Life out of Lycra

Keeping everything in moderation usually means a limited social life and turning into a pumpkin around 10pm. However, exceptions are made and it was good to have a night off to celebrate my birthday. There were a few special appearances:

Team Fleet:

French St Central Support Crew:
And... the flying screaming monkey:

2008 State Criterium Championships, Armadale

It seemed like ages since I'd done a road race - was it really almost 6 months? A little out of practice. Needless to say, I was ready to race and looking forward to testing out my legs on a criterium circuit. The course was nice, but there was a small bump with a bit of a pinch which we would be tackling into the wind. We had 12 women starting - a great turnout, but with some of the top girls away at Oceanias (Davina Summers, Josie Tomic and Sarah Kent) anything could happen.

Clare McLean and Liz Leyden kept the pace high for the start of the race. However things did quiten down and somehow I found myself off the front without trying. As the pace had been slow I decided to see who was playing and pushed. The hill out the back was enough to slow me down and the group had caught me within a lap. Not long after Sarah Fraser and Bec Halliday were off the front. Not sure if it was a big attack or whether the wheel behind them couldn't hold the pace but it was enough for them to get away and proved to be the winning move. With my team-mate Bec in form out the front I wanted her to have the best chance at winning so I kept an eye on the chase group.

Big thankyou to Peter Mah for taking some great shots that tell the story much better than me (many more photos can be found here).

The break, Bec Halliday and Sarah Fraser, developing their winning gap.

The chase group:

The chase group starting to hurt, L to R; Bella King, Mel Hoskins, myself and Liz Leyden.

The sprint for the win:

The sprint for 3rd place:

Final Results:
1. Bec Halliday (Fleet Cycles)
2. Sarah-Jeanne Fraser (Eddy Holland's Bicycle Services)
3. Melissa Hoskins (Plan B)
4. Bella King (JETS)
5. Holly McClellan (Fleet Cycles)
6. Liz Leyden (TBE)

D for Determination

Woops - sorry for the delay in the text for this post. Saturday night I had the pleasure of racing in the International Track Grand Prix. Joining us were the Dutch women Ellen van Dijk, Yvonne Hijgenaar, and Willy Kanis; Malaysia's Fatehah Mustapa, Australian champ Kaarle McCulloch and plenty of West Australian stars (Josie Tomic, Davina Summers, Sarah Kent, Melissa Hoskins...)

There was a mixture of Sprint and Endurance events. The Dutch dominated the sprint events and Josie Tomic dominated the Endurance events. However, my choice for ride of the night would have to be Davina Summers who rode with a broken arm. She managed to take out 3rd in the State Scratch Race (seated) and then led out and won the Derny, which just goes to show what you can do with some courage and determination.

I didn't place in any of the events and some I couldn't hold on to the pack but it was exciting to be out on the track with so much talent.

Fleet mechanic Jack captured some awesome pics.

Check out Davina's close win over Bella to take 3rd in the State Scratch Race

Davina in the Derny

World Scratch Race Champion Ellen van Dijk

Fleet Girls warming up, 1, 2, and in the points race 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

3 is the magic number - ATTA TT Season Opener, Freeway Joondalup

I had plenty to be excited about today although I had a bit of a hectic preparation. Today's Time Trial that was being held on the new extension of the freeway in Joondalup. Bike maintenance has never been my forte but I am quickly learning, so after arriving late last night from Sydney I got straight to work. Putting on time trial bars and changing tyres are referred to as being relatively easy, given you follow a few simple rules. Nothing is simple and I all I can say is I'm glad my housemate was not home to witness the tanty that accompanied my bike maintenance.

It was a beautiful day and there was only a hint of wind. For once I felt like I had a good warm up and my family joined me just before I took off to start. The course was fairly simple go North a few kms, do a hairpin turn and come back with another hairpin turn at the south end. It was a 7km loop that we were doing 5 laps of. Psyche.



I had been reading up on my mental training on the plane ride home so my power words were all set and ready for use. I went well mentally this time, however, I think I let the 2nd lap blues get to me a little bit too much (either that or I went out way too hot). I only lost concentration a few times (my mind can easily wander) but I quickly got myself together. Needless to say, I kept turning the wheel.


Afterwards I heard several people say it wasn't as easy as they thought it was going to be. My first reaction was - it's a time trial, surely you should make it as hard as you possibly can. But what they meant was, we were all hoping for a nice smooth flat road with a really wide turn around and no wind. When I heard about the course I thought I may have a chance of breaking that 40km+ barrier. Well, the course wasn't hilly by definition but there were some nice long uphill drags which could quickly take it out of your legs. I slowed down quite a bit at both turns (going off road once) and things were made just a little bit harder with one of the turns being at the bottom of a hill (slam on brakes, snail pace turn, climb ow ow ow). Seriously though the gradient was miniscule and I shouldn't complain so much.

Today was my third ATTA time trial, I was going for a third 'win' and a third 'course record'. Although for this course a record isn't really applicable as we won't be riding it again.

Needless to say - I was very happy with the results, taking out fastest female. But take a look at the numbers - ie general place, bib and standard place. Freaky considering my own milestones.

The rest of the results can be found on ATTA's website.