Victorian Track Titles

Last week I decided to ride the Individual pursuit at the Victorian Track Championships. The VIS found a BT frame for me and by Wednesday I had cranks, bottom bracket, bars, etc and headed to a local bike shop, Ivanhoe Cycles, to get it built. (Thanks Greg for your help).

On Thursday, I did my first track session. It was a steep learning curve where I motorpaced, did efforts, tried some starts and got used to the BT.

On Friday, I did another track session. This time I put a rear disc on to get used to that on the track and tried a few more starts. I did a 1km from the start gate and it felt quite comfortable.

On race day (Saturday) I woke at 6am and did a 40min pre start on the rollers. I spun enough to loosen the legs and get the last two days of track out of the legs. I arrived at the track at 8.30am and did about 20mins on the track on a light gear. Then about 10.30am I did my proper warm up on the rollers. I was in the final heat of the morning so I didn't race until about 11.30am.

In my race, I felt great in laps 1 to 8 and then the legs started to feel heavy. I couldn't maintain the cadence with the gear I was pushing. I looked across at Tess Downing who was now a few metres in front of me. I tried to lift my cadence but couldn't. I finished behind her but my time was 2nd fastest so I was through to the gold medal ride off.

I only had 30mins to recover before the final. With a lighter gear than in my heat I headed to the start gates. I got a good start and had about 10m over Tess until lap 7. At lap 7 though we were back to even. In lap 8 I started to fade and eventually lost the final by 6secs. Total credit to Tess on a good ride.

A few minutes after the race, we had a closer look at my bike position and decided my seat was too high. We measured my road bike and then proceeded to lower my BT height by 15mm, and it immediately felt better.

On Monday, I was named as part of the Victorian Track squad that is heading to Sydney for the nationals. I am looking forward to some solid track training to see how I can improve my time.

Victorian Track Squad

15 VIS (Victorian Institute of Sport) cyclists have been named in the Victorian team which will compete at the Australian Track Championships in Sydney from 4-8 February.
Elite Men – Zak Dempster, Sean Finning, Mark French, Leigh Howard, Shane Kelly, James Langedyk, Joel Leonard, Jason Niblett, Glenn O’Shea, Shane Perkins
Elite Women – Jessica Berry, Helen Kelly, Katie Mactier
EAD – Michael Eaddy, Michael Gallagher