Troy Bayliss Invitational Race Report by Alex Chubb
Gusting winds, biting cold and jagged snow top peaks cast a shadow on the forlorn frost stricken riders as they fought their way up the final climb. Thankfully this is a scene from this year’s Giro and sets a stark contrast to the beautifully sunny day which greeted the DHBC racing riders as they arrived in the small country town of Canungra, in south eastern Queensland. According to Wikipedia Canungra normally has a population of 746, but today that number was swollen somewhat, in quantity rather than weight, with just shy of one hundred elite cyclist for the Inaugural Troy Bayliss invitational classic. Featuring some of Australia’s top National Road Series teams including Budget Fork Lifts, the race was always going to be challenging.
The course was set through rolling, windswept terrain culminating in a 20km final climb up O’Reilly’s summit, for a total distance of 125kms. DHBC racing sent four riders to contest the event, James Fowler, Bill Bolton, Chris Hageman and Alex Chubb.
With a few words from the man Troy Bayliss himself, including a vague mention of the phrase ‘being careful of the Paris-Roubaix section’, the peloton rolled out. After the normal kilometre or two neutral zone the attacks began to come and with that the pace was on, with the average speed for the first two hours in excess of 43km/h. The ‘Paris-Roubaix’ section turned out to be a number of short stretches of potholed gravel road works, which proceeded to further widen the gaps in the bunch. The DHBC Racing riders managed to stay towards the front and kept out of the affray at the rear of the bunch, with large number of the field being shelled early on.
James and Bill unfortunately got caught out in a split just before the eighty kilometre mark and Alex got dropped off several kilometres after over extending himself in the wind. Chris Hageman remainrd safely ensconced in the rapidly dwindling peloton as it approached the final climb up to the summit at O’Reilly’s. The early slopes saw more riders dispatched straight away as the heads of state began to dance on the pedals and increase the tempo thanks Paul and Phil. A quick look down at the speedo in the following van revealed a steady climbing speed of thirty five on the lower slopes. A breakaway which had established itself on the flat roads hung on to a handful of seconds, with riders scrambling bridge across the gap.
By the time the second half of the ascent arrived a breakaway of four had just short of a minute on the chasing reminisce of the peloton which contained less than twenty riders. The chief commissarie cracking voice could be heard over the race radio, calling the rider’s numbers as they slipped off the back of the bunch. “Number 4, Budget forklifts”, “Number 51 GPM racing”, we shouted in the van praying (in an atheist way) not to hear number 10. The final kilometre of the climb kicked up to 12%+ gradient, and this was just enough to unhitch Chris. He crossed the line a handful of seconds after the main bunch, finishing in 12th place overall. Below is a shot furiously taken from the window of our team van, with the remaining 0.1% battery life of our camera.
It was a fantastic result for both Chris and the team overall, with Bill and James fighting on to finish the stage despite getting dropped. The next major aim for the DHBC Racing team is the Santos North west Tour, running from Wed 19th June through to Sun 22nd, featuring 5 tough stages over 4 days. The team will also be out racing local events including Heffron Park and Wagga Wagga road race, so make sure to say hello.
Given this is our team’s first year on the NRS circuit and many readers mightn't be familiar with racing I thought I might try and have an observations from the road section at the end of the reports, so to kick us off.
Observations
• Racing cyclist can eat a lot. Dinner for four riders the night before the race consisted of the following: 2kgs of pasta, 2 blocks of haloumi, two loafs of bread, a chicken, a kilo of salad, a pumpkin, and two jars of pesto. Plus chocolate for dessert.
• Protour team managers must be crazy drivers in order to keep up with the riders on the twisting mountain roads. We were having enough trouble on the way up.
• A team Soigneur is worth his or her weight in gold. We were lucky enough to have Simon Bolton on this occasion, who despite his hatred of automatic vehicles made a fantastic driver and a brilliant chef. Rumour has it he may soon be offered a job at Team Sky.
Till next time. Alex.