Tour Down Under - Stage 2

You wouldn’t have thought we were in the same country.  In a complete contrast to the glaring heat of yesterday, Stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under began with a cold morning half the temperature of the day before.  Steele von Hoff (UniSA) was glad of his gloves as he lined up with the 130 other riders at the starting line – Jurgen Roelandts of Lotto-Belisol and Frédéric Guesdon of FDJ-Big Mat both pulled out of the race after yesterday’s crash.

The more clement conditions meant that the attacks began almost as soon as the race did – Martin Kohler of Team BMC and Will Clarke riding for Team UniSA launched themselves off the peloton after barely a kilometre .  The pair continued expanding the gap out, reaching around seven minutes from the peloton after the first sprint point, which Kohler won with Clarke second.  The three-second time deduction for winning the sprint put Kohler just one second behind Andre Greipel’s overall lead, while three kilometres behind the riders began attacking off the front of the peloton in pursuit of sprint points.

Australian Michael Matthews of Rabobank claimed third in the sprints, but instead of the riders competing for third falling back to the peloton after the sprint point, a chase group of 12 riders formed, trailing six minutes behind the two leaders, with a few more riders 200 metres ahead of the peloton.  But their glory was short-lived, quickly reeled back into the peloton , still seven or eight minutes behind Clarke and Kohler.

But Kohler’s moment in the sun seemed to be short-lived, too.  As he and Clarke passed the second sprint point the gap went back down to 5:50, and Kohler began to drop back.  By the time they reached the finish line in Stirling to begin the first of three laps, Kohler had completely disappeared back into the peloton and Clarke had a 12-and-a-half minute lead on them.  He soloed through the finish line for the first time, attracting a huge cheer from the amassed crowd, which then stopped and stared incredulously for 11 minutes, waiting for the peloton.

The circuit took the riders a little longer than expected, around 40 minutes instead of the anticipated half an hour, but Will Clarke appeared to finish his first lap, albeit a little less comfortably than before.  The peloton rode by again 11 minutes later, having brought in an attempted break by Movistar rider Angel Madrazo during the lap.  It was a minute further back to the green lantern; AG2R La Mondiale’s Boris Shiplevskiy brought up the rear.

Between laps there was plenty to keep the eager public occupied – the Tour Parade, with its funny cars, waving drivers and  free giveaways kept the kids entertained, and the arrival of cycling legend Eddy Merckx caused great excitement among the fans.  The colourful jerseys of ProTeams and local clubs alike abounded, and every second person seemed to be pushing a bike.

But as Clarke came closer to the end of the race, his laps became slower...and the peloton became faster.  Coming round for the third time and receiving the warning bell as he began his last lap, Clarke had lost two to three minutes to the pursuing hordes on his second lap and was down to an eight-minute lead.  As the peloton raced past onto their final lap, closing in on their prey, the tension in the crowd became palpable.  They were loving the young Tasmanian underdog from the local team.

Except the prospects weren't looking good.  The commentators were counting down the gap between the leader and the peloton as they raced around the final circuit of Stirling, the crowd bellowing unheard encouragement for the 26-year-old to hold off his pursuers just a little longer.  The noise at the finish line increased dramatically as a lone rider in a convoy of motorbikes came into view just 300 metres from the finish line, the peloton held at bay long enough for Clarke to ride across the finish and claim his well-deserved stage win, along with the sprint classification jersey and the King of the Mountains jersey.

The peloton stormed by a minute later, sprinters like Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky jostling for position.  But it was destined to be an all-Aussie peloton for the day - Michael Matthews sprinted up again for second place this time, while Australian National Road Race Champion Simon Gerrans of GreenEDGE rounded out the top three.  Justifiably, Martin Kohler's efforts earlier in the day put him two seconds ahead of Andre Greipel to claim the ochre leader's jersey.

On another note, a personal highlight of the day - as the riders began heading back out onto the road to ride back to the Tour village, the traffic being at a standstill, I found Jérémy Roy of Team FDJ-Big Mat, who kindly stopped to speak to me for a minute.  He even handed me his bidon (which was nice and cold, by the way) after I gave him a small toy koala for his daughter Julia.  Maybe I need an FDJ jersey as well now...

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.