My first real road racing experience, apart from a handful of crits;
picked a tough one.

Stage 1 Sat am. 72km from Yarra Glen including 1 major climb (Toolangi
via Chum Creek Rd) and 2 laps of the aptly named “Death Valley”.
Weather: cold with gusty, biting southerly wind. 50-odd starters

Stayed with bunch to the foot of the long climb, including getting
suckered into a short stint on the front chasing down an early escape.
“Reverse attacked” the leading group of 20-odd in the 1st km of the main
climb (~9km @ 4%) as the HR soared well into the red. Climbed tempo
from there, passing a few later reverse attackers. Fairly slow descent
into a strong headwind which meant pedalling all the way down. Picked
up late in the descent by 5 big guys who’d eat me for breakfast in a
crit. Rolled turns with them for about 10km to Death Valley (Old
Healesville Rd). Grovelled up a horrible berg (1km @ 9+%) to the KOM
where they weren’t awarding points for 20th D-grader over the top.
Rolled a few more turns with the breakfast-eaters before encountering
another horrible berg. Hit by buffeting cross / headwinds over top of
said berg, causing further reverse attack. Waved farewell and gritted
teeth back into Yarra Glen, to start second shorter lap of Death
Valley. Breakfast-eaters still visible about 1km ahead. Chatted
briefly to some friendly women riders I passed just out of Yarra Glen,
then about 1km later got walloped by “l’homme a marteau” (man with the
hammer = frogspeak for hunger flat) together with more horrible cross /
headwinds. Horrible carbo gel packs having no obvious impact except for
making gloves and jersey very sticky. Crawled another 8km to start of
Death Valley being passed by no-one which would have amazed me if I had
felt alive enough to be amazed. Homme a marteau obviously travailling
overtime. By now would have happily tried any pills, syringes etc
being offered by Aussie Olympic team hopefuls stationed on side of
road. Wondered if I’d be able to walk up horrible KOM berg, riding all
the way seemed clearly out of the question, but spirits lifted by sight
of dropped A graders going past not much faster than my 8 kph. Last gel
and or serious endorphins must have kicked in at this point since final
horrible berg and winds didn’t seem as bad as feared and no-one else in
D-grade passed. Still, lost 10 mins to breakfast-eaters in last 22km
lap giving them time for lunch and the leaders a start on dinner before
my arrival at Yarra Glen.
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Stage 2 Sat pm. 18km ITT Steels Creek, gently rolling road, f(*&ing
gusty wind

Start. Hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, ... (you get the general idea) .
Finish.
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Stage 3 Sun am. 84km from Healesville including 2 loops over Pantons
Gap (~ 8km @ 5%) – or so I thought.

Horrified to learn from clubmate on arrival that course involved 3
loops over the climb. Total of 2000m climbing when other lumps added
in. Clearly plenty of others had realised this already because they
hadn’t turned up. About 35 starters.

Ecstatic to hear organisers announce at start line that D grade course
reduced to 56km / 2 loops. Funny how getting back what you thought you
always had can make you wildly happy. Must remember to try this with
the kids sometime.

Stayed with bunch to the foot of the 1st long climb, cleverly avoided
getting suckered into any stints on the front chasing down escapes.
“Reverse attacked” the leading group of 20-odd in the 1st km of the
main climb (sound familiar? – sure felt it). Plugged away at the climb
which ends with ~3km of dirt road. Minor chaos near top where a B
grader climbing on the wrong side of the road had earlier headbutted a
(hopefully) slowly descending car. Climb finishes with one of those
beautiful, gently easing gradients where for a km or so you get to put
it in the big ring and feel like a superstar (if there’s no one good
around to pass you). Bombed – well, maybe grenaded, at least
pop-gunned – the descent towards Healesville with clubmate and worked
turns with him all the way round to foot of main climb again. “I’m
stuffed” he duly announced – “No, I’m the one who’s stuffed, I thought
you were going well” – “I thought you were, I was just hanging on” etc
etc etc. Saved breath, gritted teeth and suffered up second climb –
three laps would have been impossible, let alone A grade’s four.
Actually passed someone!!!! More superstar stuff over the top and
another fast descent with “stuffed” clubmate until a Healesville ho
named Cheryl (according to her rego plate) pulled out from driveway as
we approached 100m away at 60+ kph. Fortunately laws of physics still
on our side and we followed Cheryl as she meandered slowly down the
road (looking for customers?). Rolled over finish line with clubmate
and felt hugely satisfied to have survived a pretty intense
introduction to open stage racing.
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Vital statistics: finished midway in the field (including the DNSs and
DNFs) 30-something mins down on winner. Average HR for every stage
~170. Ouch!


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