I’ve been down in Tassie for the last few days for the Mersey Valley Tour and, surprisingly given my prior experience with Tassie; it hasn’t been a race for hard men. At least, not in terms of the weather… it’s been sunny, reasonably warm and not windy. It hasn’t even snowed!

Wow.

Racing-wise, this event is really something else. It’s very well organised, on good courses and there’s been quite a competitive field. Yesterday, we started off with a 24km flat TT on an out-and-back course, followed by a 90km road race with a mountain-top finish. Today we did a 119km hilly road race on a circuit.

Stage 1

I was never really going to have a chance in the TT and considering that I’ve been focusing on the second stage of the tour for a while, I decided to take it reasonably easy (though I didn’t go that slow). I ended up averaging 300 watts and did a time of about 36 minutes. The winner did it in 30-minutes or something
ridiculous like that…

Stage 2

Before the start of the stage, I had a bit of a scare because of a bit of trouble with support. Having finished the TT, I decided to go for a cool-down and in the meantime my support-guy (who I’d only met earlier that day – but he was really generous with his time and a great guy) decided to drive to Devonport (about 15km away) to pay some bills. He only came back about 30 minutes before the start of the stage, at which point I was pondering the implications of riding a road stage wearing a skin-suit and having half a bottle of water and no food. Luckily I got myself sorted.

The start of the race was dominated by the usual attacking off the front, with a group of three – one Genesis, one Jayco and one guy who had a few other team-mates in the race – eventually getting away. With both big teams being represented in the break, the main field was somewhat neutralised and the gap grew to about 2 minutes by the base of the first of three major climbs for the day. At this stage, the main field was really just cruising and it didn’t look like we were ever going to get near the break. With this in mind, I decided to try to slip off the front once the climb got steeper. It worked, but by the top the main field had responded and I only had a gap of about 20 seconds. However, I kept going at maximum pace and eventually the elastic broke. About 20km later (i don’t know the specific distance – my garmin was low on battery) I caught the break and started working with them to maintain our lead. Unfortunately, my companions weren’t too eager to work (except for the non-pro rider, who by then was getting a bit tired) because both the Genesis and Jayco riders had GC riders in the main group. So I found myself doing a fair bit of the work.

Half-way up the second climb, we got caught by two riders coming up from behind and before the very steep decent coming onto the final climb, I had 5 others with me. Coming down the descent, one rider took some serious risks but myself and the Genesis rider managed to hang on, with the result that we started the climb with about 10 seconds lead over the next group. The final climb was 5km at 9% (!) and I made the decision to push the pace because I didn’t want to get caught by the group behind. We dropped the crazy descender and so it was just me and the Genesis guy. About 2km from the top, however, another Genesis rider – Haas, the guy who had won the TT earlier on – came from behind and flew past us. I didn’t even consider getting on his wheel because he was just going so fast. Instead, I tried not to let him go, letting the gap increase gradually. But, inevitably, I eventually cracked and the Genesis and another guy – who had come up with Haas – came past. Eventually, I came in at 4th, about 50 seconds behind Haas.

I’m very happy with the way that race went – having come across the gap solo, I wouldn’t have had anywhere near as much left in the tank as some of the other riders who came across in a group. So I’m happy
I managed to hang on on the climb.

Stage 3

The third stage consisted of an about 30 km long course, with a 15km ride prior to entering the circuit and ditto between the end of the third lap and the finish. Once again, the beginning was dominated by relentless attacking and eventually a break of 2 or 3 Jayco guys and 2 genesis riders, along with one ‘nobody’ got away. I was just thinking that it would probably be good to get across before the elastic snapped, but before I found the right moment to go, the race was neutralised as we got overtaken by the U19 field which was absolutely flying. They had clearly gone flat-chat since the start but I discovered later on that an administrative error saw them going off 2 minutes behind the Elite field rather than the planned 15 minutes…

Hence, the race went at 20kmh for about 30 minutes, during which time I don’t know what happened to the break. In any case, the organisers eventually stopped the whole race and allowed us to catch up with the break. They then started the race as a handicap, with the break getting a lead of 2:28 once the U19 field had fully passed. Once we got going again, it was once again quite an inconsistent race, with attacks going off the front followed by periods of prolonged coasting. On the final lap, however, the pace went up on the climb (about 3km at 8%) and I went away along with 5 others – two nobodies, 2 genesis and one Jayco. One of the Genesis riders was Haas, the leader of the race, and so the Jayco rider didn’t work with us.

Going up the final climb once we had left the course (4km at about 5%), Haas once again put the pace on and had a gap of about 20 seconds from his team-mate and about the same from him back to me by the top of the climb. At the finish, he was miles ahead and I came across in 8th or 9th a fair way ahead of the rest of the break and ages in front of the main field, which had been taking it easy.

I’m very happy with how the weekend went – results like these are exactly why I came to Tassie. I finished 2nd non-pro rider on both road races so that’s pretty nice as well.
Have fun,
Kristian