World Master track Champs 09

Its been over year since I posted anything and heaps had happened since too. Marriage, new job, new house. Haven't been coaching but been really enjoying my own riding.
Just got back from competingat the World Masters track Cycling Championships is Sydney 2 weeks ago. Rode the kilo and scratch races and while didn't break any records I was pretty happy with my performance. My buildup was rubbish. Sickness and a niggling injury (not to mention general laziness and crappy weather) kept me from following any problem on the bike. So i sufficed with a gym session each week, Keren's RPM class on Tuesday nights and biking to work when it wasn't pissing down. Oh and I had one session in Wanganui behind a motor bike for 5 efforts of 5 laps each. That was it.
So we arrived in sydney without any huge expectations and had a ball. First thing I discovered was that I'd forgotten my seat and seatpost. Bugger. Mike (or Mark) the local mechanic soldme one though and I was sorted. I had to employ Mike's help again to make my aero bars UCI friendly with his hacksaw. From there on I was good to go. I'd decided to ride a 96" gear in the kilo based on the dozen or so laps I had to ride around the velodrome earlier in the day. In hindsight I probably could've pushed a 98 but the 96 was ok and I got well on top of it and stayed there for all four laps. My start wasn't so good - I'd had a red bull and was pretty hyped up and went to early only to have the start gate hold me back. Crap. Anyway a 21.2sec first lap turned into 37sec 500 so the first half wasn't particularly eather shattering (I've done a 37 sec 500 in the crater that is Hataitai velodrome). Any I got through 750 in 53.6 then stopped the clock at 1:11.269. Not too shabby and I was feeling pretty good considering I'd just done a kilo.
Then there was te scratch race which had 2 heats of 5km (20 laps) with 12 riders from each making the final (about half the field). During the early part of the race a South African rider was annoying me so I went round him and quickly found myself out the front of the pack - not where I wanted to be really. Anyway I eased slightly and tucked in at the front but by the end all the Australians thought they'd box the guy in the black suit in and I was squeezed out to 15th place. So missed the final which was annoying but I was happy that the high speeds of the scratch were no trouble at all. I was feeling very comfortable spinning teh 98 in that ride.
Anyway thats set me up with some motivation for the coming track season in NZ and a few personal goals to work towards.

Tech Stuff

Right now that I'm back it's time for the tech update for those that like that sort of thing. I had the chance to check out some of the other team’s gear and here’s some of the bikes on the track so here's what I found.

Firstly the Aussies are riding the new BT Blade. BT have made a pursuit bike that looks quite different from the old one. The most obvious features is the new clean look seatpost clamp. There is a stop down the seat tube and the seat post is cut to the right length and rests on the stop with a hidden bolt to hold it in place. The result is a nice clean line – no ungainly and un-aero clamp dirtying up the airflow. The rear edge of the seat tube is concave (barely legal when the wheel is right the way in the dropouts) and hugs the tyre for more smoothing out the airflow onto the wheel. More subtle up front is a head tube the is narrow in the middle to the same width as the top tube to disturb as little air as possible and options for different fork tips for different rake/trail.

The Germans use the FES bike again with a nice clean seat post area and a pretty serious looking front end. It bloody heavy too which must be reassuring for those 2000 watt starts.

The prize though has to go to the British who have spared no experience in their R&D budget as you might’ve seen during the Olympic coverage. No stone has been left unturned with their gear. The front end has had special attention. The sprint bars (Notice the box section of the tandems in the back and foreground) are pretty striking and must be real stiff if Chris Hoy can swing on them the way he does and not move ‘em. The head tube is only as wide as it needs to be and no more. None of this oversized rubbish that the roadies go for. The fork blades hug the contours of the Mavic comet front wheel right down to the tip where the small part of wheel axle/cone showing is an aero shape to cheat the wind and the dropout has a plug to fill in the dropout under the wheel axle once the wheel is bolted in place. The wheel nut is low profile too. The aero bar option has plenty of beef in the stem area and the seat post area is also very clean.













I didn't get to see any of the Zen bikes that Milton down at dynamic composites has been working on for the kiwi pursuit squad so unfortunately can't show you those. Anyway that’s enough of that. Last photo though - here’s the other side of the motorbike that we used in Perth just so you can see the names there as well.

Final Race

I just wrote a big long entry and then managed to lose it to the internet
before i got to post it. Bugger huh.

Thats all the racing for me. Paula 'Testarossa' Tesoriero is ok after her
fall and trip to the hospital for various scans. We are pretty damn happy
with 3 medals. A silver would've been nice in the road TT but considering
we weren't planning on a medal at all we are not complaining. 18 seconds
was the gap between silver and bronze. Not so happy with the Chinese
ambulance service. They were appalling but thats another story so enough
said.

Gold

Wow what a busy couple of days. Paula's head is ok. Doc Ian Murphy has
been checking her every 3 hours and we have just been given the medical
all clear to race tomorrow. So bring it on. We had to skip the live feed
back to TVNZ closeup tonight because of medical requirements so maybe
another day.
Imanaged to get a provisional drivers licence today for the road TT. It
came with a copy of the chinese road rules but in practice I've worked
outhtat you just lean on the horn and move over.
More soon

Blogs

Hi All,
Sorry I haven't been blogging until now. Had some trouble witht e website
but El Jefe has fixed me up so here I go. I'll update you all later but in
the meantime I got to go celebrate Paula's gold medal. We just arrived
back at the Village and there is a bit of a buzz around the kiwi camp now.
Mission accomlished.

Perth

The team is all in Perth and the sun is out. The weather guy threatens us with rain every other day but so far so good.

Paula's form is good at this stage and she's clocking up some quick laps. Aussie Brian, the local coach that has been looking after Paula before I arrived, set the challenge for her. A motorpaced 200m. He told her if she can get in under 12.5 sec then she could write her time on the motobike for all who follows to see. As you can see she is in some pretty good company too. That Bos fella is no slug!

The last couple of days have been spent at the track testing some nice bits and pieces. The Zen wheels are fantastic and along with her new sprint straps bolted to her pedals she's looking evry bit the sprinter. Sprry about the blurry photo but I was trying to run 2 stopwatches and yell encouragement the same time.

Got to run as Mal wants his laptop back but stay tuned for more news.

Si out.

Attitude TV

If you ain't out riding on Sunday morning then you must be going watch Attitude TV at 9:30am on TV1. This Sunday 29 June 2008 is about Paula's preparation for the Paralympics so tune in.