Black Rock to Mornington

Nothing better than having a great ride on a day when all your colleagues are hard at work and on top of that the weather is just perfect.

The day started off foggy although by the time I'd got myself out the door it was blue skies all round where I lived. My Powertap track wheel needed a battery changed so being an organised person I bought the batteries first before driving to Spoke(n) to get Ben to help with the change over, only to find that I'd bought the wrong sort of battery..tut sigh. I'd forgotten that the track hub is one of the originals and not an SL (later version and the one I used to have on my road bike).

Proud mother side note Ben and Alex were in the BMC 100km race on Sunday. Ben was 5th overall, 1st in Vets and Alex was 40th overall,20th in Elite. Alex has a wee problem with his rear disc brake bolts...they fell out due to him to not applying the locktite. He had to do a quick repair stealing from the front disc brake and sharing out the remaining bolts between the 2 wheels.. Alex is off to Europe in June to compete in the European MTB Orienteering Championships and a few other World Ranking Events while Ben has a date in May with the Central Aus Bike Challenge around Alice Springs .

Off to Black Rock then for a 2-3 hr ride with 8-10 min efforts of >200 watts x 3. Reckon every time I decided to do an effort the lights turned red and when I was cruising they were all green. I'm due to do that session again next Monday but think I'm gunna hafta go to my "secret" training place near Macedon in order to get a fairly flat road with no lights...either that or Benalla. Despite this, the ride was really great. I was surprised how many cyclists were out, there were even a few bunches. When I'd finished I was glad that no training has been scheduled for Tuesday and so the next session was 36 hours away.

I've managed to find quite a few TT's to race over winter and will end up with 2/month although during July I could race one each week if I was of a mind to do so. I'm not that stupid; my recovery rate ain't that great. My first up TT is mid May at Benalla on a course I know well.. almost dead flat and a shocker if windy.

I'm in the process of contacting my peer group of road racers from Germany, UK, Czech Republic and France as next year there'll be 7 regular attendees at the World road champs who will be in the 65-69 class. I'm gunna try and apply a bit of pressure to get us a class since currently the oldest female class is 60+. Wish me luck! The UCI is noted for speed that makes grass growing over winter seem fast and for being a boys club.

The omnium looms and there are now 12 women entered (and 35 men)...I was just musing...only the women and older men get to race the same distance for their pursuit in the omnium as they do in normal comp, ie 2000m. Perhaps it should be 6 laps instead of 8?