PRESS RELEASE

City cyclists today have been buoyed by the news that Cycling Australia has released its official selection criteria for the 2014 Commuter Olympics.

The Cyclone Hubbards, as the team will be known, will comprise 14 of the nation’s top commuter cyclists. Hubbard High Performance Manager Harry Halfwheel has high hopes for the contingent:

“The Commuter Olympics is an opportunity for Australia’s fastest commuters to thrash it out on the world stage. Cycling to work is certainly still a minority sport in this country, but I’ve seen enough high-speed bike path crashes to know that we are not short of hubbard talent. While Australia doesn’t boast the grass roots commuter development seen in nations like the Netherlands, I am expecting the Cyclone Hubbards to really ignite Australians’ passion for racing total strangers down city streets on unroadworthy bikes.”

The selection criteria, set out below, sets qualification standards based on technical skills, performance in commuter events, and number of urban Strava segments held by the athlete. Rigorous clothing regulations apply, including minimum standards for high-viz jackets and maximum numbers for zip ties in helmets.

SELECTION CRITERIA: 2014 COMMUTER OLYMPICS – AUSTRALIAN TEAM

2. Automatic Selections

A maximum of 2 riders who attain top ranking on 2 or more Strava segments within the CBD of their home city will be added to the final team. For the avoidance of doubt, a Strava segment will be considered to lie within the CBD if it falls within a 4km radius of the GPO and contains at least 1 set of traffic lights. The colour of the traffic lights at the time the rider passes through them will not be taken into account at the time of recording the Strava segment.

3. Additional Team Selections

• Selectors will identify the remaining final national team members based on a mixture of talent that may include bike path handling skills, pannier loading aptitude and general panache. Particular regard will be given to a cyclist’s demonstrated ability for overtaking a bunch of commuters sitting stationary at traffic lights just so that they can get first jump when the lights turn green.

• In no specific order of priority, selectors will consider the following factors:
  • Proportion of high-viz wear worn by the individual as a total proportion of their clothing. Particular attention will be given to reflective ankle cuffs;
  • Number of zip ties worn by the rider in their helmet (generally seen around springtime but consideration will be given to riders sporting a helmet echidna all year round);
  • Individual performances in cross-dressing (judged as the wearing of multiple pro team kits simultaneously); and
  • The rider’s peripheral vision, demonstrated by their ability to subtly check out the commuters they’ve just passed through a slight sideways tilt of the head.

3. National Coach’s Choice

One position on the final Olympic team will be decided by the National Coach  based on the best pain face demonstrated by a rider on Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway bike path travelling:

I know it’s been ages, and I know you’ve probably stopped visiting, but I’m back. And so is SKINSUIT SUNDAY!

Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been a bit distracted… there is just so much good stuff going on it’s hard to keep up. I bought a couch around 6 weeks ago and I got to sit on it for the first time tonight. Hurrah!

This is just a quick update to say please don’t lose hope, Ride Happy will return, and with a sense of humour. But I wanted to give a brief update on what’s been going on in the past few months:

• Full time lawyering (I KNOW, just like a real person). I love it. My brain gets a better workout than I do some days, but I still love it.
• Finishing the Company Directors course: (Funny you should mention that. I should be doing my assignment right NOW, in fact. Yet somehow I am here.) I’m doing the Australian Institute of Company Directors course with the help of a Women in Sport Leadership Grant from the Australian Sports Commission. It’s a great program. If you are a woman and want to be involved in sport at a leadership level, get on it here.
• Joining the Cycling Australia Athletes Commission: I’ve just been appointed Chair of the CA AC – the representative body for athletes within Cycling Australia. We have a renewed commission and the new kids on the block are a mix of talent and experience across almost all disciplines: Sid Taberlay, Kate Bates, Alex Carle, Tom Leaper, Carol Cooke, Stu Shaw. What an awesome crew. I am really excited – we have a lot of opportunity to make some great changes to the sport. More news on that later…
• Writing for RIDE magazine: We’ve been working on a match-fixing and corruption series over the past 12 months (which finished in the current issue) and next issue you can read all about other integrity issues and the Wood Review, which was the review commissioned by the federal government into Cycling Australia at the end of last year. Australia is lucky to have a cycling journal that covers heavy but important issues – the Wood Review is the kind of stuff that is going to shape your sport.
• Doing up my new place: Actually, that’s only partly true. I bought a place, then got the awesome Tony the Builder to find people much better than me to fix it up. Everyone came out happy. And now I get to shop at the eye-wateringly expensive Leo’s of Kew, where, as my good mate John Boy put it, you go in to buy a piece of cheese and you come out spending $80… on cheese.
• Mountain bike mountain bike mountain bike! Riding the new Apollo Arctec 9 is like eating peanut butter straight from the jar. AMAZING.
• Training… in amongst everything else! We had VIS training camp over the weekend in Western Victoria and I had forgotten how much I missed being around the crew and bleeding from my eyeballs.

On Thursday I got a haircut. My hairdresser is a Japanese gentleman in Ivanhoe named Hiro, who apart from being a great hairdresser is a life drawer, photographer, and gentle lover of life. He reminds me of a small boat, gently rocking in the ocean, buoyed by nature and happy to go wherever the winds take him. Hiro also assures me that his haircuts are unique in that they impart Good Karma. This I love.

As it happened, this week I was in particular need of some Good Karma. In no particular order, highlights included being nailed at work, moving house, dealing with a spineless prick, and spending more time than I cared for curled in a foetal position vomiting. Don’t get me wrong, my life is generally awesome, but this week was not-in-any-way-pretend-it-was-awesome. With the exception of a lovely dinner with a friend it was absolutely shit. Hiro’s haircut came at just the right time.

Hiro’s Good Karma kicked in the moment I arrived in Ballarat on Friday night and reconvened with the VIS chicks (@VIS_Chicks, for all you Twitter folk). It is a rare treat for all of us to be around at the same time and national champs is one of those times. The 2013 roster comprises Jo ’2nd at NATIONALS!!!’ Hogan, Chloe ‘The Enforcer’ McConville, Kendelle ‘Timmy’ Hodges, Taryn ‘Star Recruit’ Heather, Jess ‘Jallen’ Allen and myself. Led by the Donna ‘Supercoach’ Rae-Szalinski and Ryan ‘Diamonds’ Moody, it is a fun crew to be a part of. They always make me laugh and going on tour with them is one of my favourite things in the world.

Good times

The decision to race nationals was one made 3 and a half weeks ago when I was caught off-guard during the VIS training camp and there were too many witnesses to back out of it. Actually, it wasn’t a decision so much as a case of trickery and entrapment, but that will teach me for taking on a freshly-caffeinated Supercoach. (As you may recall I committed to taking the Summer off racing after  a certain bike race in East Timor…)

And so, following my week riding the porcelain express I arrived at the start line sporting a PB for number of pre-race poos (not good) and a secret stash of toilet paper in my race bag. Things would be fine, I thought, so long as I could do a couple of laps, look after Jo and bow out gracefully. But the thing about road racing is that, much like ordering off a chinese-only menu, you never quite know what you’re going to get. When Lucy Coldwell from Holden Racing went off the front in the first 400m I figured I could cover the move early, then I’d have done my bit and could exit the race with a clear conscience. But then we were joined by Jessie McLean from Orica-GreenEdge and Bec Werner from SA Specialized and suddenly all the major teams were represented. So the bunch stopped chasing, and suddenly our gap was out to over 2 mins (we hit 3 mins 14 at one point) and we were 65km into a 106km race, the four of us still out there. And I was shitting myself (fortunately only figuratively).

Looking for answers in my legs (image (c) JXP Photography)

Knowing my predicament, the rest of the VIS crew were on the job and shortly after I imploded JoJo arrived on the scene leading the bunch up the climb, joined by Taz and McConville. Jo’s 2nd place capped off some pretty awesome teamwork by all the girls. You don’t always see the full story of a bike race if you’re not in it, and behind the results sheet lie strategies, efforts, counter-moves and mind games. Every one of us worked our asses off for one collective purpose. I was pretty stoked to be a part of it.

A few people have asked me why I was smiling during the race.  I was smiling because, after the week I’d had, I thought I’d just be making up numbers today. And because this time last year, I was a full-time athlete, in the form of my life, and having less impact on the race than I was now, working full time and having endured The Week From Hell. As I imploded going up the hill after I’d finished in the break and started going backwards, I heard the commentator on the race radio say, ‘Well, I would have expected more from Lisa Jacobs‘ (both a compliment and an insult, if you know what I mean).  But to me, it was such a nice surprise. Thanks to everyone who cheered, because it made my day. Yes, it would have been nice to have had better legs, but that’s about it. And a top chick won (the awesome Gracie Elvin, who survived the AIS Selection Survival Camp and just keeps getting stronger). So there were lots of reasons to smile. It was a great day.

Ride Happy.

[There's not much connection between the cover pic and this week's post, but who doesn't like a good Skinsuit Sunday shot??]

Ride Happy has over the years proffered advice on a number of topics, from Jersey selection for the recreational cyclist to whether to disown your son over poor bike taste and how to handle office douchebags. Sometimes this advice has been well-received. Sometimes not (hello triathletes! I love you deep down, really).

I apologise first of all for the back-log of emails asking for Lisa’s Mum’s advice that I have yet to get to. I always love getting them and my responsiveness does not reflect my enthusiasm for reading them. Please keep them coming. Send them again, if you could. I would love to get to them… I just need a prod sometimes.

Too distracted by sock height to write Ride Happy posts

Now that it is almost 2013, my thoughts turn to New Year’s Eve and the veritable treasure trove of romance that awaits the drunk and opportunistic. Being now a single lass, I see New Year’s Eve through different eyes… those eyes being slightly blurry and prone to distraction. However, having been out of the game for 9 years a while, I felt in need of a strong guiding hand in the romance department.* And so it was with a steady hand that I unlocked the cupboard under the stairs and thrust a steaming mug of Earl Grey into the hands of a dusty and neglected Lisa’s Mum.

Lisa’s Mum is a well-recognised authority on romance, having married 5 times and ghost-written the bestseller Fifty Millimetres of Sock Height, a racy novel enjoyed by cyclists in private around the world. Her thoughts on romance are so advanced that it is said that even Mario Cippolini himself would consult Lisa’s Mum prior to any romantic encounter during Grand Tours (a practice that coincidentally coincided with the introduction of Telekom Italia’s maxi-cap mobile plans). And so, with tea freshly brewed and pen poised, here are Lisa’s Mum’s tips for navigating the peloton of love this New Year’s Eve:

• Make sure you have a pre-race strategy: There is nothing worse than being the sucker who goes on the attack too early. This is the Paris-Roubaix of romantic nights: you have one shot at it and you need to get to the Forest d’Ardennes ahead of the bunch. Remember, everyone is twitchy; just keep your head and don’t be the one who brings the whole bunch down.
• Course selection: A one-day classic requires a different approach to a Grand Tour. Both have their merits. But consider: are you a sprinter or endurance romantic? If you like a one-day race, New Year’s Eve is for you… but you had better be sure you have a fast finish on you. No one likes a choker.
• Keep it realistic: There is no point if you are a punter to be aiming to win the Tour de France. Keep your sights within reach.
• Get a good domestique: A domestique, or ‘wingman’ in layman’s parlance, is worth their weight in gold. Practice a few moves together and make sure they know how to lead you out and how to deliver you to the line when you need it.
• Equipment selection: Give all your equipment a good wash. That’s what the pros do, and they do this all the time. Make sure all your gear is in good working order. I’ve been beaten by players with lesser machinery, and it hurts.
• Stay off performance-enhancing drugs: It will cloud your judgement and you won’t respect yourself in the morning.
• The best time to attack is when your opponent is distracted: Maybe they’re in the toilet. Maybe they’ve ordered another beer. Get your domestique to do some blocking moves so that you have a clear run at the prize.
• Above all, learn to Sit In: Girls, you should NEVER hang out in the wind. Stay tucked in and don’t be the one leading the charge. You’ll need to conserve your strength for later when the real race starts.

Good luck… and may all your efforts end with your arms in the air.

Ride Happy.

*Those who are in the loop on Target 30/30 – the most awesome new year’s resolution of all time – will agree with this. 

As of 3:42pm today, I am officially in the off-season. In the spirit of Jans Ullrich, the off-season will involve:

• Pinot
• Discotheque
• A fairly relaxed attitude to skin folds
• At least one affair with a model

Sprint finish at Timor - winner was awarded a warm Powerade (Image (c) Russ Baker)

This photo is from a lovely photographer whose name I don't know. Sorry - please let me know and I'll credit you!

CX... the most fun you can have in a onesie, guaranteed.

Four days after Shipwreck we started the Tour of the Goldfields, otherwise known as the Tour-To-Replace-Herald-Sun-Tour Tour. I do like Ballarat, and despite the announcement that the NRS would be extended by an extra tour having sunk my little heart a little further and my resolve to get post-Timor blood tests done a little firmer, it was super cool to be racing a tour with the team again.

...and having 2kg of sourdough from Iain at Fruition helped too. Yes, it is all about the food...

Getting our aero on (vomit not seen in shot) (Pic: JXP Photography)

Very proud to win this one. We had a ball. (Pic (c) JXP Photography)

Quite unintentionally I ended up scoring the leader’s jersey after the TTT. I can’t really take credit for it – i just happened to be the one in the VIS wearing it – but it was a nice end to the TTT from that morning.

Smiling mostly because a new jersey means one less wash I need to do post-race (Pic: Mark Gunter)

Passing the yellow jersey to Nettie Edmonson after stage 3. I later tried to spike her food but she survived. (Pic: JXP Photography)

Going into the last stage we had a few cards we could play, but our best chance was to get Chloe ‘Quads’ McConville up for the GC win. It didn’t work out, but it was one of the best days of racing the NRS has seen. Cross-winds, gutter action, breakaways – we did all we could to steal the jersey back from SASI but they held onto it after a battle royale that will be one of my fondest memories of the NRS this year.

The final GC - Chloe 2nd, Nettie 1st, me 3rd. After the photo we took Nettie out back, beat her up and stole her teammate.

So that concludes my 2012 racing season. I’m taking the next few months off racing, mostly because my body is a wreck post-Timor and I’m not in the mood to get really really sick, which is what is going to happen if I do any more racing anytime soon. It’s been a heck of a year. I try not to get too self-indulgent on Ride Happy, but I am really proud to have won the Cyclocross national series and to have finished 2nd in the national road series. Neither were expected and both were fantastic. At the time you are just trying to survive till the next race, but looking back on it it’s been just amazing. I am lucky to have the support of a top crew (including VIS and Apollo) who give us cyclists amazing equipment, coaching and support to let us live out this surreal existence. Most of all, I’m lucky to have Supercoach and Ryan ‘Diamonds’ Moody, who make sure the VIS trips are fun and professional. So thanks guys, it’s been awesome.

Ride Happy.

I have just returned from East Timor, where I spent a memorable week suffering racing the Tour de Timor, one of the world’s toughest MTB stage races. I am in equal parts (1) exhausted and (2) worried about this mysterious new rash that has just taken over my neck. This is not good news. As the experts say, don’t come back from a third world country with a rash.

To Twitterise the TdT in 140 characters or less:

• 6 days
• 6 stages
• 600km
• 40 degrees in the shade
• No showers
• Definitely no Facebook

I had agreed to do TdT in a weak moment in January, when September had seemed far enough away not to matter. Grover’s boundless enthusiasm for adventure and shitting in small shallow holes was infectious. Much like my new rash. Everyone I spoke to was positive:

‘Oh, you’ll love Timor!’

‘It’s such a great experience!’

‘I had so much fun!’

No one mentioned the inescapable heat, the 4:30am starts, or how, by day 3, you would probably be unable to stomach the food or warm Powerade. To be fair, Grover did mention the overflowing long-drops but by then we’d already paid our entry money.

Here is some advice for aspiring TdT-ers: Anyone who tells you that TdT is ‘BRILLIANT!’ and that they ‘LOVED it!’ is lying. They do not have your best interests at heart. They want you to go only so that you can suffer through it just like they did, so that you will appreciate how incredibly tough they were just to survive it. Next time someone tells you with shining eyes, ‘Do it! It’s AMAZING!’ you have my permission to smack them in the face. In fact, tell them it’s from me. This tour is so hard it made the AIS selection survival camp look like a stay at the Hilton.

At least at the AIS they gave us beds

Now that I’m home, I can appreciate how incredible the race is. 6 days of racing mountain bikes through a country that most white people don’t even see on television was culturally eye-opening. On its own, racing up to 5 and a half hours a day in 40deg+ heat on mountain bikes is a massive challenge. But that’s only half the challenge. Add to that not being able to cool down (EVER); being constantly dirty; trying not to get sick from the food, or the toilets, or the water; struggling to sleep on your crappy thermorest camping mat; struggling to eat in the heat… this is what makes the Tour de Timor EPIC.

The scenery wasn't bad though

The highlight, as anyone will tell you, was meeting the Timorese people. Every day as we passed through the villages they lined the race route, and as we rode the kids would cheer and clap and smile for us. I’ve never seen people so happy with so little. In a country that has been ravaged by war, where the average Timorese earns less than US$1 per day and where maternal mortality and child malnutrition rates are amongst the highest in the world, it was humbling and beautiful. Less humbling and beautiful were the soldiers with machine guns on stage 5, but it turned out they were only there to fend off the cannibal tribes who roamed the region and had developed a taste for tourists.

Team Apollo Bikes had assembled in Dili, each of us fresh-faced and with 7 pairs of clean knicks. Masterminded by John Groves, the only man I’ve seen cross a finish line doing the ‘Superman’, the crew was bolstered by MTB superstars Nick Morgan and Pete Kutchera who stayed at the pointy end of the race all tour. As the sole girl on the team, my job primarily was to remind the others how grotty boys were. Given the state of the men’s toilets though, they hardly needed reminding. The guys are all classy riders and together they got Pete into the yellow jersey at the best possible time. Pete would have taken out the tour had it not been for an unlucky mechanical, and in the end placed a close 2^nd.

My new bestie Jose Ramos-Horta

Personally, I struggled with the heat all tour and never really felt good. I won the first mountain stage on day 3 (with super domestique Grover), but Peta Mullens well and truly deserved the GC win. My tour ended in the back of a UN ambulance on stage 5 with heat exhaustion, and to be honest without the help of the awesome Laurent (a fellow rider who saw me in trouble) it could have been much worse. Laurent rode with me for the best part of an hour, sometimes walking, sometimes sitting, and eventually walking both his bike and mine as I could no longer push my bike. He fed me bananas and kept me talking, and then flagged down a motorbike to take me to the feed station where I could get medical assistance. Thank you Laurent! From there it was a 3.5hr trip bouncing down the mountain in the back of the ambulance to the next campsite, a quick trip to the race medical centre for a weigh in, some medication usually reserved for chemotherapy patients, and then a trip to Dili.

Happy to see this one!!

I’m glad to be home. I’ll need a few weeks to get back to normal. But Tour de Timor IS a once in a lifetime race. Go on, do it. You’ll love it.

Ride Happy.

One of the things I love about riding is the people you meet along the way. I’m sure you are the same. Cycling (and sport in general) has a great bonding quality that brings together people from all walks of life to share in something they love.

Tonight I had the pleasure of meeting Iain Banfield, otherwise known as @veganbaker, who runs Fruition organic bakery in the Yarra Valley. Iain made the fantastic trophies for the second CX national race in Melbourne recently. In case you didn’t see them, they were loaves of organic sourdough with bikes carved into them. I have always dreamed of winning an edible trophy.

Now that's a trophy!

In Italy it’s not uncommon for winners of bike races to be awarded prizes like a hunk of prosciutto or parma ham. This was a great way of putting an Aussie spin on a Euro tradition in a sport that is, like, so Euro.

It was really cool to meet Iain tonight and share his enthusiasm for all things bikely. He showed me his bicycle polo bike that he’d just finished playing a game on and then left me with a special bike loaf, which is the big picture above. It really made my day.

I love bike people. If you are ever in Healesville, drop past Fruition and say thanks to Iain for supporting CX racing in Australia. His bread is awesome, too.

Here’s a clip from the first CX round from SBS Cycling Central on Sunday night. Get amongst it and come race the next one!

Ride Happy.

[Image (c) Mark Gunter Photography]

Last weekend Lisa’s Mum visited Canberra for the Canberra Women’s Tour, the latest NRS tour in the ladies’ calendar. Actually, she meant to go to Floriade but got the dates wrong. Mum does like a good chrysanthemum. Nevertheless, the racing provided a welcome distraction from the disappointment of missing Canberra’s most prestigious flower festival.

Canberra Tour for most of us is known simply as ‘The Cold Tour’. In fact, even when there were 2 Canberra Tours in Winter, there was one that was Pretty Cold and one that was So Cold That Your Fingers Felt Like They’d Been Slammed Into A Car Door Cold. Faced with the difficult decision to cut one of the tours from the race calendar, organisers wisely chose to retain the latter tour, presumably because they liked black ice and one of them owned shares in Icebreaker. Not that Lisa’s Mum was complaining. On the contrary, she took great delight in finding weather that was cold enough to warrant wearing her fleece-lined, wind-proof, water-resistant, snow-proof bib tights. These tights hadn’t been called into service since Lisa’s Mum’s days as an extra in Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Let’s Get Physical’ video clip, and she was pleased for an opportunity to bring them out again.

Lisa’s Mum was gratified to find that the tour had been scheduled in the middle of Canberra’s coldest spell of weather since 1936. It made her feel less awkward about adding anti-freeze to her bidon and wearing fur coats made from endangered animals.Lisa’s Mum did wonder, however, at how cyclists in Canberra manage to get through a whole season like this. On reflection, she concluded that the Winters were probably the reason why Canberra breeds so many good professional cyclists. Everyone has an incentive to get good enough so they can bugger off to a pro team and a European Summer.

Mum was also particularly impressed by the standard of racing at the Tour. The 4-stage event was won by Taryn Heather, a South Australian who has the distinction of having raced more world championships than NRS races (well, almost). Taz’s return to form after injury and illness is a sign of great things to come. While Taz conceded at the start of the tour that she was only at around 80% fitness, the rest of the peleton quietly hoped that their 100% would be as good as her 80%. It wasn’t.

While happy to reunite with the AIS food hall, Lisa’s Mum left Canberra feeling slightly disappointed. It wasn’t so much the lack of sticky date pudding, but more the fact that the Curse of the VIS Women’s Team had struck again, reducing the team to 2 riders. This time it was illness that was the culprit, claiming Jess ‘Jallen’ Allen, Supercoach, Moody… and slowly everyone else. The Enforcer, not one to shy away from punishment, performed the work of 4 teammates but in the end the VIS Chicks left a broken crew.

Before signing out… a shout out to a good friend of Ride Happy, Jarrod Partridge (aka Mr JXP Photography) who together with Cycling Cafe founder Simon Cadzow is riding the Tour de France on stationary trainers to raise money for Autism SA & The Army of Autism Awareness Angels. You can read all about his crazy adventures here. If you’re feeling the cold this Winter, jump in and make a donation for instant warm fuzzies.

Ride happy.

Ever since I started riding I’ve been trying to work out how I can go faster. Can I train harder? Eat better? Change equipment? Sleep more?

About a year ago I worked out that I was looking at the problem the wrong way.

To say that riding fast is the key to cycling is like saying that yoga is the key to a long and fulfilling life. It might be part of it, but focusing entirely on it is not going to make you much fun to sit next to at dinner parties give you the outcome you want or make your life better. At the end of the day, we ride bikes because we enjoy it – or once did, or think we should. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that amongst all the power meters and carbon fibre and early morning sessions.

This year I’ve tried something different with my racing. Instead of worrying about the details, I’ve been channelling the van der Ploegs.

Many of you will know the van der Ploeg family personally. It’s hard to be involved in cycling in Australia and not see, hear, or be passed by a van der Ploeg at some stage in a race. The family hails from Mt Beauty in Victoria and 4 of the 5 boys have represented Australia in either mountain biking, cross-country skiing, or both. The entire family exudes a joie de vivre that I believe Chanel is trying to bottle and sell as an exclusive ‘No.6′ fragrance. It’s hard to have a conversation with a van der Ploeg and not feel better about the world afterwards.

If you don't have a van der Ploeg handy to lift your mood, try googling 'miniature dachshund hotdog' pictures

I’ve seen a lot of Paul and Neil this year at races and these guys crack me up. What I love about them is that they epitomise the pure joy of riding bikes. They are immensely talented and don’t take themselves too seriously. Most of all, they remind me of how much better racing is when you just enjoy the ride. To give you a glimpse of life inside the mind of a van der Ploeg, this just popped into my Facebook feed:

 Neil van der Ploeg (about an hour ago)

So, back to racing. Last week I raced the Santos North West Tour in NSW, which was the most recent national road series tour. It was a 4-day, 5-stage tour starting in Narrabri and passing through Coonabarabram and Gunnadah before finishing in Tamworth. I went as a team of one. I was lucky to be adopted by the Suzuki Cycling Team and treated as one of their own, which was lovely. Amongst other things, it was a rare treat to be able to do the washing and not confuse my knicks with anyone else’s.

The first couple of stages I didn’t have much fun. I found the racing stressful and insular without teammates. Then I ran into Jenny van der Ploeg after the crit and she was telling me how Neil’s team (Search2Retain) had just finished racing Tour of Toowoomba and had to raise funds, get a support crew and convince riders to stay on to race the Santos North West Tour the following week. They did it, because they love racing and they wanted to ride. It made me realise that I could do worse than to channel some of that positivity. I mightn’t be able to change the race, but I could change how I felt about it.

The next few stages were a lot better. I worried less about the racing and spent more time enjoying it. I lost the NRS leader’s jersey, but made some new friends in the Suzuki crew and had a great time. I think channelling the van der Ploegs worked.

When I think back to my fondest cycling moments, they aren’t race results or self-transcending interval sessions or PBs. They are the road trips with my mates to races in the middle of nowhere; the jokes shared around a table in Smiths Gully with a bunch of middle-aged professionals* as the rain pours down outside; the post-race debriefs with the Platypus of Truth. It’s these shared experiences that make me remember what a great community the cycling scene is.

Next week we are racing the next NRS tour in Canberra. I’ll have McConville and Jallen back, and Supercoach and Moody are looking after us. And – very exciting – Kendelle is coming up too as she gets a step closer to kicking her glandular fever. I can’t wait.

Ride happy.

PS – thanks to JXP Photography for the race image above.

*Just for you, Mick