Monday 16 July 2012
Sunday 15th July 2012
Finally, a mountain biking post for the BCS girls!!
Roz took a bunch of five mountain biking ladies out through the bush around Maiden Gully, on the outskirts of Bendigo. These ladies are definately not new to cycling, but they are quite new to the world of mountain biking.
The idea for the ride was for Roz to guide the ladies on a loop that they can then rediscover another day and to also offer up hints and tips for bettering their technical skills and overall confidence whilst riding on the dirt.
The ride was a resounding success!
Initially, we all rode as a group along some bitumen roads to access the bush, which gave us time to warm up and enjoy some early morning banter. Our first challenging section came at about 20minutes into the ride and to describe this, one could say the valley looks like a big dipper...........and VERY rocky! Roz gave an example of how to descend and then came back to help and coach each of the girls to get down.......... These chicks are impressive! So we had an 80% success, (only one lady decided it wasn't for her); at the novice stage in my mountain biking career, I doubt I would have attempted what these girls achieved. We regrouped at the top of the big dipper after walking up the (rocky!) incline. Then there was the lovely meandering of singletrack, a few more rocks, some quartz rocks and of course the trees........ onwards towards Stumpy Gully. Some open fire trail arriving at the big dam which is the start and finish of the fun loop that we call the Stumpy Gully Loop! The loop is mostly single track with rocks! And puddles. And rocks. Not too much climbing - a good track to cruise on and also a good track to rip it up if you want to push yourself.
Everyone was having a ripper time. The ride ended up being a little over two hours with numerous stops to regroup and share "zen" mantras for getting through tricky sections.
Things like...........Breathe! Let it roll. Pedal. Feather the brakes. Push, Push,Push, Pedal, Pedal, Pedal.
The only way to finish up is to say that if we measured this ride by smiles it would rate 10 out of 10.......
P.S. Stay tuned for another ride in late August or early September...........Date to be announced.
Monday 9 July 2012
Santos North Western Tour
Where to begin with this tour as it turned out to be a bad tour for the team. This may be a understatement as things went from bad to worse for all the girls ....hope you enjoy the read ..
So Kate, Nik and guest rider Lauretta Hanson began the long drive to Coonabaran at 4am on Wednesday morning full of excitment for the long tour ahead the first 2 stages were in Narrabri a 3.6km prologue followed by a 30min criterium.
Nik and Lauretta were off in the first few riders this how ever resulted in problems arising straight away as the course was not fully cleared from cars yet ...
Lauretta having to go round cars and Nik having to wait for 3 cars in her prologue.
Nik received some bad news of the passing of her nana decide to call it a day and head home to be with family ..special mention must go out to super husband Greg for driving 11hr up to pick nik up then driving the 11 hr back home with only a dinner break..(what a man )
Kate and Lauretta race the crit in the afternoon, which was a bit of a non event as a crash caused the race to be nuetralised for 20min of the 30min crit, giving noone the chance to really get into the race when the bell was rung, Kate came home in 7th place.
We drove back to Coonabarabran via looking at the next days decents at Lauretta's request however it made the girls more nervous and Nik even more confident she had made the correct decission to go home.
Fridays stage was a hilly 80km with 1100m of climbing, the last 15km a long climb with some steep pinches, and without a hill climber on our team both Lauretta and Kate were nervous.
The first climb came around 10km and really kicked up at 20% at its peak at 17km. Kate got over in the second bunch, Lauretta in the 4th. Then the decent which Kate enjoyed and worked with the second bunch to rejoin the first, making it a peleton of about 30 riders. When the final climb started Kate tried to stay with the front girls as long as possible and then road at her own tempo up the climb, fininshing in a credible 21st position, and Lauretta finishing no too far behind.
The day was raining, cold and windy, and then this was made worse by the fact that once we had finished our race up the top of the climb, exhausted and cold, we had to wait over an hour for the men to finish before we were allowed to head down the mountain. And the weather was that bad it was not going to be safe for us to ride down, luckily Liz, from Specialised womens team helped everyone out to ensure they had a warm dry safe lift down the mountain. Disaster strikes again, it was at this stage the exhaustion for Lauretta started kicking in, she had not been feeling well all week and just wanted to sleep.
Lauretta woke Saturday still tired and feeling not well so decided to pull the pin, so Kate started Saturday on her own, with Lauretta in the car with s helpful woman from Coonababran driving our car. The race started fine, Kate was confident and excited finally a day to shine, first break of the day, Kate goes in it to test the legs up the first feww climbs and feeling good, drop back in the peleton, 15km later a few girls start moving off the front nearly someone from every team, Kate goes around the left of someone andsuddenly her rear wheel gets taken out, shes in the gutter in a bit of pain, bike broken, pedal broken and shifter broken. End of tour, time to spend the next 2 hours driving behind the womens road race, and watch the girls race very negatively.
So we drove home Saturday afternoon/Sunday mornind feeling sad and sorry for ourselves and Kate trying to work out how she was going to get a bike before flying to the USA on Tuesday.... Special thanks to Total Rush Bendigo Cycles and faithful mechanic and team mate Roz and Brett Bradley for all ensuring Kate had a bike ready to go Tuesday morning, even if it meant little sleep and very rushed packing a new Specialized Venge frame was rebuilt and rearing to go.
So Kate, Nik and guest rider Lauretta Hanson began the long drive to Coonabaran at 4am on Wednesday morning full of excitment for the long tour ahead the first 2 stages were in Narrabri a 3.6km prologue followed by a 30min criterium.
Nik and Lauretta were off in the first few riders this how ever resulted in problems arising straight away as the course was not fully cleared from cars yet ...
Lauretta having to go round cars and Nik having to wait for 3 cars in her prologue.
Nik received some bad news of the passing of her nana decide to call it a day and head home to be with family ..special mention must go out to super husband Greg for driving 11hr up to pick nik up then driving the 11 hr back home with only a dinner break..(what a man )
Kate and Lauretta race the crit in the afternoon, which was a bit of a non event as a crash caused the race to be nuetralised for 20min of the 30min crit, giving noone the chance to really get into the race when the bell was rung, Kate came home in 7th place.
We drove back to Coonabarabran via looking at the next days decents at Lauretta's request however it made the girls more nervous and Nik even more confident she had made the correct decission to go home.
Fridays stage was a hilly 80km with 1100m of climbing, the last 15km a long climb with some steep pinches, and without a hill climber on our team both Lauretta and Kate were nervous.
The first climb came around 10km and really kicked up at 20% at its peak at 17km. Kate got over in the second bunch, Lauretta in the 4th. Then the decent which Kate enjoyed and worked with the second bunch to rejoin the first, making it a peleton of about 30 riders. When the final climb started Kate tried to stay with the front girls as long as possible and then road at her own tempo up the climb, fininshing in a credible 21st position, and Lauretta finishing no too far behind.
The day was raining, cold and windy, and then this was made worse by the fact that once we had finished our race up the top of the climb, exhausted and cold, we had to wait over an hour for the men to finish before we were allowed to head down the mountain. And the weather was that bad it was not going to be safe for us to ride down, luckily Liz, from Specialised womens team helped everyone out to ensure they had a warm dry safe lift down the mountain. Disaster strikes again, it was at this stage the exhaustion for Lauretta started kicking in, she had not been feeling well all week and just wanted to sleep.
Lauretta woke Saturday still tired and feeling not well so decided to pull the pin, so Kate started Saturday on her own, with Lauretta in the car with s helpful woman from Coonababran driving our car. The race started fine, Kate was confident and excited finally a day to shine, first break of the day, Kate goes in it to test the legs up the first feww climbs and feeling good, drop back in the peleton, 15km later a few girls start moving off the front nearly someone from every team, Kate goes around the left of someone andsuddenly her rear wheel gets taken out, shes in the gutter in a bit of pain, bike broken, pedal broken and shifter broken. End of tour, time to spend the next 2 hours driving behind the womens road race, and watch the girls race very negatively.
So we drove home Saturday afternoon/Sunday mornind feeling sad and sorry for ourselves and Kate trying to work out how she was going to get a bike before flying to the USA on Tuesday.... Special thanks to Total Rush Bendigo Cycles and faithful mechanic and team mate Roz and Brett Bradley for all ensuring Kate had a bike ready to go Tuesday morning, even if it meant little sleep and very rushed packing a new Specialized Venge frame was rebuilt and rearing to go.
Sunday 8 July 2012
Bendigo Club Tour
well the long weekend in June is club tour weekend ,with kate taking part in her first tour and lining up in B grade and Nik in c grade the girls were excited for a big weekend unfortunately nik came down with tonsillitis on wednesday and started the tour however pulling out after stage 1 pulling e3 hart rate to e1 watts never good so nik turned to support roll of cheering kate on.Kate got better and better as the tour went on and a good hit out of racing and it is safe to say will be keen to race agin next year ...
thank to bendigo club for putting on a great weekend of racing and for the Melbourne girls who came up and mixed it up
our next race as a team is round 3 of NRS santos north western tour at the end of june. kate is then off to the U.S.A for some racing... fair to say she is a bit excited for her new adventure and will keep us posted on whats going on .thank once agin to Darren Casey for the great pictures .........
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