2011 NSW pursuit

[shrubb face]

Given the recent trend of writing race reports for the forum I felt I should finally put some effort in and write my own.

Last Sunday morning was the 2011 NSW individual pursuit, with Pat and I being the DHBC representatives for the day. The pursuit has always been one of my favourite events and it has a long as prestigious past in track cycling. It was Pat's debut at this discipline and I personally think he put in a brilliant ride on the day, though he may disagree with me

I haven’t had the best build up for the event, with consecutive crashes at the Scott and the fixie century limiting my training. Normally for a pursuit you try and ride to a preplanned schedule. This prevents you going out hard and dying mid race, as the quickest pursuit are normally those ridden at a constant pace. I didn’t have either a schedule or a person/coach to indicate it to me and as such I just rode off feel.

My qualifying ride was against Jordan Davies, a really nice rider from Penrith. I rode quote a conservative race, but surprisingly i felt really good on the bike (which is unusual for a pursuit). Normally in these sort of events you spend at least half the race thinking things along the lines of "god why am i doing this", "I'm not going to make it", etc. But in this case i felt good right up until the end, even managing to catch Jordan on the last lap. I rode a time of 4.52 which was enough to qualify fourth. Given how good I felt at the end i knew that I certainly could have ridden faster.

I hadn't expected to make the final and as such had bought no food with me, so after scavenging some gels of other rides (thanks Jordan) I had the bronze medal ride off against Ben Harvey. Ben qualified in a 4.42 and is a far strong rider than I, getting a bronze for NSW in the Australian national omnium last year amongst other victories. As such I knew I was in for a difficult ride. I went out hard, I know that in the qualifying my first kilo was a 1.14, i think i did around a 1.11/12 in the final. At the two km mark, i was almost 6 seconds up on Harvey and was on the same straight as him. Which surprised everyone including the NSW commentator. Sadly it was about this point that the legs began to die, with the lack of endurance training taking its toll. My breathing remain fine but I simply couldn’t quite hold the higher cadence. Ben ended up beating me by a good couple of seconds in the end, with my final time being 4.52 again. If id maintained the original pace I could have easily ridden a sub 4.40 time, so it’s a good sign for three weeks time for the omnium.

Photos thanks to Mark Gunter. (I'm sure my mother will end up buying a couple)


Pat looking focused.

Me attempting to eat my tongue in the qualifying.

Feeling the pain in the finals

Least Benny looked like he was trying hard for once

Other photos http://markgunter.photomerchant.net/gal ... page/3/tag

Cheers,

Alex

[Trouty]

They are awesome pics - glad you're legs are nicely shaved Alex. Great race report, but judging by the photo you had a lot left in you. Well done Paddie - I still can't believe you did a pursuit? Aren't you a sprinter. The thought of 8 laps at a pace just before you throw up, seems way too daunting to me. I take my hat off to both of you.

[T-Bone]

16 laps for these guys!! Well done Alex, and Pat!

Looking at the results, it was close deciding who was in the finals (less than 1sec for that 4th spot).

[patn]

Haha nice one Alex...

On wednesday night alex and i did a practice pursuit, but it unfortunately got cancelled at the 3km mark due to rain. But I learnt two important lessons from my first pursuit. The first was that its really hard to ride 3kms fast, and the second being that it was going to be even harder going for 4km. At DGV on sunday I had a really good warm-up - much better than the kilo the week before. I thought I could do a 5.00, although Im not totally sure how i came up with that number. But that was the time I had decided on. Well in my second pursuit I rode against a St George guy who belted me pretty badly. As I came through in a 5.12 I think the only person who was happy with my ride was the cycling NSW handicapper who got my last place seeding absolutely spot on. Well done to him.

So i had a big sook, but Alex was soon up for his second race so i got over beating myself up for a bit. He looked really strong in the first race, and was absolutely flying over the first 2km of the second. Great to watch. As he said he was on the same straight as harvey. Awesome! But sorry mate I have to confess... it was about that stage in the race that I stopped my silent fist pumping and turned to Jordan and I said it... "he's going to catch him!"... well that was about the time that the lead started to dwindle, and the rest is history. I jinxed him If I hadn't said it Alex would have got him. Might have even given the world record a nudge. But now we'll never know...

Anyways yes I was disappointed with my ride. But Ive learnt a whole stack by going to these NSW races, about the racing itself, the training, preparation on the day, how the NSW cycling events run etc etc. Although Im not very good at it, I actually really liked the pursuit. Not as much as the kilo I dont think, but it was a great day. I'll be back next year, hopefully lots faster...

[Simon Llewellyn]

It's interesting though Alex that your times were not at all different, there was only 0.10 seconds difference from the explosive start in the finals to the consistent ride in qualifying. It's almost like it doesn't matter how you ride the race it will still have the same outcome. I remember last year your times in the qualifying versus bronze medal ride off was about a second better. You'll have to wait till next year now to test the theory that something in the middle will equate to a much better time!