By Neil van der Ploeg (Twitter @neilvdp) I?m a little scared of this one. The last few race reports have been reporting on some relatively small weekends compared to what?s just happened but have turned into some absolute monsters. A few team mates have already admitted they no longer read my ramblings. But more importantly, if I don?t change my tact, I will be stuck here for days! It?s easy for you guys; you can just stop reading at anytime. You may not have even got THIS far. But I?m the writer, I can?t just stop. If I stopped, then this report would cease to exist and you would be reading something that was never created in the first place! I can?t risk creating such a paradox, who knows what could happen?! The entire Cosmo could implode? or explode, either way it?s bad. So I am now? COMMITED!
This is me, reporting in! So the event was the first NRS (National Road Series) event for search2retain for the 2012 season, the ?Tour of Toowoomba?. We had a full team of six riders heading up to Queensland to compete in the event that included search2retain riders from all over the country! We had Matt King (Darwin), Cam Bayly (Adelaide), Tom Donald (recently moved to sunshine coast), Luke Fetch (Melbourne), Jake Klajenblat (Melbourne) and myself (Albury). An interesting bunch of fellows I must say, quite a mixture of personalities but drawn together by a common goal; to DOMINATE this bike race!!
The FULL Team line-up for Tour of Toowoomba.From Left to right we have Matt King, Luke Fetch, Jake Klajenblat, Neil vdp, Cam Bayly and Tom Donald! The tour included 5 stages over 4 days, all long road stages and to my delight a team time trial! I love team sports, which is one of the main reasons I?m doing more road these days and a team time trial is about as team as it gets! The action started at the Melbourne airport. On arrival, Fetchy informed me that he was ?shitting himself? yet again, courtesy of the
This is Fetchy. T.V. show ?flight crash investigations?. Luke filled me in that without fail, he finds himself watching the show on free to air T.V. the night before every flight over the past few years. He believes he is cursed. We touched down safely in Brisbane, which to Fetchy felt like a miracle. We rendezvoused with Trent, who was debuting as team mechanic. He is much taller than his voice suggests over the phone, that is unless he?s using it to tell you he?s bloody tall, in which case he?d be spot on! Stage one was disappointing. We did not dominate as planned. While we all rode quite well individually at certain times in the race, on the whole we didn?t ride as a team. It?s hard to explain team racing in cycling if you?re already into the sport but I will attempt! It?s kind of like a whacky and chaotic game of chess. In this race there were 24 teams of six riders, no individuals. Some teams only have pawns (a little harsh, but true), some have a mixture of pawns, knights, castles etc and some teams have a line up of exclusively good pieces! The teams full of the good pieces will more often win the race and beat the teams of weaker pieces, but they have to play the game smart, using all of their pieces and to their teams strengths. If they blast away and throw pieces forward willy nilly they can easily lose. We had a strong team, good pieces and a good plan but we didn?t ride like a team and we didn?t win. After a team meeting and analysis of stage one, we were extremely keen to make amends. If nothing else we were going to ride like a team! We did a far better job than the previous day. Cam Bayly gave the KOM?s* a real crack but got 4th in almost every KOM accumulating a total of zero points? A bit of a rip off for his efforts but it was a first class attempt. Good signs for things to come. The stage finished with an unholy mother of a climb that was around 7km long with some MEGA steep sections. For those who use GPS?s, I?m talking 15%+. My mother (my real, holy mother not the bloody climb) couldn?t drive the trailer to the top it was so steep! The climb suited Cam to tee and was riding in third wheel until about half way up, he then blew and suffered like a dog until the top. The best placed rider from the team was 28th and 3 minutes down, so not a great climb for any search riders.
Bad luck Tom! And just for the record, Tom is actually one of the most skilled in the peleton, coming from a background of dirt jumping! The most significant event for the day however, happened on the descent. Remember how we left the trailer down the bottom? Well that meant we had to ride down that mega steep descent. ?Shit happens? from time to time and unfortunately it happened to Tom. An error of judgement saw him have a crash on the way down, landing on the metal armour rail on one of the hairpins. Firstly people thought he must have broken a bone but as it turns out he just put a massive cut in his arm. I won?t lie; it was pretty gory. It looked like some one had chopped into his upper arm with an axe, or sword or something. I could see his deltoid pretty much cut through entirely? not good. But luckily there were no other complications so in six weeks he will be back on the road. Until then he is confined to the indoor trainer. A massive dampener on the day to say the least! The next day included two stages, a 15km team time trial and then a road race.? We used Tom as inspiration to do well because we knew how much he would have loved to have been involved. I?m sure we didn?t end up going as fast as we would have with him on the road. He was riding really strong and is pretty much the ultimate team player! We rode bloody hard and finished around 30 seconds from the top team which we were very happy with. To finish that close with no TT helmets, deep dish wheels and one rider short shows that we have some bloody strong legs in the team. And when Matt King (the man who beat Tony Martin in a time trial!) has a few more weeks training under his belt the domination could begin! The road race was surprisingly hard! Narrow roads, strong cross winds much hillier terrain than the profile suggested made racing very interesting. The lowlights were two flat tyres when the race was super fast and in the gutter. The highlight was Fetchy being super aggressive near the end of the race and creating a two man breakaway with Darren Rolfe (RBS Morgans). Unfortunately Fetchy lost contact on one of the final climbs and Rolfe went on to win solo! Damn. So close, yet again.
Some of the team before the tour in the new kit! The final stage of the race was a criterium with a square shape. The gradients of the sides of the square went something like this: Flat, down, flat, up. The hills mean you can?t just sit in like in other crits. We calculated that if I won both intermediate sprints I would come in second in the sprint classification. This would get the team $400 and some exposure. I was having a great day and managed to get them both and then slipped away in a three man break immediately following the second sprint. In the break with me were Cam Peterson andHaydenBrooks, both from RBS Morgans (that team again!). As in the day before, I thought we were in with a great chance of a stage win and at least a podium. It was an interesting position to be in. On one hand I needed to work really hard to make sure we weren?t caught by the peleton, but on the other hand if I worked too hard I would almost certainly get worked over by the other two guys in the break. We got a big gap on the peleton and with three to go I thought we had it. I was cautious not to dig too deep on my turns. Surprisingly, we were caught on the last lap! Gutted. Yet again so close but not quite!
Youngster of the team: Jake. Soon to be off to Belgium for a stint over there! This guy is about as keen as it gets. Always great to have around! And there we are! Completed. Weeks later but no paradox created, the Cosmo lives on! Despite the 1500+ word count I actually think this report is brief considering the volume of material I had to report on. But regardless, that?s it for now! Thankyou people for reading and thankyou search2retain for the chance to compete in these races. Until next time! Neil *King Of the Mountains: Every day, the riders who cross the main climbs first are awarded with special ?king of the mountain? points. The rider with the most points at the finish of the tour wins the King Of the Mountain classification.
