photo by fyxomatosis

• Sometime it’s healthy to get out for a ride with a group of guys outside of your inner-circle.  It’s a refreshing change that’ll show you new roads and potentially new friends.  That’s just what I did last Monday.   TC, Matt and Andy took me out for an EPIC loop I’ve never even considered before.  As usual, TC from fyxomatosis captured the day with his sensational photography.  Here’s a taste of What You Missed Monday Morning on this FYX EPIC

• This Monday life as I know it will be over.  I’ve had to concede to getting a real job back in engineering.  :-(   It won’t interrupt this blog however. You may see more guest posts to help me out,  but it’ll be business as usual.  I’ll just be much more busy.  Don’t be surprised to see me gain 10kg either.

• Cyclosport Victoria is now allowing helmet cams in races.  I have to admit, I pushed the issue with this video but they understand the positive impact that something like this could have and just released this statement regarding cameras in races:

We are pleased to report that CSV has completed the investigation, and has ruled the following:

As of the 1st January 2010 the following shall apply:

The promoter shall be the sole decider as to whether or not a competitor or competitors shall be allowed to affix a video camera to the front and or rear of their bicycle during competition. If the promoter so allows it will be subject to the following:

1. The promoter must liaise directly with the Chief Commissaire and advise that he is allowing video cameras at that event.

2. Prior to the event, the bicycle, with camera mounted must be presented to the Chief Commissaire for checking.

3. The camera must be securely mounted (to the satisfaction of the Chief Commissaire) on a component of the bicycle such as the handlebars, front or rear forks, head tube or seat pillar.

4. Under no circumstances will cameras be allowed on / in clothing or mounted to helmets.

CSV recognises the value of new tools like these to promote the sport and is keen to encourage anything that grows participation and interest in the sport. As you would appreciate, our first responsibility is to provide safe racing for all which is why there has to be some caveats on their use.

• Ever thought about giving cyclocross a go?  It’s the most punishing and horrible discipline in cycling.  You ride hard, your legs burn and you pray for the opportunity to get off and run.  Then you’re forced to run up a steep hill or a pool of sand and then you’re cursing the new heights of lactic acid you’ve attained. Then you hop back on your bike and there’s a brief respite before the lactic acid rushes back to the cycling muscles.  It’s pure EVIL. You can now try this in Melbourne here (below).  Can’t wait!

Disclaimer: this is not a sanctioned race. It’ll be run in an informal manner by keen volunteers who simply want everyone to have a good time. Don’t take it too seriously!

This past weekend we went away for some team bonding.  This was the furthest thing from a Bjarne Riis style boot camp you could imagine, but that was the whole point.   Sure we got a bunch of good hard riding in but more than that we got to know and understand each other a little bit better.  All of us rarely ride together outside of racing. This is important before a long season of 2-3 races per week where you’re riding your hearts out and sacrificing yourselves for one another.  It also signifies the start of the season, let’s you plan some individual and team goals, and serves as some great motivation to do well.

This was shot over two beautiful days in Sorrento (on Mornington Peninsula in Victoria).  You don’t have to go far to have a great experience. It’s just a matter of getting away from the daily grind for a couple days with a few of your best mates.  A little sunshine always helps too.

What’s your favorite weekend cycling getaway?

(video link here)


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Here’s 4 mins of what you may have missed this morning.  This gives you a taste of the morning routine that many Melbourne cyclists get to enjoy…

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The CycleSport Victoria Board wishes to advise all riders that the use of a mounted helmet camera is not permitted during CycleSport Victoria events. This is due to its non-compliance with Technical Regulations 3.2.07 and 1.3.004 and the safety risk it poses to all riders.

In the case that the camera is fully built into the helmet and the helmet is approved by Australian Standards then CycleSport Victoria is prepared to grant permission for its use on the basis that it poses no safety risk.

CycleSport Victoria recognises that the use of a camera by a rider has the potential to provide a marketing and promotional tool for the sport of cycling. Therefore, if a rider wishes to have a camera mounted to the frame of his/her bike this will be considered in accordance with Technical Regulation 1.3.004 – Technical Innovations. This requires any rider seeking approval for a technical innovation to make a submission to CSV prior to the 30th June in order to be granted approval for the innovation to be used from 1st January the following year.

photo from Aeon Photo

Nearly 200 riders took part in the Open Category and 120 finished the 130km race (was supposed to be 110km but who’s counting…).  49 teams fought for valuable KOM and Sprint points to win the overall teams classification.

I had asked for permission from the CCCC to use my helmet cam to record this event and they had no problem with it. They can see how this helps promote their event as well as the sport of cycling. I’ve had overwhelming positive feedback from cyclists all over the world about the helmet cam vids and dozens of them have even told me they’ve made the step to bike racing after seeing these videos. I can’t say how much that pleases me. This is what it’s all about!

Unfortunately the CycleSport Victoria took a difference stance and made the decision to interpret and enforce a UCI rule that states the following:

1.3.004 No technical innovation regarding anything used, worn or carried by any rider or other license holder during a race (bicycles, equipment mounted on them, accessories, helmets, clothing, means of communication, etc.) may be used until approved by the UCI Executive Committee.

I can understand their position on this so I complied and didn’t wear the helmet cam. Fortunately another rider who wasn’t aware of this ruling managed to capture the whole race on his helmet cam. You beauty! Thanks for sending this in. CSV fined him $100 for the infraction but the website RaceDayRush has generously offered to help pay the fine. A 2hr version of the helmet cam video will available at their website in the coming days. Feel free to check it out and create a free account with them to get access to all their helmet cam videos. Since winter is creeping up on us here in Australia I’ll surely be watching their library of high quality race videos on the trainer during those cold wet mornings.

Check out the short version of the race video below. As usual, CCCC posted the results pronto and they give a great write-up of how the race panned out here. Some outstanding pictures by photographer Arnaud Domange shown there as well. I was working with Arnaud to use some of his photos in the video to help with the commentary of the race story however we couldn’t come to a financial agreement in time. My fault for asking so late.  Hopefully in the future.

My apologies for the darkness of the video. The camera must have been pointed a bit too much upwards and was catching too much light.  It seems to have thrown off the exposure and the riders turned out very dark.

If you haven’t seen them already, there’s a few more helmet cam videos posted here.

I got thinking about it, and I don’t know how plausible it really is to be able the throw a man off a bike like that.   I can’t say that I’ve ever tried it before, but without any leverage, the gyroscopic effect of those wheels and forward motion, and a 60-70kg man on the the bike with both hands on the bars, I’m thinking that it would be tough for a rider to be thrown off his bike in the fashion that Theo Bos appeared to have done.

This morning I went out with the helmetcam and fellow tipster, Tymmsy, to find out.  Back in my college days I used to competitively compete in dwarf throwing, so if anyone had a chance at replicating the Bos – Impey incident, it was me.  Don’t try this at home boys and girls.

After this experiment I’m certain there’s no way in hell that it’s possible for one man to throw another off his bike like this. Especially when the rider being thrown has two hands on the bars and you only have one. If anything, the rider who is doing the throwing will likely crash. The only thing that happened is that I got thrown backwards and Tymmsy darted forwards. There was no way I could sway his direction so that he would come in front of me. There’s a great slow-mo video of the whole incident here. It doesn’t necessarily answer anything, but I think I’ve sufficiently cleared this myth up as BUSTED. Was Theo at fault? Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean that he did it intentionally.

I am in the process of registering the domain name www.IbelieveTheo.com where I’ll set up a fund to prove his innocence. With IbelieveTyler.com recently being shut down there will be a flood of charity coming in.

TIP: If you want to throw someone off his bike you just grab his bars and twist. Theo surely knows this. Not that I’d ever advocate anything that would involve injuring a fellow rider. Ice hockey is a different story though ;-)

Link on YouTube

Seeing as I’ve fast tracked myself to being a legitimate part of the news media, I now have the credentials to interview the champions of these big races.   I sat down with the 2009 winner Leigh De Luca after he was rushed back to his swanky hotel on Brunswick Beach.

CT: Tell us in a few sentences how the Melburn-Roobaix works.

LD: I’ve described M-R as a bicycle scavengers hunt around melb CBD, with a cleverly planned out route to incorporate some great pavé lanes and climbs th at most of us would have never know of around Melbourne.

CT: How many times have you won the race?

LD: Twice now, 2007, 2009. But I think the whole “race” versus “ride” is just as fun. I’ve ridden all four M-R and everyone of them has been a blast. The diverse range of cycling backgrounds coming together makes M-R a super day out riding your bike.

CT: What do you attribute to your multiple successes in the Spring Classics such as the Melburn-Roobaix?  Does it come down to experience?  Tactics?  Form?  Sense of direction? GPS? What’s the secret?

LD: This year was the first time I’d ridden solo, every other year we’d had a strong team, with key members. A work horse that drove the pass, a map reader who sat second wheel giving directions, a clue reader keeping an eye out, and the clue getter who did the paperwork. Being without my team caused a changed of tactics. I rode hard to the first check point and was lucky meet up with the 2008 winner Matt and his crew. I knew I was in good company in the lead group, I offered to do the work on the front as my direction knowlegde wasn’t strong on that side of town. I tried to lift the pace in the closing km’s coming to the Col d’ugly just to keep the group of 4 togther.

CT: I saw at the start line you had quite the pimped out looking rig.  What types of modifications did your team mechanics do to endure the cobbles, dirt sections, and broken beer bottles in back alleys of Hell?

LD: This year I rode a custom steel rig, but I have ridden a different bike in each addition of M-R. My bike is a custom frame I designed, all of the angles and tube lengths. But the super tight rear end with 405mm long chainstay helped over the pavé. New bar tape. Tyres where run at 130psi to prevent pinchflats, and hard is fast when it comes to tyre pressures.

CT: Traditionally this started out as a single speed event.  Do you feel a bit like you cheated having the choice of 20 gears?  Or are we using the honor system to trust you only rode your 53-11?

LD: Well back in 2007 when I won, I rode a singlespeed clutched ride with 89in gear. But now I’m old a slow, so I need the extra gears.

CT: What’s your technique to riding the treacherous pavé sections such as Col d’Ugly?

LD: I like to hit them hard and fast, carrying your momentum seems to be the key. You tend to bunch along the tops of them and not get caught in the gaps. And I’m not afraid to change direction and pick another line. Col d’Ugly is tough as you almost go from a standing start at the bottom, pick a smaller gear and stay on top of it.

CT: I caught a whiff of some pretty skanky weed being smoked down some of those cobbled back alleys by the fans and bums alike.  Do you think the second hand fumes took the edge off and made you a bit more relaxed?

LD: I’ve never been a wacky tabaccy dude, I’ve always like the uppers not the downers. But a relaxed state over the cobbles could help reduce the fatigue in the closing stages

CT: Did you tear your knicks or get the family jewels caught while jumping the velodrome fence coming into the finish?  Or were all your bits intact? I believe that’s fair game.

LD: I wore a pair of knicks under a skinsuit, double padding on the pave sectors! But the fence jumping was where the race was won and lost. Being taller that Matt helped me to scale the fence faster and get the jump on him, so I could snatch the vitory.

CT: How do you feel about your chances of passing the drug test?  I saw you giving a urine sample in TC’s beer while he wasn’t looking.

LD: Drug test? what drug test? what are these drugs you speak of? I was just trying to cool off my nutz after a hard day on the bike, and TC’s beer was icey cold!

CTB: Can you give a few helpful TIPS to the next generation of hipsters aspiring to win?

LD: Reading the map is like cutting a piece of wood, measure twice cut once. So check your map, check your clues, cause time lost having to double back could be the different between winning and loosing. Every year I ridden M-R I’ve lernt something new, something that will help me the coming year.

We also caught up with Matt Bowen, the defending Champion of 2008 to get his take on the race.  We found Matt laying near a dumpster on Col d’Ugly after punishing himself with hill repeats in early preparation for 2010.

CT: Tell us about your preparation coming into the race Matt.

MB: Preparation had been fairly low key in the weeks leading up to the event. It mainly consisted of countering the trash talking from some of the favourites. I’d also spend some quality time scoping out their hill repeats of Col ‘d Ugly while drinking coffee at the bottom. Carbohydrate loading is crucial on the morning of the event and I would recommend two pints of Pale Ale minimum before the 12pm kick off as essential preparation.

CT: How did things play out differently this year that kept you from defending your title? Was the pressure and high expectations a factor?

MB: You know when you’re a proven Suburban Spring Classic cobble expert like myself that there will always be pressure and high expectation for the win. Just look at Tom Boonen and what he faces when he races in his local neighbourhood, it’s just the same. In 2008 I made a solo break right from the gun. That year the race passed right through my neighbourhood, and everybody knows that we love our cobble lanes in Richmond so I feel that I had a bit of a home ground advantage. 2009, the race went west . . Some of the favourites had a good 5 minute lead off in group one and it was going to be a tough day to pull that in. By the time I’d reached Pave sector 2 I realised that I’d bridged into a select lead break including the 2007 winner Leigh De Luca and rising tattooed track star Brunswick’s Brendan Baily. This is where things began to play out differently to last year and I knew tactics would come in to play heading towards Col ‘d Ugly. I pulled up the entire climb and by the top I could feel the lactic acid streaming through my legs so I used the old ‘can I borrow your pen? trick’ at the top to pull the others up. In hindsight this was probably an error because I then ended up with Leigh right on my wheel for the entire last 3km lead into the velodrome. All I could hear from behind me was “I don’t know where I’m going, I’m from the outer southern suburbs!”, I realise now that this was just part of the race plan he’d probably been given by his DS because everybody knows he can get there.

CT: Your choice in equipment and clothing was vastly different between this year and last. Do you blame your defeat on the retro kit? Will we see you back in Liquigas lime green next year?

MB: I do believe that there was distinct aero disadvantage in the retro kit and baggy shorts. This can be blatantly seen in the replay of the lap of the velodrome, Leigh just takes off in his skin suit with only a minor adjustment to the left after the leap over the fence. It’ll be back in lycra next year for sure, weather I’ll get another gig with Liquigas remains to be seen.

CT: What will you do differently next year?

MB: Win it of course. Solo break seems to be a winning formula for me so maybe that will be on the cards. It does get harder year by year though cause I know people like Leigh and myself are well marked by the up and coming hipsters and their fluro 5 spoke wheels.

CT: How many beers did it take to drown your sorrows after the event?

MB: Plenty, it did get a little bit hazy by the end so who knows.

CT: Any tips for the kids aspiring to be a Spring Classics rider like yourself?

MB: 67psi

Typically in lab conditions a MAP test (maximum aerobic power) is performed by riding at increasingly harder efforts to exhaustion.  There’s a few different protocols, but it would typically start at about 250watts and increase 50 watts every 2 or 3 minutes until failure.  The wattage that you complete the at last step of 2 or 3 minutes is your MAP result.

It’s difficult to accurately control these power steps using a trainer and a powertap so the way I usually determine my MAP is by doing a simple 5km TT at my maximum sustainable aerobic power.  In my experience the result comes very close to the lab method described above.

A typical MAP test is meant to determine your Maximal Aerobic Power since the test is done aerobically from the beginning and reaches the maximum capacity of the individual’s aerobic system at the end.  This is good to know because you can train your aerobic zone to higher levels by doing specific intervals.  Once you know your MAP, you’ll know what power levels to train at during your intervals.  There is more guesswork involved when you don’t have a power meter because it takes a couple minutes for your heart rate to catch up.  You don’t necessarily do these types of intervals for more than 2-3 minutes anyway so there’s a pretty good chance that you won’t be training at the correct zone if using a HR monitor.  Not a big deal if you don’t have a power meter, it’ll just take more guesswork.  If it starts to hurt after 30-60 seconds, it’s a good indication that you’re in the right zone.  Just don’t go out too hard or you won’t be able to sustain it.

Here’s what the results look like from this torture session. This young steed achieved a MAP of 403 watts at the time this was done.

A great workout to increase lactate tolerance is the following:

• 15 minute warm up with a 2 minute effort to 25% over your lactate threshold and then back down
• 4 minutes effort at just above lactic threshold wattage to make sure you are warmed up
• rest 2 minutes, then 3 minutes just over your MAP
• rest 2 minutes and 2 minutes just over your MAP
• 2 minute rest 1 minute just over your MAP as hard as you can go!
• 2 minutes rest 2 minutes just over your MAP
• 2 minute rest 3 minutes  just over your MAP
• then recover for 2 minutes
• 4 minutes at just below lactic threshold
• warm-down for 10 minutes

When complete, the workout looks something like this on the powermeter graph:

Here in Australia it’s now the end of crit season and the start of road season.  It never stops – I love it.  A cyclist’s paradise.   Since this is the last crit for the next while I thought I’d bring out the helmet cam one last time.  Unfortunately I didn’t expect to wind up in a break for 45mins and the angle of the cam wasn’t good with my head low down the whole time.  Unlike my last helmet cam video, this time I was racing, not gallivanting up and down the peloton getting good shots. Not ideal, but you get the idea.

SKCC Criterium Club Championships from cycling tips on Vimeo.

If you’re interested, the music is by Animal Collective (My Girls).   The helmet cam I’m using is the GoPro.  Amazing camera – especially for the pricetag of less than $200.  I could barely feel it on the top of my head (see pic below). It takes 2 AAA batteries that last about 3hrs and a 4GB memory card record almost 2hrs of video.

Link on youTube

Clubs take note. One of the great things that CCCC does extremely well is posting race results. By the time I get home from these races the results are already posted and a writeup and pictures are posted a few hours later.   They make stars out of their riders.  Everyone wants to have their name up in lights if they’ve done well in a race.    Well done CCCC.  It’s a thankless job, but we all thank you for this.

If anyone is interested I used the GoPro helmet cam.  Thanks to Brad Davies for lending me his.  I think I’ll be buying one. Only about $200.

Glenvale Criterium from cycling tips on Vimeo.

link on YouTube

And finally, by popular request here is my power data from the race.  It doesn’t really mean too much since I was just strolling around the pack, but it gives you an idea.  I didn’t wear my HRM, but I’d say it averaged 150-160bpm (max is 185).