Tour Down Under - Stage 5

This was it - the queen stage.  The one all the riders had been waiting for.  The one everyone said would be the decider - Willunga Hill.

The break went fairly early, and by the time it reached the township of Willunga, which the race would pass through five times during the day, nine kilometres from the depart, the six riders - Stuart O'Grady, GreenEDGE; Nathan Haas, Garmin-Barracuda; Thomas de Gendt, Vacansoleil-DCM; Andrew Fenn, Omega Pharma-Quickstep; Takashi Miyazawa, Saxobank; and Kristof Goddaert, AG2R La Mondiale, had a minute on the peloton.  O'Grady in particular was popular with the Australian crowd, eliciting a loud cheer as he rode past in his GreenEDGE jersey.  They continued picking up time on the unconcerned peloton, building up a lead that continued increasing as they made their way around the first lap.

The other teams were taking turns on the front of the peloton, BMC prominent in protecting the ochre jersey of Martin Kohler, as well as Movistar, clearly setting up their man Alejandro Valverde for a stage win and boost in the GC, and Rabobank.  The teams were having a minimal effect, though, as the six leaders raced through Willunga again with a lead that had ballooned out to seven minutes.  BMC clearly wasn't happy with this and put their collective foot down, stringing out the peloton as they reached Willunga and turned towards the beach on lap two.

Meanwhile, the leaders were reaching the first sprint point, but no-one was particularly interested in taking the points, Goddaert leading the break across the line to take first place with Fenn and O'Grady filling out the top three.  Despite the lack of sprinting at the sprint point, the gap to the peloton was still increasing, by now eight minutes ahead.  The peloton let it get out to almost 8:30 before they finally put the pedal down and started bringing the break in, Team Sky also joining the work at the front of the peloton, and by the time the leaders reached the feedzone in Willunga on lap three the gap had come down to around six minutes.

The leaders racing through their final lap of Willunga and McLaren Vale, Rabobank set up shop on the front of the peloton and increased the pace so much there were riders falling off the back.  Lampre-ISD had a small scare when their GC contender, Matt Lloyd, who was also a chance of winning the day's stage, fell off the back with the other riders, and his teammates had to drop back to help return him to the peloton.

There were only five in the break by the time they reached the second sprint point, Goddaert having fallen off the back with a mechanical problem, and this time it was Thomas de Gendt who rolled over the line first, again no-one in the break interested in contesting.  As O'Grady and Fenn agained clean up the top three points on offer, the gap continued going down, the only respite when the peloton swept through the feed station.  It was down to about 2:30 as the breakaway started up Willunga Hill for the first time, the race finally getting exciting as the peloton tried to catch them in time to set up the showdown that everyone was anticipating between the major GC contenders.

It was Nathan Haas who made the first move, attacking the break on the way up the hill and holding a lead of a couple of hundred metres as the peloton entered Willunga for the first ascent of the hill.  Thanks to the high pace-making from teams like BMC and Rabobank the peloton was now in two with a gap between and Steele von Hoff in no man's land between thanks to a crash.  On the front of the peloton Movistar's David Lopez attacked, taking GreenEDGE's Simon Gerrans and Lampre's Matty Lloyd, amongst others, with him as he tried to bridge the gap to the breakaway.

Lopez and entourage managed to catch the four poursuivants, Haas remaining defiant off the front of the bunch and claiming the maximum points for cresting the first King of the Mountain point in the lead, his chasers 50 seconds behind.  Still refusing to give up as the peloton rippled and shifted into groups behind him, Haas kept fighting until the nearest group of 30 riders, including Gerrans, race leader Martin Kohler and other favourites for the stage finally swamped him.

Then it was back around to Willunga for the final race up the hill, UniSA's Rohan Dennis making a storm as he escaped from the front group in a breakaway with Sky's Danny Pate, Radioshack Nissan Trek's Hayden Roulston and Movistar's Jose Ivan Gutierrez.  The breakaway soon dissipating on the slope, it was Dennis and Radioshack's Tiago Machado leading the way on the final climb up Willunga, before the front group of eager stage contenders caught them just as Simon Gerrans made his move, shadowed by Movistar's Valverde.

The two were neck and neck as they turned the final corner, the home crowd cheering enthusiastically for National Champion Gerro, only to have their hopes disappointed as Spanish sprinter Valverde's bike wheel pipped Gerro's by half a length.  Sky's Michael Rogers, trailing the pair since they left the group, chased them across the line for third.

But the real enigma of the win was the times of Gerrans and Valverde.  While Gerrans began the day four seconds ahead of Valverde in the GC, Gerrans only received a time bonus on the finish of six seconds, four seconds less than Valverde.  As such the two were on equal time at the end of the day's stage, but the ochre leader's jersey will go to Gerrans, as Gerrans placed higher than Valverde within the bunch on the previous days' stages, and Valverde must outplace Gerrans to take the jersey.  So the question rests for tomorrow's final stage at the crit in Adelaide: will Valverde attack in the hopes of gaining a few more seconds tomorrow, or will GreenEDGE's defence of Gerran's ochre prove too strong?

Tour Down Under - Touring the Village

There is a red BMC jersey hanging out the window of the Hilton Hotel. The owner probably just wants to air it before tomorrow, but for those who notice it it’s a reminder that their heroes are not far away.

The Santos Tour Down Under Tour Village sits in the shadow of the Hilton in the late afternoon sun. Outside in the small grassy area, the sponsors are spruiking their wares, offering freebies and competitions to the hundreds of fans who pass by, while inside the main tent the team mechanics are preparing the bikes for the following day’s stage, the curious public watching as they clean the bikes, change wheels and lubricate chains. Across the road is the bike expo, all the bicycle, helmet and clothing sponsors showcasing their goods to the avid cyclists, as well as the GreenEDGE caravan where Robbie McEwen will hold a book-signing later.

The Tour Village is often one of the best places to meet the riders - the team buses and cars pull up into the field behind the village, the riders cutting through the village to the team-only gate leading to the pedestrian crossing outside the Hilton. As we wander the tents, Mark Renshaw walks past in his orange Rabobank jersey carrying a large bag of ice; he is evidently repeating his ice-bath recovery of the day before.

Nathan Haas also wanders past with a coffee in hand and stops for a chat. His day was not as good as he had hoped, his form just not what he needed it to be this early in the season. When we asked how it felt riding at a ProTour level for the first time, he also made the interesting comment the ProTour cyclists don’t necessarily ride at a higher level than the Continental teams, but they ride more days a year at that same level. We wish him luck for the Tour and the year and he heads back to the hotel.

Inside the village pavilion I stand and stare at the mechanics working on the bikes, picking the numbers on the frames to know it’s Gerro’s or Robbie McEwen’s or Blel Kadri’s ride they’re working on. They have a routine for each bike – first cleaning away the grit with a compressed air gun, then checking all the brakes and moving parts, preparing and attaching the wheels and finally lubricating the chain and gears to ensure maximum response on the road. It’s fascinating how intricate the work is – and how well the mechanics know the bikes.

I talk to some of the GreenEDGE soigneurs and mechanics as I watch. Of all the mechanics, soigneurs and other helpers on the road, only one is close to home: all of them are European except for one New Zealander. While GreenEDGE ideally wants an Australian support team for their Australian riders, the quality of soigneurs and mechanics hasn’t yet reached that of the riders. Instead the two Basque mechanics methodically prepare all the team’s bikes in turn before refitting a few punctured wheels for tomorrow’s stage. Only one of these mechanics will be in the team car once the race starts, ready to assist riders with problems on the road.

Back outside the grass is full of seated people, watching a replay of the day’s stage up on the big screen. Many of those who watched the stage from the roadside haven’t seen anything else of the race. Up in the back corner in the radio station’s tent, 5AA are broadcasting their Santos Tour Down Under show live, the presenters giving me a smile as I stand and watch them for a while. At 7:30pm a live band steps onstage, entertaining the crowd while the Hilton’s food stall does a roaring trade in cones of chips and plastic cups of beer. We leave for the train station.

As we leave, we notice the figure of Lotto-Belisol’s injured rider Jürgen Roelandts talking to a couple of friends in one of the inside stalls. Apparently we are not the only ones, as a couple of other cyclists stop to say hello. As he leaves, we walk over and wish Jürgen all the best for his recovery and the coming season, and he thanks us in his lovely Belgian accent. We smile at each other, exit the pavilion and leave the village with all its noise and colour behind us.

We didn’t make the train.

The 2012 Australian National Championships - Elite Men's Road Race

Warm sun, a hint of rain and bagpipers under gum trees. It was classically Ballarat, and we couldn’t have had a better day for the Elite Men’s Road Race at the Australian National Road Race Championships.

The day’s action began long before the race. Riders began registering and signing on from around 11am, and astute fans packed the area by the start line to meet their heroes. GreenEDGE stars Stuart O’Grady and Matt Goss were heralded with cameras and autograph pens before making a graceful escape onto the track for their warm-ups, DS Matt White watching attentively nearby.

The journalists were also gearing up for the day. With a live broadcast of the race in the afternoon, the SBS broadcast van was already setting up for a busy Sunday, the day’s commentators, Phil Liggett and Matt Keenan, drifting quietly around the course.

It was extraordinarily exciting to see the peloton take off at the firing of the Sovereign Hill redcoat’s musket, ProTour team jerseys mixed in with local colours and the ever-present green of Australia’s own ProTour team of GreenEDGE. They raced away up the hill and around the corner towards the King of the Mountain banner, full of an enthusiasm that was destined to wane some time later.

Within a couple of laps the peloton had shrunk considerably, many of the local riders falling back on the hills. The European pros certainly weren’t being idle, with GreenEDGE’s Jack Bobridge launching an attack on the very first climb. Teammate Luke Durbridge and Garmin-Cervelo’s new recruit Nathan Haas were game to join, and they held off for a lap or two before the peloton came back. Then GreenEDGE team leader Stuart O’Grady decided to stretch his legs, and took former Leopard Trek teammate Will Clarke with him. Local boy Patrick Shaw put on a show for the hometown crowd and soon joined them. Garmin’s Heinrich Haussler didn’t like this scenario much, and put in the work that saw the break rejoined to the peloton.

By the fifth or sixth lap Mt. Buninyong, small though it was, had sorted the men from the boys and reduced the ‘peloton’ to a handful of riders chasing 20 or so big names that had gone off the front, never to return. Two or three laps later all the riders who would finish the race had migrated forward to join them, and soon enough the games began. Pat Shaw, Will Clarke (now riding for Team Champion System) and Luke Durbridge went on the attack again with new Rabobank sprinter Mark Renshaw and GreenEDGE’s Wes Sulzberger and Matt Wilson, and the six were soon joined by 2010 National Champion Cameron Meyer. Wilson and Meyer attacked and built themselves a lead of over a minute on their pursuers, before Wilson tired and dropped back after a lap. Then began the time trial that held the spectators spellbound.

Cam Meyer launched himself into a solo ride that lasted for 40 or 50 kilometres, building a gap of over two minutes back to the poursuivants of Heinrich Haussler and Luke Durbridge, and three minutes back to the main peloton. Back at the GreenEDGE tent, directeur sportif Matt White was instructing his riders in the peloton to keep the pace low to give Meyer’s stunning breakaway the best chance of success.

Of course, solo rides were not limited to the pro peloton. One of the spectators leaning on his bike near the King of the Mountain point had ridden from the eastern suburbs of Melbourne yesterday all the way to Ballarat just to watch today’s race. “It was hard,” he said with a grin of his 120-kilometre ride. But he immediately agreed that the effort was worth it to watch the top cyclists in Australia compete. “Oh, yes,” he said appreciatively as a few more riders made their way up Mt. Buninyong.

Back on the road, Meyer had an ‘explosion’, as he later described it, and was caught and later dropped by the peloton riding through. Simon Gerrans immediately took over the attack, Lampre-ISD’s Matt Lloyd and Sky’s Richie Porte following. Next it was the turn of Baden Cooke (GreenEDGE) and Will Clarke again, Richie Porte chasing that attack too. The attacks fading, the peloton regrouped as it hit the final two laps, but GreenEDGE was soon on the aggressive again, Stuey O’Grady leaping out the front, trailed by Sky’s Mathew Hayman. After the pair was pulled back into the fold on the climb, Matt Lloyd went again, Simon Gerrans following closely. The two pulled away, soon caught by the chasers of Porte and Bernie Sulzberger, while Baden Cooke and Garmin-Chipotle’s Steele von Hoff bridged the gap. It was another short-lived breakaway, and the 18 leading riders were back in a bunch as they began the crucial final 10-kilometre lap.

Team Sky’s four Australian riders appeared at the head of the peloton, suddenly looking very organised and very dangerous despite their small numbers. Though GreenEDGE started the race with 16, a number of those pulled out around halfway, including defending champion Jack Bobridge. The numbers were beginning to even up, but in the end neither of the big teams made the move. Matty Lloyd attacked on the final climb, Gerrans following him, and Porte chasing them both. Lloyd and Gerrans managed to keep around 30 seconds between themselves and Porte as they scooted around the final half of the course, the tension in the air palpable as 20,000 people watched to see how it would play out.

Ever a good time-trialler, Porte closed the gap on the leading pair and joined them with barely a kilometre left in the race. The three played coy with each other all the way down the final 500 metres, eyeing each other as they danced on their pedals, until Gerrans, tipped as the best sprinter of the trio, shot out from behind Lloyd and bolted across the line to win his first elite national title. The crowd, cheering ecstatically as Gerrans rode triumphantly past chased by a scrum of journalists, offered the same acclamation to the handful of riders trickling over the line to finish the race shortly after, including silver medallist Lloyd and bronze medallist Porte.

Gerrans' national title becomes the first victory on the GreenEDGE men’s team; the women opened their championships account on Thursday with two golds and a silver. With any luck this will be a propitious start to the season for Australia’s first home-grown ProTour team.

Jayco Herald Sun Tour 2011

The Jayco Herald Sun Tour is the oldest stage race in Australia and is even among the oldest in the world.  The UCI Oceania Tour race travels around Victoria over five days and attracts not only the Australian Continental teams, but even some ProTour teams as well.  Previous winners include riders like Aussie pros Baden Cooke, Stuart O'Grady and Simon Gerrans, as well as British rider Bradley Wiggins, who won the last Tour in 2009.  The JHST was put on hold due to the UCI Road World Championships being held in Geelong last year, but it was back with a bang for 2011 and certainly attracted its fair share of attention.

Stage 1 - Whittlesea to Ballarat included a pair of sprint points at Riddells Creek and Creswick and some categorised climbs in Woodend and Daylesford.  By the time the race reached Creswick, around 20 kilometres out of Ballarat, a group of six riders including Drapac Cycling's Rhys Pollock had an eight-minute lead on the peloton.  They raced into Ballarat, blowing away the Mocka's predicted arrival times at each check, where Pollock sprinted away to take the stage and the yellow jersey of the leader ahead of Australian National Road Race Champion Jack Bobridge and Team Genesys' Nathan Haas, amongst others.

Stage 2 stepped back in time briefly, with the stage start in the main street of Ballarat's 1850s-era replica gold town Sovereign Hill.  The riders crossed the line at the firing of the redcoat soldier's musket and made their way out of the tourist park and onto the main road towards Geelong, by which time the peloton was already losing riders.  Two sprint points, a Category 3 climb and a Category 4 climb later, two riders finally got away at 50 kilometres to go, only to be caught five kilometres from the end of the stage in Geelong.  The consequent bunch sprint cleared the stage for South African Team MTN Qhubeka's Reinardt Janse van Rensburg to take the stage win, while Drapac Professional Cycling put in the hard yards to keep Rhys Pollock in yellow.

Stage 3 took the riders on a beautiful loop from Geelong down to Lorne and then back up the spectacularly scenic Great Ocean Road towards Port Phillip Heads.  The peloton was about 30 kilometres out of Geelong before they let a breakaway of four go, none of them threatening enough in the general classification to warrant a chase.  The peloton and particularly the breakaway battled the crosswinds as they rode along the Victorian coast on the world's longest war memorial, but the quartet was caught just 20 kilometres from the stage finish in Drysdale.  By this point ProTeam Skil-Shimano had joined Drapac on the front in the pace-making, Drapac protecting their yellow while Skil-Shimano was hoping for a stage win.  Both teams got their wish, with German Skil-Shimano rider Marcel Kittel sprinting to his 16th win of the season and Rhys Pollock finishing with the bunch to maintain his overall lead.

But Pollock lost hope of keeping his lead any longer on Stage 4, the 'queen stage' beginning in Sorrento and finishing with a triple lap up and over the Category 1 climb of Arthur's Seat.  An early break, aggressively led by Genesys' Patrick Shaw looking to put teammate Nathan Haas in yellow as well as defend his lead in the sprint classification, went off the front and defended an advantage of around three to four minutes until Saxobank-Sungard, Drapac and Garmin-Cervelo banded together and brought the break back into the fold on the second ascent of Arthur's Seat.  As the climbs took their toll on the riders it was left to a select few to race for the finish.  Russian Katusha rider Egor Silin took his first pro victory with a stage win, while up-and-coming Genesys rider Nathan Haas pipped Jack Bobridge to the line and claimed the yellow.

The final day of the race saw the riders bring it home to Melbourne for the final criterium around Lygon St.  The threat of poor weather didn't keep the fans away, and Melbourne's cycling enthusiasts crowded Argyle Square to see the local heroes and overseas legends before the start of the day's racing.  By 3pm the women's crit had finished and the crowds began lining the street as the starting gun went for the final time and the riders began racing north up Lygon St.  The flat crit-style stage wasn't conducive to breakaways, and though Cameron Wurf, Wes Sulzberger and Adam Phelan, amongst others, did try, the peloton made sure they were back in the bunch coming up on the final finish.  Despite the bunch sprint, Skil-Shimano's Marcel Kittel was first over the line easily to take his second victory at the Sun Tour and bring his season total up to 17.  Nathan Haas, meanwhile, was completely overwhelmed at having won the general classification, sprints classification and young rider classification, while his team of Genesys Wealth Advisors won the teams classification.  Talk about rainbow jerseys!

And as a happy ending to a happy tale, Haas has since received a two-year pro contract to ride for Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up good young Aussie talent.  If this year is a precedent, he'll be riding for GreenEDGE soon enough.

Jayco Herald Sun Tour - A Fangirl Perspective

The best part about having a crit-style final stage is that the riders treat it differently to a normal stage in a stage race. When your day's racing is 10 laps of the same circuit your warm-up seemingly doesn't need to be as intense as for six hours through small towns in country Victoria, because for until 10 minutes before the start of the race nearly all of the riders were relaxing in their team tents in the small square beside Lygon St and mingling with the fans.

Of course, for the true GreenEDGE fan-in-waiting, the number of Australian riders was brilliant. The number of ProTeams there was also pretty awesome. Needless to say, until such time as the racing started I was having the absolute time of my life running around amongst all the team and sponsor stalls, having my photo taken with every rider I could find.

   I was stoked to see the Garmin-Cervelo team scoot past me, so I stopped for a quick photo with larrikin-esque Aussie Heinrich Haussler, as well as current Australian National Time Trial Champion Cameron Meyer. Unfortunately I was too slow to grab his brother Travis riding behind him. Both brothers are riding for Australia's Team GreenEDGE next season.

  

But the fun didn't stop there. I found Cameron Wurf, who was an absolute darling with a lovely smile and quite happy to stop for a quick photo with me.

 I also found Team Garmin's legendary Jack Bobridge, current Australian National Road Race Champion and former World Under-23 Road Race Champion, who recently broke the world record for the 4000m on the track by a full three seconds.  Needless to say, he's also been signed to GreenEDGE next year.

Adam Hansen is, unfortunately, still riding for Omega Pharma-Quickstep, as it's now called, next year. Despite being a very popular rider when I found him he still had a big grin for the cameras.

 Jonathan Cantwell rated a photo because he's Australian (though not WorldTour), but also as the winner of a crit in Ballarat last year.  He beat both Meyers brothers, which annoyed me at the time chiefly because I'd never heard of Jonathan Cantwell.  Can't say that anymore!

 Naturally I eventually tracked down Nathan Haas, the rising star that shone brighter than all others at the JHST this year, taking home all bar two jerseys.  The 22-year-old has been snaffled up for next year's pro season by none other than - guess who - Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up all the rising Aussie talents (until GreenEDGE snaffles them back, of course).

 Steele von Hoff, who like Heinrich Haussler has an awesome European name but looks as ocker as can be, comfortably won the Tour of Gippsland and didn't mind me gatecrashing the 'we're waiting to go onstage and receive our jersey' boy's room to get a photo.
 

 Taswegian Bernie Sulzberger is the older brother of ProTeam FDJ rider Wes Sulzberger.  Had I been able to find Wes, I'd've asked him to pass along a message to Jeremy Roy from his Australian fans.

  Pat Shaw is a Ballarat boy and hometown hero, thus warranting a photo.  But it's not our mutual origins that are the cause of our grins.  No, we're laughing because Pat is hiding the GreenEDGE Cycling cap he stole off my head behind his back.  No need to tell you which team he's NOT riding for next year, then.

I got so excited when I saw this fellow's name on the start list. Marcel Kittel has ridden the Vuelta a Espana and won a stage this year - How to Win Fans and Excite Fangirls. Speaking of stage wins, he took out Stages 3 and 5 of the JHST too - as a cool-down from the Vuelta, I expect.

 It wasn't just individual riders I found floating around, either.  As a non-ProTour team and an international team, none of the cycling aficionados there had any idea who these boys were.  As such the MTN Qhubeka were relaxing together in their tent and all jumped up and joined the circle when I asked for a photo.  Second from the left is current Namibian road and time trial champion Loto Petrus, hence the unusual maillot.
 

Despite having a Russian best friend, I've rarely been so excited over anything Russian as when I saw this uniform riding around.  A real-live ProTour team riding around with Tour de France vets?  I was stoked, even though Giro, Vuelta and Tour rider Vladimir Isaichev was nowhere to be seen.  I did, however, get the above photo taken with Nikolay Trusov on the left, and I was almost speechless to be in the presence of Egor Silin in the centre, who was on this year's Katusha team for the TdF.  The Colossus on the right is, oddly enough for the pro-home-nation team, Belgian Stijn Vandenbergh.

I did ask if I could take the sign-on board home as a souvenir, but apparently Lord Mayor Robert Doyle got first dibs on behalf of the city of Melbourne.  Sigh.  The perks of power.

 In the meantime, I was tracking down the SBS journos - Anthony Tan, SBS Cycling Central columnist and post-stage dissecter for the Tour de France.

 

Even cooler - Matt Keenan commentates the first half of each Tour de France stage, before Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen bring it home.

 This familiar face first appeared to me in my press room at the Road World Championships in Geelong last year.  Mike Tomalaris, fresh off the set of a live edition of SBS Cycling Central at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour.  Is there a higher aspiration?

 

Saved the most special for last...that GreenEDGE Cycling cap goes remarkably well next to the fellow who's bankrolling the whole venture - Gerry Ryan, owner of Jayco Caravans, has promised funding for GreenEDGE for the next three years.  Three years of sheer delight and excitement for me.  He more than deserves a photo for that.