After having a fair mechanical failure on Sundays second stage, completely checking the drivetrain was rather necessary, as with a handicap likely this week I wanted to be on the quickest bike I have.

It took a while, and I had to very carefully check the chain, but sure enough I found it - a bastard little stuck pin:



Anyway, it's fixed now. Completely cleaned and scrubbed the chain, pushed the pin back both ways and made sure the link is loose and hopefully salvaged the chain which is only a few weeks old. Best test it out tomorrow, I think.

Last for the day was a proper short track crit, which I was really looking forward to. I'd never actually competed a proper crit, so was really keen to see how I'd go. The results were definitely positive.

Before the race Tomma and I had discussed whether or not people would work together - and if he were willing to work together, whether he could actually keep up. Similarly of the start it was 'suggested' we work together, so we started out kinda slow, with Jenni leading the first lap at a gentleman's pace. I took over for the second lap picking the pace up slightly, and let another rider take over for the next two.

Noticable each lap was the gap that would open after I turned onto the singletrack from the fire trail each lap - I had more trouble than other riders negotiating the sand, so 20-30 meters would open up from this corner alone. The gap would easily and quickly be made up, though I had Jenni worried on the second lap that the lead rider would be allowed to get away.


It was becoming clear by this point in the race I had a large crowd of supporters trackside, with a fair cheersquad yelling encouragement each time we came around. With the lead constantly changing yet me always sitting either 2nd or 1st, the support certainly didn't seem to die off, which was nice :)

After taking over to do a bit more effort on the front for two more laps, I allowed another rider to take over, however things were about to change. Previously we'd been doing laps somewhere between 1:40 and 1:45, but the pace with this new leader would be picked up to 1:35. As it turned out, this rider happened to be Sam McGregor, who in the ITT had won by well over 7 seconds, and finished that stage 25 seconds up on me - 4th in the XCO race.

Before the finish we each took a few more turns leading - It was only then that I realised we'd actually opened up quite a gap to the next few riders, however I wanted to know how much of a gap, so I could use it tactically. The plan, if the gap had become too much for them to possibly catch up, was going to be to be in the lead and to slow it to a snails pace though the singletrack, and then just blast away. Sadly without this information I had to just play it safe an keep a constant pace, so decided to take the lead with 3 to go. I wasn't sure if this was necessarily the best idea, but I preferred to need to be overtaken than need to overtake.

On the final lap I made sure to stay ahead going into the singletrack, but then backed it down a little bit - just enough to give myself a small rest which turned out to be plenty. Into the last bit of track the pace picked up a bit before the final corner, with Sam's front wheel actually contacting my rear wheel. Taking the inside line I got a good clear run past the cheer squad and it looked like I had it all easily wrapped up, but for safetys sake I decided to push it into the big ring - this turned out to be a big mistake, as the front mech didn't end up shifting properly. The result of this was to turn a certain win into one by only half a wheel across the line - but a win nonetheless, which I'm incredibly happy with

Result for the XC Crit: 1st place. MHR=184, HRavg=180. Weapon of choice: Giant XTC Team.
Physical exertion felt at the finish of race: Barely any.
Lessons learnt for next time: Don't try to shift to the big ring on a sprint.

To be honest, I would have kinda like to have done the crit in A grade.

Next up was an event I wasn't too keen on, the XCO race. For this one I decided to use the Anthem, hoping it would be a bit better for the descent of Cressey Climb and around Quarry Pit. Off the start I did my normal "come on guys, you're falling too far behind", looking over my shoulder making sure I put in just enough effort to stay ahead. Unfortunately I'd forgotten that the Anthem weighed a lot more than the XTC I did the state round on, which featured the same climb, so my pace up the hill was nowhere near the same.

At some point up the climb I was passed, and once passed the lead rider just took off, however I stayed ahead of Peter Pink until the crest. Once getting to the top thing things didn't quite go as smoothly as I hoped - I was a little down on energy, but my gears started skipping a bit. By the time I got to the Cressey Climb entrance I'd been passed by a few more riders, with a snake forming behind me - by the bottom of the descent I'd dropped to 10th, with Tomma now sitting on my tail. We made our way through Quarry Pit, worried I was holding Tomma up, but then my gears really started to complain. While I would dart away in a straight line, Tomma would quickly catch up, though it seemed he was getting more annoyed than I was at the skipping cassette.


Sadly I couldn't continue racing with the problems the bike was giving me - I stopped to look at it a few times but simply couldn't see the problem. The risk of the chain slipping while on a hard climb wasn't worth an injury, so once I'd ridden the second lap I decided to pull the pin - my first mechanical DNF in 18 months.
So for the XCO Race: Result: DNF. MHR=181, HRavg=158. Blunt weapon of choice: Giant Anthem 1

Todays event was certainly different, and also one that was being looked forward to. GMBC were hosting the second round of their winter series out at the You Yangs - a stage race. Going into the day my goals were simply to do well at the TT and the Crit, and I didn't really care what happened in the XCO race. As luck would have things, that'd probably fortunate.

First up was the TT. They'd given us a roughly 2km course for this one, which went up a long 62 meter climb, before we then had to descend it via a series of berms and flat (some sandy) corners. After doing an observation run I was targetting around 6:45, though things didn't go my way right from the start. I messed up my start, as we had to trigger a gate (I've been getting my starts pretty good lately), in the processing missing clipping in, and then (like many others it seems) went out a bit too hard along the first run up to the climb. The peak was reached at 3:15, but then it being all downhill afterwards would mean I'd start losing time.


Net result 7th place (B grade) in 6:31 - missing 6th by 0.6/second. MHR=177, HRavg=170. Weapon of choice: Giant XTC Team.

Westgate Park, Thursday: 3rd, B grade.

GMBC Winter Series #2, today, B grade:
Individual Time Trial: 7th.
XC Olympic Format race: DNF
XC Crit: 1st.

More later.

Over on QGL some guys informed me of these stupid smart Keas, often found in New Zealand, who seem to have this ridiculous ability to solve puzzles.



That reminded me of another video I'd seen a few years back - on how some Crows have managed to figure out a safer way to safely break open and feast on nuts that would normally be impossible for them to open.


Clever Bird

Damn smart birds!

After last weeks big series of sessions, Wednesday morning was used as a chance to get in some more XC ks. For that it was out to Lysterfield, where I quickly found out the two days 'rest' I'd given myself had merely allowed my legs to go to set concrete. Misjudging the temperature on the way there, it turned out I had way too many layers on, so had to find a hiding spot for my vest once getting there.

I still figured I'd do two laps of the park though, using the AES round 2 course as a guide. Throughout that race for the whole 6 hours I was doing 49 minute laps, though realistically they were more like 46s, with a best of a 43 on lap 2. Out there on Wednesday I did a 41 followed by a 45 - obviously showing there was tons of room for improvement.

So after wearing myself out in the morning there'd be a second hit out for Wednesday - Bushy Park Crits. A few more people turned up this week, however there were no names I though I was going to have to race against unfortunately. My benchmark in the last few weeks has been Peter Pink, who it turned out arrived at the very last second, however I didn't find this out til the end of the race.

Off the first lap I took off out ahead - Bushy Park is one of those tracks where you turn back on the track many times, so you can see how much of a gap you have or are making. On the first lap alone I was passing the last tree as the 2nd place rider came through it (about 100-150m); by lap 2 it was the first tree; lap 3 I was turning down the hill as they came out of the cars and lap 4 they were entering the cars as I went down the hill. That was doing ~4:01-4:09 laps, and seeing how much of a gap I was opening up I decided by that point I'd done what I came to do, so backed it off for the remainder of the race. As it turned out though, my final lap of the race, which I backed right off on, was almost quicker than my fastest when I raced there two weeks ago.

Westgate the next day went nothing like that though. The ride there was into a very strong headwind, and took over 2 hours, with me already feeling completely worn out before starting. Only a small field turned up in B grade (and in general), so for the first 1/4 of a lap I was sitting in 2nd, while Dave Peters just took off at a pace I couldn't come near achieving.

Unfortunately I couldn't hold the pace of even the back of the field by the end of the rac. With seriously heavy legs, each lap got harder, and it wasn't helped by the others using me as a wind shield and simply hanging me out to try. On lap 3 the wind really hit, and the last riders I'd see in the race got past; just from the berms to the finish they made up 20 seconds, and on the final lap they'd put a whole second into me (or rather, I'd fade by another 40 seconds on my previous laps pace). The net result was me falling all the way from 2nd on the first lap to 8th at the finish. Though it was a seriously disappointing effort, it'd be hard to do worse next week.

Your entertainment today, which I came across on digg:



Edit: ahaha, and the reply to that, thanks to scooby:

Ugh. So it got to a little after 12:30 today and I thought it odd that a few particular people hadn't called me back. It wasn't until I went to put my phone on charge that I realised that was because it was completely flat - so flat in fact that I couldn't even turn it on with it attached to the charger. Looks like I'd completely discharged the battery, doh.

Took me a while to figure this out though - was rather annoyed when I thought the phone was completely dead as it wouldn't turn on with the charger attached. Seems the 6500 powers itself only from the battery, and doesn't take power from the external source - that's saved only for charging.