Victorian Championships 2002

Saturday 24 August, 2002      Victorian Individual Time Trial Championships – 25km – 1^st

Conditions: 15ºC sunny, slight northerly breeze

The state individual time trial championships were held in Dookie, in North Eastern Victorian, on a mild sunny winters day.  The course was an out and back loop on a long flat country road.  There was a gentle rise over the first kilometre, followed by a one kilometre gradual descent, while the remainder of the course was almost completely flat.

The weather was perfect for time trialling, almost too perfect, and I was secretly hoping the wind would pick up to help sort out the “men out from the boys”.  The road, however, felt really dead due to the rough bitumen paving.  So this surface made the course feel a bit tougher.

I was seeded last as I had won the previous 2 consecutive titles.  We were started at 1 minute intervals with Emma Carney (two time world triathlon champion) starting second last.  Claire Baxter, the other rider to watch, started 1 minute ahead of Emma.

I was riding a new Giant time trial bike that I had only rolled around on for 20 minutes yesterday, so I was keen to see how it would feel in competition.  I started out relatively hard, getting my speed up to 46km/hr.  My eyes were watering from the speed and I couldn’t even see Carney in front of me.  I focused on finding my rhythm, thinking about maintaining a comfortable cadence and pushing a gear that a caused constant but bearable ache through my quads.

Within minutes, I knew the bike was perfectly set up for me.  For those wanting to know the technical aspects of the Giant, I was riding a large superlight aluminium alloy TCR aero, with dura-ace running ensemble, 175mm carbon cranks, a Zipp carbon front wheel and a 4 spoke carbon Corrima back wheel.  This bike weighed almost nothing at all and just flew along.

As I approached the turn around point, I could see that I had started to gain time on Carney and Baxter.  As I stopped pedalling through the U-turn, I accidentally back pedalled and my chain dropped onto the small ring.  In my haste, it took me 2 or 3 goes to get it back into the big ring, causing me to lose valuable time.  There was a slight headwind on the return and I struggled to hold it on 39km/hr.  Everything was starting to really hurt.

With only a few kilometres to go, I counted Carney at about 45 seconds in front.  In the gradual climb up towards the finish, I gave it everything.  I could see Carney climbing out of the seat, but I stayed on the aero bars, pushing as hard as I could.  I crossed the line 19 seconds after Carney, giving me the victory by 41 seconds.  Baxter held on to 3^rd spot, finishing 1 minute down.