In 2010, Aaron Eynaud and Trent Morey juggled their cycling with the more important goal of achieving the highest Year 12 result possible.  Trent challenged himself further by sitting his exams with a broken left wrist and broken right thumb due to a forward dive off his bike in October.

Since Year 12 is now finished, both riders (only 18 years old) have been able to focus more on their cycling, and on the weekend, both raced in the U23 Australian Road Championships.  Aaron finished 6 laps of the gruelling course before succumbing to fatigue and withdrawing.  Trent finished the race with a top 50 result out of a field of 160 riders.

Here is Trent’s report.

At 120 kilometers, the U23 Mens Road Race can’t be considered “long” in terms of distance, but it is certainly one of the most demanding courses I have ever raced on. Straight from the start is a steep 2.5 kilometer climb. Following this is a couple of minutes of flat riding, then a 5 kilometer downhill section. Each lap of this is 10k’s, meaning that the whole race is 12 laps. 12 times up the hill, with a strong northerly wind and early morning heat make for an interesting day.

Correspondingly, anyone who wants to last past the halfway point has to think about saving energy: sitting away from the wind, maintaining position on the climb, ect. Drinking each lap was important, and I found myself needing a new bidon every second lap. Each lap there were a couple of short opportunities to take in some fuel, the flat area atop the climb and the beginning of the downhill section along the highway towards the finishing straight.

Very early on, a group of strong riders went clear of the main bunch. Being such a hard course, there was not great incentive for the main bunch to give chase early on. I found myself sitting comfortably in the main group, enjoying the easy first couple of laps. Before long, the break had a 6 minute advantage over us, and the race commentator even questioned whether the race was all over. But halfway through, the pace lifted, and it was immediately evident which riders hadn’t been taking care of themselves in the heat.

The 6th lap up the hill had the peleton stretched out at over 25 k/hr on the steepest parts of the climb. I managed to hang onto the tail of the race, but could already feel the fatigue. On the 8th lap, I found myself and a couple of dozen other riders struggling to keep the leaders of the peleton in sight, and the gap to the break was down significantly. Working with some other riders, I nearly managed to get onto the back of the peleton on the following lap, but my race was effectively over after 2/3 of the total distance. Complications to my spring training meant that I was not at the fitness I would have liked, but I was nonetheless pleased to eventually finish the race on my first attempt (albeit in the gruppetto!). U23’s is definitely a step up from U19 racing, and I look forward to being able to improve my performance on this course in the years to come.

Coming straight from a disappointing performance at the Bay Crits the previous week, I am grateful for the support, help, encouragement and bidon-passing from Bob and Helen Kelly (and Dad), who were in up there in Buninyong for the day. Also, a big thank-you to the sponsors of the Macdonald-Shaw team, being Macdonald Shaw, Walkingshaw Performace, Fitzroy Cycles and Cummquott.