Damo did the 50km super challenge and finished in the main bunch, who were chasing a four-man breakaway nearly right from the get go. Still, a great effort, considering loads of riders got pulled off course for not being fast enough. Twas a great day out being a spectator,… but, of course, not before an ass-ripping, leg-burning, lung-busting 12k track workout and 1.5k easy swim.
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Hi, I was part of the 4 man break… well more like an “Alex Malone and 3 other guys trying to hold his wheel” break.
The first peloton rode a good race - much faster than last year looking at the results.
Woah Christian, good on ya! Congratulations — were you second in the end?
I sat out this year, thank goodness. I don’t think I would’ve matched my second place last year! haha.
Robert Hensby (ANZA cycling) came second. I knew i wasn’t going to go the distance at that pace (I am a C grade rider in Australia, Alex and Rob are both A grade) - the intention was to get Alex and Robert clear of the peloton and to wear down GCH. I could’ve hidden in the peloton and gone for a minor placing, but I didn’t fly 6000+kms just to hide in the bunch, I can do that back here in Australia anytime. My wife was also riding in the 50km - she punctured on the first lap and the neutral spares car was ahead of her group (why !?!) and she ended up being collected by the broom wagon - she went back and complained and got a start in the Crtierium and placed 5th in the end.
My son was the star of the weekend - in the kids 5km ride - he came first finishing 8′27″ - 35.5 km/h average in the 10-12 year group (he is 9, but is the state junior road and time trial champion back in Australia, so he wasn’t too surprised about coming first).
Wow, you guys are like a super cycling family! How cool is that?
Your kid sounds like a star in the making.
Hope you enjoyed your trip to Singapore, planning to join anymore races in the region soon?
We are regular vistors to SG and MAS, as my wife’s family lives in Kuantan. We have done a few fun rides with the bunches from KL (long 3 day rides) and things like the putrajaya night challenge. We were going to ride the PCC Interstate 2010 in MAS, but the Australian National Road Series has got in the way and our home town tour is on the same dates. My wife and I are also going to Europe to watch Giro d’italia and a few other belgian classic rides (we have pro-rider friends racing there,we’ll do some training too). We’ll be back SG/MAS in October for my brother-in-law’s wedding and wherever we go our bikes follow.
In terms of more racing in SE Asia (time for a bit of a rant), the biggest problem for us is the lack of UCI-accredited races. In Australia all our club racing is UCI-accredited through Cycling Australia, everyone has a race licence, everyone can be drug tested and has to abide by the rules and can get suspended if they don’t. The whole OCBC thing is not UCI accredited (however they do their best to match up rules and regs, as if it were). Still there is a certain level of quality assurance in UCI/federation races that isn’t quite there in SG yet - just a few examples from the super challenge - no proper pre-race briefing from the race director(there are specific thngs around safety that must be addressed), neutral zone was not neutral nor enforced, spares vehicle did not stay with the competitors on the first lap, race director/commissaire did not stay close enough to the breakaway group to manage the camera and photo bikes who were interfering (cutting inside our line!) in the race. I noticed one rider in particular abusing another rider after the race - this is totally unacceptable and enough to get suspended (if there was a licensing regime in SG) in an accredited race. If there are issues they should be directed to the Race director and their decision is final (again a proper briefing at the beginning of the race would have stopped incidents between riders post-race from happening)… (end of rant)
So..I’ll fire back the question in reverse - when are you+friends going to hop a cheap Air Asia/Tiger flight to Perth to do some racing? (I picked perth as it is the closest Major destination that runs good cycling events).
As for my son, he is surrounded by pro teams (most of Drapac Porsche are from our local club) so he gets to see the equivalent of the Pro Crit every week in summer, top coaches, high altitude training - we live 800m above sea level and race regularly at 1000M above sea level, junior cycling program, lots of racing (at least 1 a week) and alternate disciples such as track cycling, mountain biking and triathlon - so you could say all he has to do is show up with a bike and ride :-)
Christian,
That has to be the longest comment ever on this blog! Haha!
Lucky you, one day I’ll watch the Giro or the Tour.. or both! My photographer friend from Singapore will be heading up to the Giro this year to take some snaps, he had his Tour de France pictures exhibited at the OCBC Race. Not sure if you saw that?
Regarding this UCI thing, yeah, we’re behind but I think we’re getting there. We have just got a bunch of people go through the UCI Commissaires course and I think more will do so in future, so we are working towards UCI-sanctioned races I think.
Perth — the last time I was there was in 1998, as part of the national under-17 netball team. We played against a few teams in perth and watched the perth orioles. Haha. My boyfriend went down there a couple of years ago to ride. I’m don’t really do bike races, I’m more of a triathlete, so the closest to bike racing in Perth would be doing IM WA some time in the future!
A bunch of friends will be doing the Tour of Friendship in Thailand and the Tour of Taiwan. They often drive up to Malaysia too for the Cyfora races.
longest? :-) do I get a prize? I’ll be brief this time.
Didn’t see the TDF pics, but was aware that there was an exhibition (too busy in the grubbier parts of the city finding a bike store that had vittoria tubular valves).
I have friends from MAS going to the IM in WA in December.
Those Cyfora races scare me… (as per UCI comments from prior post).