Wise Words

In stage 1 of the Tour of Gila, there was two sprint bonuses along the 160km route that finished with a long, steep climb. In most stage races, the first stage finishes with a sprint, so the stage winner usually takes the sprint jersey but with the KOM at the end of stage 1, whoever took the bonus sprints would take the first green jersey. 

With this in mind, my aim was to get into a break away and attempt to take some bonus points. After 20km, the peloton allowed 4 riders, including myself, to escape off the front. They eased the pace and we gained an advantage of over 12 minutes. At the first bonus sprint, I went for the points and surprisingly, no one responded. At the 2nd bonus sprint, the break allowed me to roll over the line at the front, securing the sprint jersey. 

 

For the rest of the stage, I worked as best I could with the break before being caught at the base of the climb with 10km to go. I crept up the climb and finished well behind the eventual winner. 

If you win a local race back in Australia and you simply see the commissaire to collect your prize or at most, stand up in front of a small group of people for applause. No fanfare, no national anthem and no podium girls. 

At the Tour of Gila, winning the green jersey meant that I had to get up on the podium and pose with podium girls. I had no idea what I was doing. 

 

As I stood on the podium, the podium girls came up to my side for the standard kiss on the cheek podium photo. Problem was, I was taller then the podium girls and standing on the highest step of the podium. This is the result...

Back home in Australia, my wife heard the news and saw the photo. Her first words were not, 'congratulations' or 'well done'. Her first words were simply, 'Get a tighter grip on the jersey and less grip on the podium girls'.

Wise words.

 

Tour of a Desert

Most local races back home are in the middle of nowhere.  Due to police permits and road closures, races are usually held on purpose built circuits or in remote areas that see very little traffic. This is not ideal for creating a very supporter-friendly atmosphere. 

For larger, international races, one would expect a more extravagant affair in more exotic places. This is what I was expecting for the UCI race, Tour of the Gila, in New Mexico. 
 

 

The race was based in Silver City and going by the name, I was expecting just that; a city. My expectations began to lower as the aeroplane turned up for the flight to Silver City. 

 

 

Apparently, large planes don't go to Silver City and you have to fly in a tin can with propellers that carries up to 17 people. The plane is so small that a passenger had to be left behind because it was too heavy for the windy conditions. 

 

As we flew into Silver City, my body was fighting the need to go to the bathroom (which the plane lacked) and travel sickness as the plane bounced around in the wind. I was quite happy to touch down. 

Driving into Silver 'City', I couldn't help but feel like I had arrived on the set of a Quintin Tarantino film. It was a desert surrounded by mountains with a old-time Western feel. The locals didn't appear to be the cycling type and as I watched a tumbleweed roll across the road, I wondered how many people would make the trip for the race and where they all planned on staying as accommodation options was low. 

 

As it turns out, the Tour of the Gila is a heavily anticipated event. The high altitude, large climbs and randomly changing weather conditions make for a tough event. 

 

Droves of people had made their way to Silver City for this year's 27th edition of the race. At first glance, I was surprised that a race was held here, but the entire community gets behind the event and it is a huge one on the cycling calendar. 

Retirement Home

In Australia, there are very few gated communities and those that do exist are generally there for the elderly or for those that require regular care. Moving into a gated community in Australia signals retirement and most people, including my parents, refuse to entertain such an idea. It’s like saying that you cannot function out in the open world and need to be cared for and waited on by others behind closed gates. On the other hand, some people would love that.

Here in Atlanta, there appears to be gated communities everywhere. In Alpharetta, where I am living, there is no proper town centre and the entire area seems to be made up of gated communities spattered with sections of strip malls. Consequently, I have moved into a retirement home. Or at least it feels like it. Another Aussie, a Kiwi and I have moved into an apartment on the lower level of one of the complexes. Consequently, it is now known as the ‘Down Under Dungeon’.

Our new residence is in, ‘The Preserve’, a gated community consisting of 636 apartments. First impressions are that living in a gated community is a pretty sweet deal. We don’t have to do anything to maintain the outside and all facilities are provided. When we moved in, a fridge, washing machine and dryer are provided and since the walls are re-painted when we leave, we can stick all the blu-tac we want on the walls. We don’t have to take out the rubbish or put the wheelie bins out. Simply leave your garbage bag outside the door and someone comes to collect it. The grounds are kept immaculate by an army of grounds men and there is a gym, 2 pools and a car wash available for us to use. 

 

I don’t know what my parents are so afraid of. Living in a retirement home would be sweet, especially if someone is doing the cooking and cleaning for you as well. Embrace it, that’s what I say.

Qantas vs Emirates

In all of my trips overseas, I have only ever flown long distances with Emirates. This time, on my flight over to the states, I got to experience Qantas and compare the two. Qantas has always been Australia’s premiere airline but after my flight, I have to say that Emirates is a long way ahead of Qantas for a large number of reasons…

1. At the Qantas check-in desk, the clerk was upset because I didn't have a printed itinerary. I have never had to have one before, but for some reason, the Qantas guy wanted to see one.

2. When boarding the plane, it was absolute chaos. There was no seating directly in front of the gate so people were standing around and lining up well before the flight was called. My seat was at the back of the plane and although they called my section up early, the queue of people was already blocking the entrance and I could not get through. I ended up having to wait and then took about 15mins to make my way to my seat at the rear of the plane.

3. Qantas manages to squeeze in another class of ticket with ‘premium economy’ class. All of the seats are colour coded so as you make your way through the different zones on the plane, the seats change colour and get smaller and closer together. I travelled in ‘economy’ on Qantas, however, to get the same service and standards as ‘economy’ on Emirates, you have to fly ‘premium economy’.

4. In ‘economy’ on Qantas, the seats are ridiculously close together. If the person in front of me reclined their chair, the TV screen almost hit me in the face. On top of this, the legs of the chair were positioned directly between my feet, which meant I could not put a bag under the seat and I couldn’t cross my feet. The guy beside me decided to put his bag under the seat but because of the chair leg in the middle, it meant that he took up half of my feet room. On the up side, the chairs on the Qantas plane are made of carbon fibre which looked pretty cool.

5. When you get on an Emirates flight, you are given a number of things. Waiting in your seat is a pillow, blanket & headphones.  You get a hot face towel when you board as well as another mid-flight.  For the long-haul flights you also get a kit with socks, sleep mask, tooth brush and tooth paste. On my Qantas flight that lasted exactly 19hrs59mins, I got a pillow that took up the only room that I had in the tiny seats, a blanket that no one was using because the air conditioning at the rear of the plane was not working to capacity and it was about a million degrees and a set of head phones that only had one speaker working.

6. The selection of movies on the Qantas flight is much smaller than the selection on Emirates. Emirates has a wide range of new release movies as well as a selection of older movies and world movies. Qantas seemed to only have a handful of new release movies but a lot of old ones that I have already seen.

7. On the Qantas plane, the toilets are almost half the size. You can barely move inside them and they jam 3 toilets into the corner at the rear of the plane so that two people cannot exit the toilet at the same time because the doors would hit each other.

8. They have less meals on the Qantas flight. During a 15hr Emirates flight, I have received 3 meals but on a 20hr Qantas flight, I received two. Despite this, Qantas did have a lot more snacks including a shelf of snacks at the rear of the plane that you could go up to and take whatever you wanted.

9. When they served meals on the Qantas flight, they went down one side of the plane and then served the other side. This meant that you had to watch others eat for half an hour before they swapped sides and served meals down the other aisle. On the Emirates flight, meals are served on each side at the same time so you stomach isn’t rumbling while you watch others eat.

10. If you are asleep on the Qantas flight while a snack or meal is being served, you miss out. I missed out on an ice-cream on Qantas because I was asleep. On Emirates, you have stickers that you put on the top of your chair to tell the flight attendants to wake you for meal service or to let you sleep.

Despite all of these differences, there is one thing that Qantas and Emirates have in common… There seems to be no sense to the order or the time that they serve their meals. Which time zone are they going on? Do they change time zones in the middle of the trip? On the Qantas flight, I got to eat ‘lunch’ at 2pm and ‘breakfast’ was served at 4pm in the next time zone. Lights were dimmed during daylight hours at the destination and the lights came on for snacks to be served at the equivalent of the middle of the night. Why not mimic the time zone of the destination so that people can get used to it and reduce jetlag? There seems to be no sense at all the order things are done during a flight. Qantas also gave out the immigration arrival cards at the start of the flight and by the time the 20hr ordeal was over, a lot of people had lost or forgotten about them!

So overall, I definitely recommend flying Emirates over Qantas. Ironically, Emirates and Qantas have hooked up and recently announced that they are now partner airlines. Although I cannot compare prices, ‘economy’ on Emirates is way better than ‘economy’ on Qantas. To rub salt into the wounds, it has now been 24hrs since I arrived and they are still trying to locate half of my luggage as it seems my bike was unable to make the flight for some reason.  

I choose life

I have had my fair share of crashes on the bike, both while training and in races. At the end of a race, it can get pretty chaotic at the pointy end of the field so over the years, I have developed a bit of respect for the crazy sprinters that are brave enough to try their luck each time. The same way that you have respect for the clown at the rodeo whose job it is to distract/confuse/enrage the bull.

Today I received a sobering reminder that cycling can be a dangerous sport and when you crash at 50+kph, it can hurt. A friend of my managed to hit the deck hard in the final sprint of a club race and landed on his face, knocking himself out and breaking his nose. He slid along the bitumen for a while before coming to a stop in the middle of the track and leaving a pool of blood.

(Please note: I did not take this photo while he was laying there in pain. Someone else did!)

Many other cyclists stood around and were reminded that sometimes taking the risk is just not worth it. In the past, if a final sprint is a bit hectic, I would simply sit up and let others contest in the craziness. I would remind myself that it wasn’t worth the risk and that I had other responsibilities to worry about such as work and family. If I broke something, I could be up for thousands of dollars to replace it. After all, it’s not like I was doing it for a living.

Today, as we stood around and waited for the ambulance, something occurred to me. Now, I DO do it for a living. Does that mean I can no longer take the safe option and think of my other responsibilities? What excuse do I have now? Can I still choose life at the end of a race when people are touching handlebars at 50+kph?

Regardless of this, one thing still remains the same. There is nothing worse than the searing pain that you feel when you have to take a shower with road rash all over your body. Nobody needs to experience that pain and I don’t think there is ever really a time when it is worth the risk.

Eat to Ride or Ride to Eat

The way I see it, there are two kinds of people that cycle: Those that ‘eat to ride’ and those that ‘ride to eat’.  Generally, I have always been the latter, using cycling to allow myself to eat pretty much whatever I want without the associated guilt trip. Doing a 6hr ride meant that I would burn enough calories to be able to eat the equivalent of enough food for two average people. During this time, I have maintained a steady weight without any problems for a number of years.

More recently, I have had to change my ways in an endeavor to lose the last couple of kilograms to get down to my optimum racing weight. This has meant that I have had to ‘eat to ride’ and consciously think about everything I eat and how it will affect my performance on the bike. To help this process, I decided to give calorie counting a go, to see exactly what my bad habits are and where I can make improvements. With calorie counting, I have come to a few conclusions….

1. When I stop cycling, I am going to get HUGE. On day one of calorie counting, even after a 4hr ride, I had to hold back on snacks and food. Riding my bike for extended periods of time is all that’s preventing me from consuming 500% of my recommended daily energy intake and ballooning out.

2. I eat a lot of food and I mean a LOT. It’s not until I see it all in a list in front of me that I realize just how much food I consume. If I could donate just half of it, there would be a few less starving third world villages.

3. A lot of food that I thought was relatively good, is surprisingly high in calories. For example, bananas, which I generally eat by the truck load, are high in calories. Almonds and other nuts are also high as is the average full cream, flat white coffee. As a general rule of thumb, if it’s green and leafy, it will be low in calories. If it’s white or yellow, it’s going to be high in calories!

4. Even the smallest treat will blow the calorie budget. A single muffin, chocolate bar, pastry or other treat can have as many calories in it as an entire low calorie meal. The problem is, temptations are everywhere. From the chocolate bars next to the register at the supermarket to the single extra piece of toast with butter at breakfast to a bottle of juice or flavoured milk, empty calories are EVERYWHERE.

5. Most products are way bigger than they need to be. No one really needs a ‘King Size’ Snickers or a ‘Venti’ cup of milk. It is just a heap of extra calories. Delicious, extra calories. Apparently, over the last couple of decades, servings sizes have grown exponentially...

6. I can understand just how easy it is for someone to put weight on. Riding a bike gives me a rather large calorie deficit that I get to fill with whatever I want, however, what does the average person do?? Those that commute to work in a car to sit at a desk all day, then drive home again in the evening do not get the opportunity to do any exercise and burn any excess calories that are so easily consumed.

None of this has really come as a surprise and I suspect that deep down, it is something that most people know anyway but just choose to ignore. It is just a lot more alarming when it is sitting in front of you all the time and you are constantly thinking about it. Despite this, I will keep counting for the next few weeks and ‘eat to ride’. Maybe it will make me appreciate those small treats a little bit more. Maybe.

Busted

I enjoy Fridays. It is the day when I get to enjoy a leisurely recovery ride with friends, followed by coffee at the local café and then followed by more coffee at the local café. Most of my friends must then head off to work while a select few get to stay and have more coffee at the local café.

Last Friday, I slept in and missed the start of the bunch ride. I woke up in a huff and my wife was wondering what was wrong. I explained that I had slept in as I put on lycra in record time and head out the door. I had missed the ride, so the ONLY option I had was to head directly to the coffee shop and then head out for my ride later in the day.

Coincidently, my wife had a conference in the city on this particular Friday and about 2½ hours after I had left home she came in to join me for a pre-conference coffee. On her arrival, she asked how my ride was. Foolishly, without thinking, I replied, ‘Oh, I haven’t ridden yet, I slept in. I’m going to ride afterwards.’

My wife looked surprised… ‘You mean you have been sitting here this whole time?’
One of my friends kindly replied for me, ‘Oh no. We were at another café just up the road for a while first.’ My wife shook her head.

I knew what was going to happen after this. In an attempt to dull the aftershock, I did an extra-long ride afterwards but I still knew that it was not going to have an effect on what was going to happen when my wife saw me next.

That night, my wife arrived home after her conference and her first words were, ‘So… how was your ‘ride’ today?’

I informed her that I did an extra-long ride and also pointed out all of the other things that I had achieved during the day. It was ineffective. Now, whenever I go for a ride, my wife says, ‘Enjoy your ‘ride’.’ accompanied by the two finger ‘air-quotes’. 

Superhuman

Most of my training rides start and/or finish at a coffee shop. I may have to meet people there or, on most rides, I stop there at the end for some R&R and about 7 coffees. This takes up a bit of time before I pedal the 20-odd minutes home.

During these stops, I don't turn off my bike computer and simply jump back on my bike to go home. Consequently, over a week, there can be rather large differences between training times and actual time spent riding my bike. For me, this is not a problem, as I only ever look at riding time or the distance covered.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from my coach that strongly suggested that I take an easy week as I had been training hard for 6 weeks in a row. Happy to oblige, I accepted his advice and took a couple of days off, then limited myself to a handful of short, easy rides. This also meant that I spent a lot more time at the coffee shop after rides, relaxing with my feet up. After this easy week, I went back to normal training.

 

This week, I received another email from my coach even more strongly suggesting that I take an easy week. He said that he has never seen anyone train the number of hours that I have been doing without blowing up. I was puzzled by this but continued to read. The email outlined my last few weeks of training with my recovery week consisting of 30+hrs of riding. I began to put the pieces together...

My coach had been looking at total time rather that just riding time. This meant that my average training each week was around 30 hours and in the week that I took it easy, I spent so much time at the coffee shop after rides, that it looked like I had done more training than ever!

Looking back at total time over the last few months, I can totally understand why my coach was a little concerned. I don't think anyone could put in those kind of hours on the bike without destroying themselves. Perhaps I should spend less time at the coffee shop after rides??? But then again, chamois time is training time, right??

House Husband

My wife used to finish work before me and as I was often trying to clock up extra km's on the bike on my way home from work, she was usually home well before me.

Being the spectacular woman that she is, my wife got started on dinner so that when I arrived home it was ready to go. Afterwards, it was my job to wash the dishes. My wife always said that she would love to swap jobs and that she preferred to clean up than cook.

I'm not gonna lie... I'm a stereotypical male. I don't think about making the bed, I just throw my clothes into the cupboard, I can never find things because I don't look properly and I hate doing chores.

Now that cycling is my job, the tables have turned. I am at home a lot more and arrive well and truly before my wife, so it is now my job to make sure dinner is ready and the chores are done. And some weird things have been happening...

For some reason, I seem to know where everything in the house is and now my wife asks me if I know where things are. I complain about having to think of ideas for what to have for dinner. I get irritated when my wife gets home and just kicks her shoes off and dumps her bag on the floor. I'm checking the weather to see if it would be a good idea to do a load of laundry. I am making a grocery shopping list!

Most disturbing of all, is when I get upset because my wife gets home and turns on her computer or stares at her phone screen instead of talking to me and asking how my day was.

WHAT IS GOING ON!?? The world is turning up side down!

 

Support vehicles

Normally, when packing for a race, especially one that requires some travel, I have to think of a million different things to take with me. Wheels, kit, food, water, bottles, wind trainer, pump, helmet, shoes, bike and anything else I could possibly need. Then there is the tedious task of squeezing it all into the car as well as another person’s gear as I am usually car-pooling. Quite often, I will get to the race without an essential item and have to make do without it.

Most local races require that you bring an extra person as well so that they can drive your car and wait around at feed zones to hand out water bottles and feed bags. Not only do you have to find someone that is willing to stand around in the sun all day waiting but you have to find someone that knows about cycling but isn’t racing in the event themselves.  On top of all this, Cycling QLD will require that you supply a volunteer for the day to help run the event that, ironically, you also have to pay to enter! If you don’t have a volunteer, you don’t get to race!

This ends up being a lot of organization and hassle. At the start line, there is normally someone running around desperately trying to find someone to hand out their water bottles or be their volunteer.  I have found myself in this situation on many occasions.

At Team Novo Nordisk, they are prepared for ANYTHING. Transport and equipment is not an issue with a team truck, bus and 4 team cars at the ready. 

The truck has anything that the mechanics could possibly need including a full workshop and laundry for washing kit after the race! There are enough wind trainers on board for the entire team to warm up and enough nutrition products to feed a small army.

 

The team bus allows us to travel in comfort and style and could also double as a luxury camper if needed. It has a kitchen, shower, toilet and laundry so it can be a house on wheels. As well as these essentials, it also comes with a few luxuries including wi-fi, televisions, a drinks fridge and my favourite, a coffee machine. It puts the jam-packed rental van that we normally get back home to shame.

Each team car is fitted with a roof rack designed to hold an entire bike shop. There are hooks for endless wheels and quick release holders for easy access to spare bikes. A car follows us around during each ride so that you don't have to have your jersey pockets filled with everything you could possibly need.

There is a downside for all of these support vehicles…. As they are predominantly white and drive huge distances to get to races, they always need to be washed. The mechanics are constantly having to keep them clean and looking pristine and there has not been a day where I have not seen them washing a vehicle. Personally, I think that they should save it for riders wanting a favour from them. ‘You want your bike cleaned and a new tire?.. I’ll do it once you have washed the bus.’