Anna is pretty good at finding the words which express how we experience cycling. This is from her short piece about the Australia Day ride up Mt Nebo (& back):

John and I turned up the pace and launched the rest of the descent in the dog, smashing it (and each other!) down the hill. It was a gleeful pain, and one you really have to want to inflict upon yourself, but awesome fun nonetheless.
via Caffeine Fuelled Cyclemania: Australia Day Neebzles.

My ride was something like that too. And that’s why the ride back down Nebo is just as hard as going up, but in a different way. Anna and JohnP and a couple of others rolled into the cafe at The Gap a few minutes after my group, and Anna sure looked like she had done some work! JP, on the other hand, always looks fresh as a daisy.

A great morning on the bike.

Me, Emma, Ant, Shane & Les, at the finish of the Midnight Century.

Often, looking back on a good experience, it’s hard to know where it started, or where the idea came from.

On Sunday, I did the Audax Midnight Century, a 160km ride which starts in Ipswich, and goes through Yamanto, Rosewood, Grandchester, Laidley, Forest Hill, Coominya, Fernvale, Glamorganvale, Marburg, Rosewood (again), Thagoona, and Walloon, returning finally to the start.

And the idea came from Emma via a text: “I’m going to do the audax midnight century on the 27th, have u done this ride before?”

My instant response was: “Never done it, always wanted to. Can I tag along?”

And so Emma and I and about 50 other mad cyclists, all decked out with masses of reflectivity and bikes ablaze with lights and back-up lights, gathered in the car park of a leagues club in Ipswich just before midnight on Saturday night.

I knew Les and Shane from my South Bank bunch would be there, and I knew there would be a group from Epic Cycles, where Emma works. But as well, in the crowd, there were sometime SBB riders Wes and Rob, my old football mate David King, a rider named Grant, who Ernie & I rode with on the ‘Wonders of Glorious Mee’ a couple of years ago, and mtbdirt forum friend Troy.

I wish I had taken a picture of Troy’s bike, which had amazing fibre-optic glowing cable along several tubes of his touring bike’s frame.

So I was busy greeting people left and right all over the car park.

Emma said, with a tiny hint of sarcasm: “Andrew, you know everyone.”

So event organiser Dino gave us a quick briefing, and off we went. My plan was to keep an eye on my SBB friends Les and Shane, but I was always going to ride with Emma. By the way, Emma doesn’t presently own a road bike, so she was doing the event on her single-speed commuter bike!

The peloton of 50 was altogether through Ipswich, and briefly onto the Cunningham highway, before the turn-off to Amberley. I was right behind Les and Shane, and talking to David King. I was pretty sure that Emma and Anthony (one of the Epic crew) were right behind me.

But I was wrong. I looked over my shoulder a few minutes later, and realised that the bright headlight behind belonged to somebody I didn’t know. Emma and Anthony were a few second further back, so I rolled along till they caught me. We made good time towards Rosewood, occasionally picking up riders who were dropping back from the front group.

Rosewood to Grandchester we added a few to our group, and by the time we hit the climb of a small range between Grandchester and Laidley there would have been five or six of us.

Somehow, I’m not sure how, Emma powered over the range on her 42×16, and was only a few metres behind me at the top. Into Laidley and we picked up a few more riders.

I should mention at this stage that Anthony, who is a chirpy kind of character, was doing an awesome job of being navigator for our group of three, and anyone else who was tacked on with us. I had looked carefully at the online map before heading off, so early on I had no great need to look at the cue sheet. But Ant was calling out every turn, as it was written.

We got to Forest Hill, for the first rest stop after 56 km, about 2.15 am.

I was enjoying the experience of doing a long ride at night, something I’ve never done before. Probably the longest night ride I had done until this one would have been two hours at the most. At night, on the country roads, with the Ayups piercing the gloom, it felt like we were going quite fast, even when we were just spinning along. The evening was cool, and a couple of times I wondered whether I should have brought along arm-warmers or a vest. But I hadn’t, so it was just a case of keep riding to get warm.

We milled around at the Forest Hill rest stop. Les and Shane were still there, taking photos and posting to Twitter. So when we rolled out, they were with us, making a group of five.

But everyone else must have rolled out of the rest stop as well, within five minutes of us. We picked up a group or two, and others tacked on the back, and pretty soon a peloton of 25-30 riders was rolling along, red lights blinking everywhere. Les and I were setting a tempo on the front on nice flat roads, as we crossed over the Warrego Highway at Plainlands and headed towards Coominya.

With such a big group, Les was keen for people to take turns, and when that happens, the pace varies quite a bit.

Suddenly I got a loud call from Anthony: “Andrew! Emma’s dropping back from this group.”

So I pulled out into the right hand lane, and the three of us went to the back of the bunch. Emma of course protested that she was fine, and would be happy to ride on at her own pace. No doubt true, but it was also the case that Ant and I were happy riding as a group of three. So for a while we sat on the back of the big group, but eventually after one surge at the front we let them go.

After more than three and half hours in the saddle we were through Coominya and we hit the t-junction to turn east onto the Brisbane Valley highway. Emma had a 3-hour battery on her Ayup head light, so we stopped for a battery swap at the corner.

I ventured the opinion that from this turn-off to the Wivenhoe dam wall it was all downhill. Anthony had a different view. He was right and I was wrong, but the road did trend downwards overall for quite a few km. Really.

Fernvale came into sight around 4.30 am, and with it the gentlest shower of rain. At the Fernvale rest stop, Dino’s crew had put on a chicken & pasta and vegetable soup so thick you eat it with a fork. Just the perfect thing at that moment.

The Fernvale stop is 106km, with less than 55km to go. Once again, Shane and Les had waited for us, and this time they decided to ride with us till the end. I think the lure of Anthony’s navigating was the main reason.

We were averaging just over 25km/h for the whole ride, which on a single-speed is a lot more than respectable … its bloody awesome.

Emma on the singlespeed, 40km to go

The road from Fernvale to Glamorganvale is a bit up and down, and it has a dead chip-seal surface. The sun was coming up on our left shoulder as we rode along. Les and Shane were on the front of the group, and Emma and Ant and I sat in behind them. I kept an eye on Em to make sure the pace was right. But Les is very experienced at keeping things cool, and anytime he sensed a gap opening up, he would moderate his pace straight away.

There’s one good hill just before Rosewood. Shane charged up the hill – there was a lone rider ahead of us to chase! Emma’s normally strong on hills anyway, and yet again I was amazed at how she handled what was quite a testing climb. It was Anthony who was off the back of the group at the top.

We re-grouped in Rosewood for the final run home. Les and I jumped on the front, and I will admit that the last 25 km took us well less than an hour. Everyone’s legs were hurting but as the finish line approached more attention was focussed on navigating our way home and on the impending breakfast.

And so we made it. Photos were taken, a very hearty breakfast was consumed, including several people having bowls of Froot Loops after the hot food.

On the way back to Brisbane, Emma and I had an eventful time which included an RACQ tow truck, but that’s not a story for a cycling blog.

The Audax Midnight Century was a wonderful experience. Firstly there’s just the strangeness of the whole idea. It’s not something you would ever do in the normal course of events, stay up all night riding your bike.

Secondly, there’s the communal aspect. Audax riders are hardy, experienced riders, quite often slightly eccentric. And huge bike nerds. I can’t entirely exclude myself from some of those descriptors.

But of course, finally for me, I can’t separate the experience from the people I rode with. So to Emma, Anthony, Les and Shane: thanks, that’s a memory that will linger for a long time.

… these numbers reflect, in my opinion, an overall lowering of the performance level in the Tour compared to the last 2 decades. And this is a positive sign that doping control measures are having an effect.

that’s Ross Tucker, from Cape Town, in his blog The Science of Sport: Power outputs from the Tour de France.

I put forward the opinion a few months ago that the unpredictability at the Giro d’Italia, with riders losing big chunks of time, and even strong teams being unable to control the race, was a mark in favour of the idea that there’s less doping. And Ross puts up the numbers that seems to show performance has worsened. That’s a good thing.

The Goat Track, originally uploaded by nicholas.odonnell.

Nick captures some fine cycling action. This is local racing legend Steve George on the Goat Track.

Roseneath Cottage, Allora. A lovely spot to stay. Sholto, Bill, me poking my head out from behind JF, who is holding my Enigma.

So after a fun evening in Allora, including learning a card game called ‘May I’, we gathered ourselves up to launch forward towards Koreelah. At this point, you (my imaginary reader) may well be saying to yourself: Where the hell is Koreelah?

That’s a good question, and I don’t think I really know the answer. We just rode all day and got there.

The second day saw us heading towards Yangan and Killarney on some pretty quiet back roads. I got first shift in the car, so some of the excitement of the morning came from lending my titanium-framed road bike to JF. He really enjoyed riding it.

I decided my method of ‘providing support’ from the van would be to go on ahead of the three riders, park the car and jump on a bike and ride back towards them. The level of ‘support’ offered would be minimal, but if required, I could always go back to the car which would be at the most 10km away.

With this modus operandi I met the group twice in the morning’s ride, once near Freestone, and later on about 8km out from the lunch spot of Yangan.

For the second day in a row, Sholto and I managed to subvert John’s plan of making lunch from pre-purchased ingredients. Sholto went for the most massive burger available in Yangan, and of course i had some hot chips. It was winter on the Darling Downs, remember, and after a morning’s ride, nothing is better than hot chips.

After lunch I got back on the bike, and Sholto took the wheel of the van. We rode to Killarney by early afternoon. The plan for the day was just to ride down to Koreelah, which over the border in NSW. From Killarney, its south to Legume, then east and south to Koreelah.

But I put the challenge out to Bill … surely we had time for a side-trip of about 22km for the climb to Queen Mary Falls. In John’s original planning we were staying over the hill from Queen Mary Falls. But in the final draft, we were missing the climb altogether.

With plenty of daylight up our sleeve, Bill and I decided to ride up to the Falls. JF would continue on the route as per plan. Sholto eventually decided to drive the support car to the base of the climb, and then chase Bill and I up the hill.

So Bill and I made it up the climb to QMF, and went for a saunter to view the Falls. When we came back we were surprised to find Sholto waiting for us at the picnic grounds. So the three of us rode back down the hill together, and Sholto jumped back in the car to head off to Koreelah.

Bill and I enjoyed the ride over the border and past Acacia towards Legume. Beautiful country side. Once we left Legume, the road surface began to deteriorate, but the scenery was no less gorgeous.

We found this to be typical of this area of northern NSW over the next two days. The road surface was terrible on so many places, with massive potholing and poorly repaired bitumen. But we were riding through such lovely country we didn’t mind.

We arrived at the turn-off to Koreelah to find JF waiting for us. And about 5km of dirt road into Kumbee Homestead B&B. No problem, we set off on the dirt road, which started with a major downhill. Much to JF’s horror, Bill and I flew down this hill. John followed at a much more sedate pace.

We all made it to Kumbee Homestead, a fantastic location by the way, without either a dirt-road caused mechanical or accident, so there was no need for alarm!

End of Day 2.

Amazing news overnight from the Giro dItalia. A split in the peleton, with more than 50 riders in the front group, and Vino, Cadel, Nibali and Basso, i.e. those previously thought to be the main contenders, all missing the move.

At the end of the day, the favourites lost 12 minutes, a massive amount of time. Plenty of finger pointing about who messed up, but it doesn’t really matter. Richie Porte, from Tasmania, a neo-pro in his first Grand Tour, has the maglia rosa, and a minute and some over David Arroyo, a Spanish climber.

Although the day was terrible from Cadel’s point of view, it’s making for a great race. And I think there are some positives for cycling as well.

A race in which there are no dominant teams, means that riders are more willing to attack, which absolutely makes for exciting racing. But it may also show that the peleton is racing cleaner than previous years.

One of the big advantages of an EPO-fuelled rider is quick recovery. They can ride day after day at the same level. Without it, riders are mere mortals like the rest of us. Super-fit and superb athletes, but not automatons. They get tired.

And combine that with rainy weather in Italy, and the demanding parcours of the Giro, and this is what you get.

So now there’s no clear favourite to win this Giro. Porte is untested, Arroyo has never been a GC contender before either. You have good all-rounders like Efimkin and Gerdemann in the top 10, but they are minutes back.

And Sastre, Wiggins, Vino and Cadel all have major minutes to catch up. Who knows how it will end? Not me, that’s for sure. But it’s going to be fascinating!

Vino (right) and AC … here we go again?!

Alexander Vinokourov has, to use a Liggettism, set the cat among the pigeons. His win in last weekend’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege was straight out of the classic Vino repertoire — attack when nobody’s expecting it, and press home your advantage by continuing the attack all the way to the finish.

Well, so what? He’s a smart rider, a class rider as his palmares clearly shows. He’s also a drug cheat, but quite frankly he’s not the only rider in the peloton to return after suspension. Of the riders who have returned from suspension, Vino is quite possibly the only one who is tasting success at anywhere near the level they had before getting busted.

But the successful return from drug suspension is merely the latest phase in the fascinating career of Alexander Vinokourouv. And he is now a key figure in the drama of the biggest bike race in the world, the Tour de France.
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