It started when I accidentally bumped into Meng, a fellow Melbourne University Cycling Club rider, while I ventured out for an individual training ride. I joined his bunch - a group called the Lewis Holdway Lawyers - and their leader, Peter, roped me into the ATB. They're a really nice bunch of people and I went on a few training rides with them. In fact, the first mountain I ever rode up was done with this group one week before the ATB. It was Kinglake Mountain, which I associate with Mordor because of its charred forests.
The days leading up to the ATB was full of pasta, pasta, and more pasta. If there's one thing I have a problem with in Melbourne, it's the lack of French onion soup and fusilli pasta. I still can't find the soup, but I've found the latter in supermarkets and cooked up a sort of fusilli 'amatriciana'. This is in inverted commas because I've adopted the canned-food-and-microwave approach to cooking it. The pasta I boil and stir fry in a pan together with '5 cheeses' sauce, but the chicken used is from a can of shredded chili and mayonnaise. I found that it goes very well and in my quest to develop what the French call cycling 'souplesse', I think I'll try to master cooking this variety of pasta till it's what an Italian might call 'al dente'. If taken alongside a Spanish Latte, it'll be a "Grand Tour Gourmet"!
Anyway, I was horrified the night before the ride. When I went to pump up the tyres, I found that both were FLAT. The valve stems had ruptured, no doubt due to my recalcitrant pump nozzle. I only had one spare tube but, thankfully, my commuting bike is a Trek 3rd District with 700c tubes and thus inner tubes of the right size. A short transplant surgery later, I was all ready to go. In a way, it was fortunate that I used fresh inner tubes. Krystyna, another Melbourne University student and budding Ironwoman, had blown her tyres en route to our meeting point and several other group members blew theirs as the day wore on. Heck, we passed over-turned bikes and tube replacement maneuvers every 10 to 15 minutes through most of the day.
Except for Meng, who sprinted off early, the rest of us waited for each other. I would usually speed ahead on hilly areas and rolling terrain - no doubt a result of frequent practice on the Kew Boulevard - and wait at the peak or the end of the section. I initially tried to pedal easy and just climb with the rest, but I found myself in a pickle once I changed my rhythm and decided it would be safer to wait at the top rather than roll sideways or backwards.
The ATB was pretty well-organised. There were water-stops and mechanical assistance booths every 50 Km. The bike shops in-between were also open that Sunday and received customers with enquiries, mechanical issues, and questions about nearby eateries. I bought a spare inner tube, just in case I lost another one to misfortune. It's a pity I lost my nice Uvex sunglasses over a bump... I really liked it. Thankfully, it was a cloudy day and the glare-induced mental fatigue I experienced while cycling in the tropics wasn't a big issue.
I arrived at the first pit-stop 5 or 10 minutes ahead of my group and backtracked to the aforementioned bike shop. Over some energy food, they asked "Where were you?" "I went to buy some stuff?" "What, the groceries?" went one, while Peter (another Peter) said "It's bad enough to go Around the Bay in a Day but you have to do it backwards and forwards". Well, I shrugged and laughed.
At the pit-stops, I saw many old riders sprawled on the sunny grass patches... One only wonders whether these were the guys with the expensive bikes. Cyclists in Melbourne seem to concur of a few things though: (1) Fizik Arione saddles, (2) Mavic wheels from the Aksium and Ksyrium range, and (3) Continental tyres. All 3 are smart long-term investments - I've never heard anything but praise for these products. I've got the wheels and tyres; they're absolutely lovely. I might consider the saddle further down the road.
On the other hand, I marveled at the speed that some young fellas past us on steel bikes with toe-clips! And that was on an incline too. There were times where I'd pass a few riders on the slopes: they'd pass me later when I stopped to wait, and I would overtake them again later. Catching up with people who've had a 5 or 10 minute headstart feels absolutely gratifying. After a few rounds, we could recognise each other. The fatty on a Scott CR-1 variant made me feel queasy, what with the 'wraparound' effect of his posterior on the saddle. But the thin, tall fellow in Liquigas kit on a sweet blue Trek Madone was the one I wanted to see. I've always had a penchant for blue bikes that my high-performance, black and white Cannondale 6 can't seem to satisfy.
"Welcome to Biketanic", I said on the ferry. Neil laughed. Krystyna ruminated about whether the hundreds (or thousands?) of high-end bikes were worth more than the ferry. Hmm...
The marshal at the bottom said the finish line was "less than 3 kilometers away". GPS mapping is unreliable. I kept sprinting anaerobically only to get caught at the lights. I'd sprint off from the bunch and they'd catch up again in 5 minutes at the next set of red lights. 3 Km... 3.5... 4... 4.5... Where the heck was it?? 4.8 Km - I could see the run-in. The path ahead was clear and I gave it all I had left, jumping out of the saddle when the volunteers cheered with their inflatable clappers. Couldn't resist the temptation :P
It was the sweet success of a personal challenge. My group caught up 10 or 15 minutes later. All in all, I averaged 29.3 Km/H over 217.59 Km. Incidentally, this event also marks the point where I've cycled over 7000 Km since I took up cycling in January this year. Pretty cool stuff!
The Master of Ceremony who concluded the event cracked this little line with typical Aussie humour:
"If u only did e 50, do te 80 next year. Ifu only did e 80, do the 100. If you only did the hundred do the 200 [and 10]. If u only did the 200, do the 250. If u only did the 250, do the 250 twice!"I think I'll just do the 250 backwards and forwards as Peter suggested :P
Except for the dead guy, these pictures are © Krystyna
