Day 2

Beautiful blue skies and a warmish 26C was the order of day 2.  The riders legs were a little heavy bit a spin out towards Harietteville soon everyone was feeling ready for some challenges.  Each rider with bike and two bidons was weighed last night with no explanation given as to why Bob and Helen needed this information.  Also, Helen often spoke French to the boys to help show them what it is like in Europe when language barriers will be part of the cycling experience.

For the first section of today’s training, the riders were split into 2 groups and told to climb to the gatehouse about 20km up Mt Hotham.  The faster (& lighter) group had a 3min handicap over group 1.  Both groups joined up with only 1km to go which left the handicappers feeling good about the next challenge that lay ahead.

The guys descended Mt Hotham and headed towards Tawonga Gap.  Helen drove ahead to prepare the next challenge with a few of the CharterMason team looking somewhat apprehensive.

Bob and Helen had prepared a handicapped uphill individual time trial.  The handicapping was based on the riders total weight (ie rider plus bike), the riders power at threshold so we could calculate each riders power to weight ratio, but other factors including gravity, the gradient of the climb and the length of the time trial course were also used in the calculations.  Some thanks needs to go to Dr Dan Dwyer who helped Kelly Cycle Coaching develop a spreadsheet to assist in calculating each rider’s relative advantage / disadvantage up this climb.

There were interesting and impressive results with some heavier athletes (with a lower power to weight) riding faster than their lighter compatriots.

Next it was back to Porepunkah and straight out past our accommodation to the base of Mt Buffalo for a second time trial.  This one definitely hurt a few of the riders who thought training was finished.

The afternoon session consisted of core exercises with Team Hale narrowly beating Team Wills.  For the record, Team Hale collectively punched out 227 push ups, 554 star jumps, 8 wheel barrow journeys around the river’s edge, (which as hilarious to watch), 43 sit ups throwing a 2lt bottle after each sit up and 88 step ups.  To recover from this core work, the boys did some river exercise.  They were rather boisterous, with screams of laughter coming from Coach Bob and boys as they dragged each other upstream against the current for about 1km.  Unfortunately, they disrupted a fisherman who thought he had found a quiet spot to find a fish.  The boys marched by him, mumbling their apologies to the frowning fisherman as he pulled out his rod and patiently waited.

Young Junior Cummquott (aka James Cummings) who takes after his father in terms of agility stumbled and fell on a rock.  The cut on his kneecap looked a little too deep for a bandaid.  Helen used her Level 2 first aid knowledge and washed it with saline, put a compression bandage on him and dragged him off to the Bright Medical Centre.  He was crying uncontrollably and concerned his injury was life threatening – NOT!!!  The doctor decided to put a stitch in it to help it heal, although secretly we know he hopes it scars as it will make him look tough.

The evening session consisted of analysing the time trial results and discussing what makes a rider a good time triallist.  Next came the fun part – mock radio interviews.  To make it more lifelike, we found an audience by asking some holiday makers in the caravan park to sit and watch the boys get interviewed.  To make it more European, Helen did two of the interviews in French and German, throwing in some heavily accented English words so the boys understood the questions being asked of them.

Day 3

Today was a long day out through the foothills of Yackandandah and Beechworth.  We split the boys into 3 groups and gave them a 20km team trial.  The middle group was handicapped 3mins over the front group, and the last group started another 4mins behind.  We decided to continue the time trial until the front group was caught, much to the delight of all the riders.  All riders carried radios today so we could give them instant feedback and encourage them through the harder sections of the ride.  It was also a valuable safety tool to warn them of overtaking traffic.

We set up 5 feed zones during the ride to give the riders practice at taking a bottle at speed.  Each feed got better and by the last feed, no-one dropped a bottle.

Once back at Porepunkah, the stronger boys did a 30km motor pace session, followed by a much needed soak of the legs in the Oven’s river.

The CharterMason team helped wind down the camp by sharing some pizza’s by the pool.  Bob and Helen watched the pizza’s get devoured in a matter of minutes.  Hungry boys!!

Below is Junior Cummquott’s report on how he ‘enjoyed’ his time in the Kelly cycling van today, recuperating from his knee cap injury.

Day 3: Wednesday – Report by James Cummings

Day three commenced with an early start, a tough task for the tired and fatigued bodies of the CharterMason team. Unfortunately, due to last night’s “recovery” antics, involving power walking upstream in a slipstream formation, in which team mates pulled turns at the front so that fellow teammates such as the infamous “neck cramping” Bryce, could draft behind and hide from the aggressive current. Some fell victim to the malicious rocks which lay beneath the tranquil waters of the Ovens River. I, myself, fell victim which resulted in a single stitch in my knee, thus, hindering my ability to ride today and causing me to sit in the van with bob for today’s training, possibly incurring more psychological pain than physiological pain in my leg.

Although the day in the van was needed to rest after a week at schoolies, it did not do justice to the guilt which was thrust upon me while watching my teammates compete in a 25km team time trial against each other at speeds approaching 50+km/h. Whilst my teammates struggled at the time trial under the mercilessly scorching summer sun, I guilefully sat watching, in the air-conditioned, leather seated van, pondering whether it would be worse to be out there with them, rather than sitting in the van listening to “uncle” bob and big Al’s horrific jokes, which entertained themselves and no one else.

After already enduring a gruelling 100km’s through Victoria’s Alpine Mountainous Region, not to mention Helen’s added “detour” from the main road which ended with a steep burg (not the words the boys used) at the end, Bob decided he wanted to train the boys hand-eye coordination (which some boys lacked) by grabbing bottles to replicate the feed zone like in the Tour de France. The Ballarat Boy “Whitie”, who seemed to be the most incompetent at the task, decided to disregard Bob’s metaphor to be successful, which was to “catch the bottle, like catching an egg” and adopt his own method of replicating the famous Mike Tyson’s right hook, which resulted in two broken bottles and broken dignity.

Whilst over the course of the week the boys have suffered due to Bob’s abnormal training regime, as the training camp concludes, we as a cohort have a hint of sadness grow upon us, as we realize we will eventually separate from our second parents (Bobby and Helen) and return to our grumpy originals (involuntarily).

James “bling” Cummings