Show no Mersey (and some cool news)

Last weekend was the Mersey Valley Tour, the first race of the national road series. The VIS women (or @VIS_Chicks now, for all the cool kids) were running a skeleton operation due to a last-minute poaching job by Australian team coach Martin Barras.

With 2 weeks to go before the tour, our casualty list looked like this:

• Jo 'Schlecky Sister #1' Hogan: Pro team contract. Off winning races in Basque country.
• Kendelle 'TT Machine' Hodges: Glandular. Plotting return to domination from the VIS gym.
• Chloe 'The Enforcer' McConville: Jayco-AIS call up for enforcing duties in Belgium.
• Me: No fixed address. AWOL in Adelaide.

Luckily, a quick phone call to South Africa found VIS mountain biker Katherine O'Shea chilling on a spinal board following a bad crash at a world cup. Having nothing better to do than kick around in a neck brace, KAOS agreed to step back into the VIS road team for a celebrity appearance. Also joining the team was young gun Toni Abassogni, who was in the hunt for U19 worlds team selection. With Kendelle out of action and Jo and Chloe out of the country, I received a call that no cyclist wants to get in the middle of Easter.*

The call was from the Supercoach, with the general theme being that I had to be in Tassie, fitness or no fitness, because otherwise VIS wouldn't be able to fill a team. I don't like to disappoint the Supercoach, mainly because she is the one setting my ergo sessions and she can be vengeful. So off to Tassie we went.

Mersey Valley Tour was a 3-stage, 2 day affair involving more suffering than I care to remember and more rain that I care to ride in. It was lucky we were racing because I wouldn't have ridden in that weather if I'd had the choice. Fortunately, Supercoach and team mechanic Ryan Moody had everything running so smoothly that all I had to think about was how much I dislike riding in the rain. In other words, we were very well looked after.

Stage 1 was a Time Trial, stage 2 was a road race with a hilltop finish, and stage 3 was a longer road race with some hills. Given my preparation, I did not expect to go well. This was not being modest. This was a rational judgement call taking into account the ratio of pinot drinking to ergo time I'd been rocking the previous few weeks.** But I had underestimated the power of a great team, and we won the tour instead. There is an article about the racing here if you like details. The moral of the story is: Always listen to your coach (and be mindful of ergo vengeance).

The reality of the tour was that I suffered like a dog, but since I hadn't suffered in a while the novelty overwhelmed the pain. Also, KAOS did an awesome job of keeping my nose out of the wind on the road stages. Congrats to VIS rider Alex Morgan who dominated the TT and last stage to wrap up GC in the U19 men. And to Miranda Griffith and Amy Bradley who were 2nd and 3rd GC respectively in elite women. And apologies to Miranda for having to pull a dirty sit-on job on the last stage. Miranda attacked late in the last stage and as she was my only time threat on GC I just had to go with her and sit on her wheel. I didn't know our GC times (there was a computer glitch which meant the race organisers didn't release standings or time gaps) and I hadn't remembered what the time bonuses were for stage wins, so I was flying blind. I've lost a tour before by not being au fait on time bonuses and I couldn't do it again. Luckily Miranda didn't lose as much sleep about it as I did, probably because she knows it is only 2 weeks until she can seek revenge on the hills on Murwillumbah in the next NRS race.

Thanks as always to the people who keep me and the VIS team going: Supercoach, Ryan Moody, Apollo, VIS, Fitzroy Revolution, St Mel, CCCC and Perfect Pilates. And to Anthony Klarica who has provided invaluable sports psych help over the past few weeks (I owe you a box of tissues Anthony).

And now... onto the exciting news. Well done for lasting this long - it's been a long post. You may remember me hammering on from time to time about race and recovery nutrition. I'm a bit of a recovery nerd. Tour riding is all about who can recover the best between stages, and one of the keys to good recovery is getting the right nutrition at the right time.

I'm pleased to announce that I will be partnering with ASCEND this year as a brand ambassador. ASCEND is a group of scientists who make the best recovery products going around. I used their Elite Recovery drink and Protein Catalyst after every stage in Tassie. You can make your own mind up on their products, but for me the results speak for themselves. ASCEND is offering Ride Happy readers 15% off online orders at www.ascendsport.com.au - just put the code JACOBS in at checkout. Or you can hit me up at the next road or MTB race for a sample.

Ride Happy.

*Actually, despite the inherent risk that Easter chocolatiness poses to a climber, my Easter-egg-eating plans ended up being curtailed by FORGETFULNESS. You know who you are.

**I am not an alcoholic. But I do endorse the James Broadway Biodynamic Pinot Training Program, run with some success out of Gertrude St Enoteca in Fitzroy.

Tour of Mersey Valley

We are driving to Launceston airport after the end of a tough tour- the first in the Subaru National Road Series. The VIS team acquitted itself with yellow jerseys to Alex 'Mr Aero' Morgan in the U19 men, and me in the elite women. Unfortunately neither of us won a Subaru. Proper race report to come. For the moment, as you can see, we're smashed. Ride happy.

Crazy 6

A couple of weekends ago, my VIS teammate Chloe 'The Enforcer' McConville and I raced the Crazy 6, a 6-hr MTB enduro put on by the good people at Geelong Mountain Bike Club in the You Yangs. It was awesome; certainly one of most enjoyable races I've done.

We were talked into racing the Crazy 6 by VIS mechanic Ryan Moody (the voice behind the Platypus of Truth), who caught us at a vulnerable moment after the Tour of NZ and suggested we give it a crack. The words 'non-technical', 'good for roadies' and 'steak sandwich' were also used, which secured our commitment. And, if nothing else, knowing that our trusty mechanic would be racing there too filled us with confidence that if we broke something, help wouldn't be far away.

This was my first experience of racing a 6-hour in a team. We chose to ride lap on/lap off so as to stay fresh and to maximise the fun levels. Naturally, I made Chloe go first on the grounds that her biceps were of an appropriate size and strength to beat through the start line bustle. Ryan, meanwhile, had chosen to race the 6hrs solo (and still rode quicker than both of us combined).

The atmosphere at these events is just fantastic. With a mix of solo riders, pairs and threesomes - some taking it seriously, others there for the fun of it - there were loads of people in transition to play with. There is a great feeling of bonhomie at MTB races that you don't get at road races. If you like riding but get a bit intimidated by road racing, get thee to an MTB enduro, pronto.

For the first 4 hours, we trailed the leading women's pair (Trailmix's Jo Williams and Fitzroy Revolution's Amity McSwan) by around 4 minutes. You can read their take on the race here. We didn't talk much, The Enforcer and I, mostly because we spend so much time racing together that we can now communicate via a series of eye twitches. Also, I had told her that if I rode faster than her I would requisition her hot wheelset, which gave us both something to think about.

So anyway, back to us being smashed by Jo and Amity. These girls can ride! Our master strategist Julian (Mr Enforcer) was keeping tabs on the gap and issuing helpful instructions along these lines:

• "Man, you guys are getting SMASHED!"
• "You'd better ride faster. The gap is REALLY big."

After the 4 hour mark, we slowly started pegging back time. Roadies are nothing if not good at pedalling for extended periods. Gradually the gap closed from 4 minutes, to 2:30, to 1:30. At 5:59:20, McConville and Amity appeared together in transition, leaving Jo and I to duke it out over one final lap. Chloe had promised to greet me with a burger with the lot on the finish line if we won, and luckily that burger was not cooked in vain.

So in the end we had a ding-dong battle that made the day exciting, capped off with the legendary GMBC prize goodies and a couple of cool trophies made from carbon fibre. News of Chloe's MTB prowess spread as far as Martin Barras, who promptly offered her a guest spot on the AIS squad for a month of racing in Belgium. And I, in a giddy haze of dirt love, rashly signed up for Tour de Timor in September with the Apollo crew. The Roadie Project continues!

Ride happy.

2012 Marathon Challenge - or Why Adonis Should Be A Mountain Biker

This is a story of unrequited love. And coffee. And mountain biking. Last Sunday I took part in the Marathon Challenge in Avoca put on by Big Hill Events. The Marathon Challenge prides itself on being the toughest mtb marathon in Australia. The 90km 'full' marathon has 2800m of vertical climbing. (To put this in perspective, Mt Hotham is around 1300m vertical.) I opted for the soft option - 65km with 2500m of vertical.

In retrospect, this was perhaps not the sensible way to ease back into training after 3 weeks off. On the other hand, I was excellently tapered.

The plan to enter the marathon was hatched over coffee with a friend at a certain cafe in Kew. I really love this cafe because it serves excellent coffee that is made by the handsomest man in the kingdom of Melbourne. For brevity's sake, let's call him Adonis.

The problem with this cafe is that every time I go there I agree to half-baked plans for adventure purely because I'm so distracted by Adonis. I disappear into a giddy haze of delicious caffeine and unfathomable man-beauty. Don't get me wrong - I am not crazy for this guy. I'm sure in reality he has smelly feet and can't drive a manual and probably cuts his toenails in the bath. He is just a breathtakingly beautiful barista who should be on the catwalks of Milan or off being someone's muse or something. In the words of Derek Zoolander, he is really really ridiculously good-looking.

Anyway, I think it was Niki's idea that we did the MTB marathon. I'm not really sure, I was ordering a coffee at the time.

Niki can agree to half-baked plans like this because she is really really ridiculously good at mountain biking. I, on the other hand, need all the help I can get.

The race itself was well worthy of its reputation. Lots of climbing, some bowel-shaking singletrack descents and a few 'what am I doing?' moments. It was awesome. One thing that I love about MTB races is how friendly everyone is. From the fastest guys to the course marshals, everyone I saw was nice, encouraging and made you feel happy to be there. I think road racing could benefit from a bit of MTB vibe every so often. Special mention must be made of the food stops featuring super-lovely volunteers and Degani bakery goods. (Again, road cycling take note - why can't we have donuts mid-race too?) There was a coffee cart at race HQ too, which was a great touch, although sadly the barista manning it was no Adonis.

The weather was perfect - mid 20s and sunny - and we were lucky to camp at the winery the night before the race. This is the racing equivalent of living on campus when you're at uni - you can roll out of bed 5 mins before the pre-race briefing. Heaven. And although my own report card for the race would read 'room for improvement', I had a ball.

This weekend is the Crazy 6 at You Yangs put on by the good people at GMBC. Get on it.

Ride Happy.

BASE Camp report

The Labour Day long weekend was awesome. I'm all in favour of the union movement if it means that once a year I can get an extra day to go somewhere nice and ride my bike. Since coming back from Tour of NZ I've been enjoying a lovely break off the bike. My body has been struggling with fatigue for a while and a break has been way overdue. So for 2 weeks after I got back from NZ, I put my bike in the corner and didn't touch it. It was heavenly.

Then I started to get twitchy.

The timing was excellent when Marcus Speed (from Perfect Pilates) invited me to join his crew at BASE Camp in Beechworth, VIC, over the long weekend. It was a 3 day multisport training camp that Marcus ran through his coaching business Speed Cycling Systems. Around 30 people came up, of all abilities. I took up my roadie and MTB (yes, these are links to photos of my bikes. They are hot). I also took up my runners and paddling clothes but the riding was so good I never got a chance to use them.

Each day there were myriad options for exhausting yourself and making the most of the region. We'd generally start with a long road ride, then lunch, then maybe a MTB around the Beechworth XC course, or a run or walk around the gorge, then a paddle before dinner. Those who weren't into riding could do pilates, or join a run group, or just sit and enjoy the sunshine with a newspaper. That was the nice thing about it - there was something for everyone, and you could do as much or as little of the organised activities as you liked. If you were super-hardcore like Marcus, you could do all of it. Or if you were soft like me, you'd do the bike bits and spend the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee. There was a mechanic on-site to deal with any bike issues and heaps of spare equipment to use. Plus delicious dinners and desserts all round. We were certainly looked after.

For me, the camp was a perfect way to ease back into training. I was riding because I wanted to, not because I had to, and the good weather and company helped me to remember what I love about riding. My favourite part of the camp though (apart from the food) was being able to spend time with a heap of people I wouldn't ordinarily have met. Some were competitive types who were out to push themselves hard, and others were just there for an active getaway with (or from) the family. At the end of each day, everyone got together for dinner and a drink in the Old Priory garden where we were staying, to share stories from the day. It was awesome.

The next BASE camp will be on the Melbourne Cup long weekend. If you're interested, drop Marcus a line at info@perfectpilates.com.au.

Tour of NZ video #3: Jess Allen's guide to time trial warm-ups

The final instalment of the Ride Happy video collection for 2012 Tour of New Zealand - and some would say the best. White jersey winner Jess Allen takes us through the ins and outs of how to warm up for a time trial when it's raining, pre stage 1. It is unconfirmed whether Jess used this warm-up when she won her world title but it certainly looks a formula for success. Even the Platypus of Truth thinks so.

Cheats, match-fixing and the integrity of sport

Last week, Mark Arbib stepped down from his role as Federal Minister for Sport. It was a role he had held since September 2010. Under his charge, elite sport in Australia flourished. The AOC loved him, largely because he ignored the recommendation of the very-expensive-and-extensively-researched 2009 Crawford Report to stop throwing money at Olympic sports. Instead, Sr Arbib committed $14m to Olympic sports and created the $4m 'Green and Gold Project' aimed exclusively at funding Olympic and Paralympic sports at the high-performance level. He'd be the favourite man in Australian elite sport, if that position were not already taken by Gerry 'Mr Jayco' Ryan.

As he left office, (ex)Senator Arbib wrote an article in Melbourne's Sunday Age reflecting on his role and the challenges facing sport. He stated that, while doping had been the 'great shadow' cast over sport in the 80s and 90s, it is match-fixing which now poses the greatest threat to sports' integrity. Cheating, he said, erodes people's confidence in sport. So long as there is gambling in sport, there will be corruption. Australia is leading the way in fighting corruption in sport at a domestic level,but at an international level there is not yet any comprehensive anti-corruption framework. Arbib called for an international body to be formed to co-ordinate information sharing between governments, sporting bodies and betting providers: this is what we need to properly fight match-fixing.

Corruption in sport is a hot issue. It is a hot issue because people like sports betting. Match-fixing, and the abuse of insider information - both of which distort betting outcomes - undermine the integrity of sport and can involve significant fraud. In sports where betting is prevalent, like AFL or cricket, match-fixing has the potential to cause significant disruption in a market. Globally, the sports betting industry is worth hundreds of billions of dollars: corruption can be profitable and hard to detect.

In most sports, we call match-fixing 'cheating'. The idea of determining the outcome of a sporting event by anything other than athletic ability is abhorrent. So when a football player misses an easy goal, a jockey steers his horse to the outside barrier, or a cricket player bowls nothing but wides, and we find out that they were offered money to do it, we scream blue murder.

Except in cycling.

In cycling, deals are made all the time. And they generally involve money, because cyclists race for money. Riders in a breakaway agree that one will take the intermediate sprints and the other the stage win. Two friends agree that one will win this week and the other the week after. Vinokourov famously (allegedly) offered €100,000 to Alexandr Kolobnev in the final kilometres of last year's Liège-Bastogne-Liège to sit up so that Vino could take the win. At the 2009 Australian road championships, Mick Rogers reportedly offered eventual winner Peter McDonald thousands of dollars to let him ride away on the last lap. When I first started bike racing, my friend rocked up on the start line of a local crit to see three other girls already dividing up the placings and prize money between them.

This kind of fixing is not seen as wrong because it's part of the strategy that earns cycling its reputation as a game of chess on wheels. It doesn't involve an entire team or field. It may not work due to other variables in the race. And, largely, it affects few beyond those people directly involved. The agreements are made between riders on the spot, not pre-meditated. The objective for the rider offering the fix is to get a better result, not to distort a betting outcome. For these reasons, it's difficult to categorise this behaviour as corrupt. But it does affect the outcome of competition. So why do we not mind?

If we look at the two major challenges that Mark Arbib identified in his article - doping and match-fixing - and apply them to cycling, it is clear which one has been the bigger problem. Historically, doping has been the method of choice by which professional cyclists distort competition outcomes. The economic rationalists of the peleton can see that it's easier to make one rider go faster than anyone else than it is to fix agreements with every single cyclist in a 100+ bunch. So the importance of an agreement between two riders on whether or not to sprint fades into insignificance when compared with the fundamental, inarguable wrong of doping.

Until the 1920s, doping was considered a normal part of professional bike racing. As the competitive landscape evolved, doping came to be viewed as detrimental to the integrity of the sport. Now, doping in the professional peleton - if we believe the reports - is becoming less and less prevalent. There are biological passports. There are surprise drug tests. If cycling is not winning the war on doping, it is at least making progress. When - or if - it does win that war, does that mean that the 'gentlemen's agreements' that we currently consider to be a normal part of cycling is the next frontier?

Law-makers in Australia are moving to introduce nationally-consistent legislation criminalising match-fixing in sport. The NSW Law Reform Commission has just proposed an amendment to the NSW Crimes Act which, if passed, would impose criminal penalties on conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event. Under the proposed law, conduct would be illegal if (a) it is undertaken to obtain a financial advantage as a result of betting, and (b) is contrary to the standards of integrity of the sport.

As long as making fixing agreements is 'normal' is cycling - that is, so long as it is not considered contrary to cycling's integrity - then it will be seen as a tactical decision rather than cheating. And until cycling generates the kind of betting revenue that sports like football and cricket do, it is not likely to attract attention from regulators. But when it does, the sport will change. Because it is a fine line between strategy and corruption... and today's gentleman's agreement is tomorrow's conspiracy.

Ride happy.

Tour of NZ wrap up (Part 2): more from the Platypus of Truth

As promised, here is the second video instalment from Tour of NZ, featuring the Platypus of Truth:

Tour of NZ wrap-up (Part 1)

We have just arrived back in Melbourne from Tour of NZ. It was a fantastic tour with an awesome group of chicks (sorry Ryan, you're an honorary chick now!).

 The tour was very hard. Tours are always hard, but this one was HARD. Rain, wind, crashes, splits, long stages, chasing... and more chasing.... It was action aplenty. I have not chewed that much stem in a while.

As the Gillard/Rudd leadership wrangle back home continued to make page 14 news in Palmerston North, many more leadership spills were taking place in the peleton. The yellow jersey got passed around the shoulders of the US national team as they played a game of 'You wear it. No, YOU wear it'. A glorious break with all the major teams' GC riders got up the road on stage 4 which gave us all a chance to sit up and be Euro as the gap blew out to 8 mins and Jorg repeated his traditional threat of neutralising the stage.

Team VIS was in a strong but stealthy position as a relative underdog against the likes of the Italian, USA, NZ, Chinese and Japanese national teams, GreenEdge and AIS. We were, however, comfortable in the knowledge that we had, in aggregate, the tallest team in the peleton and also were the only team with an emergency platypus (aka the Platypus of Truth) on board. This gave us a quiet confidence.

I don't think I've ever worked in such a committed and professional team.* Every day the girls pulled out something special. Jo 'The Flying Glutard' Hogan was our designated GC rider and was in awesome form the whole week, finishing 4th on GC. Loren 'Dial-A-Sprinter' Rowney showed no fear of the international peleton in winning stage 2 and claiming the green Sprint Classification jersey. Jess 'Giggles' Allen raced her first senior UCI tour like Jens Voigt, chasing down everything that moved and leaving enough in reserve to claim the U23 classification white jersey. The fact that she still has another 4 years in the U23 classification is scary! Chloe 'The Disruptor' McConville showed why she is one of the best team riders in the country by spending every day at the front, bringing back breaks, controlling moves and effectively setting up the VIS' move into the green and white jerseys. The only thing that we were missing was our team race brain Kendelle Hodges, who is recovering from glandular fever.

Our management, Donna 'DS' Rae-Szalinski and Ryan 'The Emotional One' Moody were the glue that kept us together all week. They kept us smiling, learning and committed to working hard. I think they worked harder than we did.

There were lots of colourful jerseys to be won during the tour but no prize was more coveted than the Ride Happy award, presented by team management (aka Donna and Ryan) each evening.

The award was given to the rider who had made Donna's heart rate hit 200bpm during that day's stage. The winner also got to wear a splendid blue headband at dinner. All the other teams pretended they weren't jealous about it but we could tell they were.

Jess kindly gave an interview to the Platypus of Truth after her epic win:

I found the tour pretty tough. Tour riding is my favourite type of racing, but my body was pretty wrecked. I've had a difficult few weeks of feeling cooked and in a perma-box that no amount of salty treats will fix. Not that I haven't tried...

I've got 2 more videos to put up from NZ but right now I'm going to bed. Stay tuned.

*Even though nothing can top the 2010 NTID Tour of NZ crew for fun... I have to say this is a tie for first place.

Tour of NZ stage 4

Today was a ripper day for the VIS crew. It went to plan perfectly, which is a rare thing for bike races. Too much to write, but very briefly: Jo got in the perfect break with GC contenders from all the major teams. Luckily this meant that the main bunch was happy to sit up and let the break blow out to 8mins. Jess led out Loren perfectly for the intermediate sprint which means that Loren now has an unassailable stranglehold on the green jersey. Then we hatched a plan in the bunch to launch Jess into a break to get the 19 seconds she needed to take the young rider jersey.

Preventing the Chinese national team from closing the gap to Jess was not easy (they had the white young rider jersey) but luckily this kind of shit is what McConville lives for and she shut everything down. Now Jess is in the white jersey, Loren is in the green and Jo is sitting 4th on GC. What a great day. Tomorrow we are out to defend the white and move Jo up.

A big shout out to Amy Bradley who put it on the line today in a break and ran 2nd in the stage. Great work and a well deserved result.

And another shout out to Grace Sulzberger who was taken down in a crash today and broke her wrist. She'll be back stronger than ever but right now please send any spare healing thoughts you have her way.

Ride happy.