30 Jan SunTour: Racing With My Idols

As I left the cool and air-conditioned airport, following a battle through the lanes of customs border control, I entered a blanketing heat of 40 degrees and while my thick NZ polo dampened with sweat, I winced at the thought of potentially racing in that climate.

Lucky for me, and for the other 90 women in the peloton, race day brought some rather more desirable weather at a cooler 15 degrees with a bit of rain in the morning drying up just in time for our race start at 10.30am.

After a cruisy ride from our accommodation at big 4 campground down to the start line we lined up ready to sign on behind no other than the Mitchelton Scott team, where I signed on just behind the likes of Annamiek Van Vleuten and Georgia Williams, cool or what?

Between warming up, eating, drinking, sitting in the van to keep warm I jittered with nerves while watching the likes of professional team mechanics hard at work while riders prepped themselves for what was to come. These riders looked as if it was just another day for them, they’re used to the pressure and they carried out everything calm and collected; prep, keep warm and warm up as a team. It still seemed crazy at this point that I was going to line up against these women in a moments time. And sure, that start line was daunting. Perhaps the repeating Australian national anthem proved also just as daunting, as the three-women band persisted upon the prestigious melody throughout warm up and, by no surprise, It was the Australian National anthem that kicked off the whole ordeal as they sung us into our start.

Before I knew it, the clock ticked 10.30 and I, amongst the 90 women around me scrambled to clip in and determine a position in the neutral peloton. Straight away I came to trust in the riders around me and find comfort in the large group, as this was not like a Calder Stewart neutral or a junior racing neutral, the riders around me ride bikes for a living and their good at it too. Though the bunch jostled continuously I cemented myself a position about half way through the group, touching shoulders, touching wheels, you name it, but I stayed upright. In the middle of the pack of 90 riders, I had little to no vision of the road ahead, in fact all I could see was the wheels directly in front of me and this was perhaps what daunted me most. Racing through town the bunch would part or shout and you wouldn’t see the traffic island or set of railway tracks until moments before, or perhaps the screech of brakes ahead and a sudden slowing of the bunch as we neared a tight left hand bend. Lucky for us newbies, however, was the extended neutral from 3km to 5km and over the first hill, thanks to teamie Ella Harris who suitably timed her change over to a neutral service bike, giving us 2 extra kilometres to find our feet if we hadn’t already.

As the neutral flag dropped I was certainly thankful for the neutral to find my feet, as from the gun the race was all on. With the flag dropping into a hill, the bunch surged and stretched out at the front as the riders pushed the pace up it. From here began the unrelenting racket of tooting motorbike horns and police sirens as race official motorbikes made the most of any attempt to pass the bunch in order to preserve the rolling road closure.

The first 50km of the race consisted of a continuous rolling terrain on an open highway, so as expected the pace was fast. Though the wind was slight and cross winds did not much play a part, there were points where the bunch strung out as we passed through more technical sections such as roundabouts and traffic islands, and I found myself gripping onto the single wheel in front me.

Ten kilometres later we hit the foot of the first QOM hill, and with 5km of climbing ahead I pushed myself to the front third of the group. From here the wide open road that we had been riding on turned into a much skinnier and rough suburban road, winding up into the trees which inhibited the dampened road surface, from a previous douse of rain. The pace was fast up the first 3-4km of the climb, and the front of the peloton had downsized dramatically as we descended a narrow windy descent for about 1km before the pace hit hard into the final stretch of the climb up to the QOM. Unable to match the pace of the splintering front group, I Iost touch with the back of the group 500m to go. With heavy legs I pushed over the top and with the front group still well in reach I jumped straight into a chase down the windy descent. However, with firing legs and the prospect of the front group ahead, I perhaps took the unfamiliar descent too fast.
Of course, this thought didn’t hit me until I came round a corner to find myself lining up to go straight over the bank and with the sight of 2 women already down on that very corner, and one women clambering up the bank to her bike, I knew I wasn’t getting out of this one. Before I knew it I was clambering across the road trying to find my glasses and my bike, so I could get up and back up and riding.
With a throbbing wrist and blood dripping down my arm and leg, as well as a great big dose of adrenalin, I got back on the bike. As I descended the rest of the hill, I was reassured that I wasn’t alone, it sure was a harsh descent, with at least one rider down on almost every corner, it seemed.

With team mates needing feeds up in the main peloton, the motor pacing back to the race was cut short so NZ teammate Abbey Morton, also was a victim of the descent, and I were left to fend for ourselves with 50km to go. While we pursued chasing, our pace did not match the peloton which streaked away in the distance.

Though determined to finish the race, as I neared the start/finish line with one extra loop to go, it was clear that the pain nor the lump forming in my wrist were not subsiding, and I called it a day. On the plus side, stopping early meant I could watch in awe as Brodie Chapman and Annemiek Van Vleuten raced through the finish line to complete their ‘drag-race’ to the line. As well, I watched first-hand as my teammates crossed the line amongst the pro’s, which was pretty cool to see.

Though for me it was cut short and I missed out on an epic urban ITT, where I sat on the side-line and watched the madness – even scoring a photo with Esteban Chavez – Herald Sun tour was definitely an awesome opportunity and the 60km that I did race was a great experience, where I sure learnt a lot. Not to mention the atmosphere at the races and sharing a hotel with all the competition was all worth it, its not every day you get to sit down for buffet breakfasts and dinners surrounded by countless of your idols.

Photo oppurtuntity with Esteban

There are some perks to missing a race with a broken arm