One of our Kelly Cycle Coaching athletes prepared this report on his recent trip to the Tour Down Under.

Adelaide trip – by Ben Andrews

It was the time of the year that I always look forward to, the Tour Down Under. I was going to my 10th year starting in 2003. We had booked the caravan park where we always stay in Hackney. For those who have never been to the Tour Down Under the caravan park in Hackney is about a 10min ride away from the Tour Village and where the pro’s stay at the Hilton.

While in Adelaide I had to ride one of the biggest races for the track season for me, the NJTS, which stand for National Junior Track series. Racing started at 5pm so I had to arrive at 4 for warm up. The night’s racing included a Venue Blaster, Kieran, Elimination, two-lap sprint e.g. like a Kieran and finally a graded scratch race. All of these include finals, so it was a long night finishing at 11.30 pm.  I rode well in all of the events.  The elimination was one of my best. I rode the whole race staying up the front but not too close to the front to have to do work.  In the second last sprint I was stuck and had nowhere to go, I could see as we came up the line if I did not do anything that I would be eliminated. So using a trick that I learnt from Helen, throwing my bike up between two other wheels and pipped the kid on the line. In the end I just missed out going to the final by one place.

During the trip I got to see and meet many great cyclists, such as Allesandro Ballan, Cameron Myer and Robbie McEwen.  One great thing about the Tour Down Under that you can’t do in any other cycling Tour is ride with the pro’s. I had two lucky experiences including riding with BMC to Glenelg and along the beach road and back. Also with the Saxo Bank team and Astana from stage 6 at Willuga Hill back to Adelaide.

During my week in SA I got to go on some great training rides. These included riding to one of the King of the Mountains with Bob and Helen, and the rest of the guys who were there; to Stirling through the Adelaide hills and finally my favourite training ride while we were there was the 110km ride that we did before the pro’s rode the course. This ride followed exactly where the pro’s went going over the K.O.M (king of the mountain).  We started our ride at 7 am in the morning.  We made our way out of Adelaide to the first hill. This hill was only 10 km out of town. It was not a K.O.M but it was short and steep at 3km long.  After making out way over this hill we had about a 50 to 60 km ride before hitting the next K.O.M.

I was also fortunate to ride a criterium while in Adelaide.  This crit was around a very tight course, which had a speed bump in it.  The race was hard and short, with a finishing time of 30 min. I was tired from a ride I had done that morning in the hills so was not feeling the best for a tough race.  After a quick start the race was on the way. There was an attack on the first lap breaking up the bunch making a first bunch and a second bunch. After about 15 min of hard racing there was a hard attack that opened up a gap from me to the field. I worked hard chasing by myself before two other boys caught me. We rode together and tried to attack 3 times but were unable to get away. I attacked on the final lap and tried to stay away but was unfortunately caught on the last lap.  I think it was a good ride given I did a hard ride in the hills earlier that day.

I would like to say thanks to everyone including my family for making this trip possible. I would also like to say thanks to Bob and Helen for taking out all the group rides.