush of water in the peloton that I had witnessed.


The boys had gotten away with a first place for Stephen (double win day!) and second for Shane after wearing down Alan Adams before the finish. It was a great day out in the last of the summer’s warmth.

Totally washed out after a big day out with the boys and the team car
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