Yesterday morning I headed up to Peats Ridge to try my hand at a 25km cycling time trial. The Australia Time Trial Association (ATTA) holds a 43km and a 25km TT on a public road course on the first Sunday of every month. I had intended going up last month, but got sick so had to pull the pin.

The setup is very informal, but professional at the same time. There are no medals, no fanfare, just a couple of guys who have measured out the courses, put up warning signs so motorists are aware there’s lots of bikes around, and set up electronic timing. Registration starts at 7:30am and you can choose your start time. Riders go at one minute intervals, starting from 8:00am, with men, women, kids, those doing 25km and those doing 43km all interspersed. It’s a great way for people to test themselves every month on a fixed course, and as a result you get a lot of really fancy time-trial bikes, disc wheels and aero helmets on show.

I had no fancy gear, just a plain road bike, normal helmet and wheels, and I was due to start at 8:37am. I didn’t really know what to expect, other than there was a cone in the middle of the road at 12.5km marking my turn around point, and I’d been told not to go all out from the start, but to hod back a bit until the turnaround and then lay it all on the line on the way back. Given that I’d only been back on the bike for four weeks, with a two week break in the middle for a bout of illness, I was nowhere near fit enough to put the hammer down straight out of the gates, and was more interested in riding the course and getting a feel for things. In the back of my mind I wanted to average 30km/h if possible, and to ensure I didn’t finish last (the top guys average about 44km/h!)

I presented to the start a couple of minutes before my alloted time, and was pleased to see that the start was inside a trailer, with a guy to hold your bike steady and a ramp down on to the course, just like an ITT stage of the Tour de France. The guy in front of me headed off and promptly stopped 300m down the road with what looked like a puncture, so I was on the lookout for glass straight away. I got the 5 second countdown and then I was off. Out of the gate, accelerate up to speed, oops, shit forgot to start my stopwatch, shit! is my HR really 160, that’s too fast this early, slow down!

Looking at the elevation map during the week had shown that the course was very slightly uphill to the turnaround, and (obviously) very slightly downhill on the return, but once out on the bike it wasn’t nearly as uniform as that. It’s a fairly undulating course, which makes it hard to get into a rhythm; one minute you’re flying downhill only to then have to shift down through the gears as you hit an uphill bit and your speed starts to drop. Gravity giveth, and gravity taketh away.

The rider who’d left a minute behind me caught me after a couple of km and went flying by, followed a few km later by the guy who’d left two km behind me. I was expecting this, so it wasn’t too much of an issue, but I also knew that Matt, a mate from my triathlon forum, was starting 5 minutes behind me, and although he’d been to a few of these, I was secretly hoping I could stay ahead of him to the finish. A moment of poor mental arithmetic had me wondering if I’d missed the turnaround, until I corrected my error and realised I’d only done 11km, not 12km. Two more riders had passed me well before I hit the turn, so I knew Matt was next.

I made the turn in 28:40 which was a lot slower than expected, and was indicating a total time up around 55 minutes, so I was a bit disappointed. I ramped up the speed on a bit of a downhill and saw Matt about a kilometre behind me. Given he’d started five minutes behind me, my chances of holding him off looked slim. Thankfully, the return journey was slightly downhill and the undulations, while still there, were less severe on the way back, so it was easier to get in a big gear and keep the speed up. All was going well and the few times I checked I couldn’t see Matt behind me, then I hit The Wall (see the green line on the graph at 41:00).

You’re flying along on a slight downhill, topping 60km/h, round a slight bend and then you see it two hundred metres ahead. It seems like an easy uphill, but when you hit it, your speed drops right off, you drop down to your lowest gear and your heart rate goes through the roof. I reached the bottom of the climb doing about 61km/h and 30 seconds later was doing 13.5km/h. It’s bloody annoying, and as the hill goes up and around the corner, I wasn’t sure when it actually ended. I didn’t remember a long, steep hill on the way out??

Thankfully it was reasonably short, and at the top it was a three km run into the finish. Near the top of the hill I’d looked back and seen another rider a few hundred meters behind with Matt just behind him, so I put my head down and went for it. The other guy went past about a kilometre later and though Matt was definitely catching me, I didn’t think he’d get me before the finish. I kept the speed up, HR up around 180bpm, and, as I came around the last bend, I saw the cones marking the finishing line a few hundred metres ahead of me and realised I’d hold him off. One last burst and I crossed the line with the clock reading 1:26:34. I’d started 37 minutes after the gun, so my elapsed time was 49:34 for an average speed of 30.2km/h at an average heart rate of 167bpm. I was happy with that. I’ve got another four weeks of training to see if I can beat that time next month.

After watching a few triathlon mates finish their races, it was off to Pie In The Sky for a well earned coffee, and a pie of course!