Monday
Morning Ride: No extended commute this morning. I thought it better to creep back into the new months training block, actually there was probably a bit of the CBF syndrome thrown in as well. Although my legs felt fantastic after the recovery week & forced 2 days of no riding.
Afternoon Ride: It was fantastic to ride home in glorious 20′C spring sunshine although having my thermo-(nuclear) winter jacket from the morning as the only thing to wear had me soaked in sweat by the time I got home.
Distance: 58kms, Time: 1:52hrs & Elevation Gain of 452mtrs.

Tuesday
Morning Ride: The 6am-ers Hurtbox was pretty uneventful compared to last week. We welcomed back Foggy after returning from his QLD holiday although he soon got a rude awakening with being reacquainted with the typical cooler climatic conditions of down South. The ride may have started off in balmy temperature but by the time we had finished the cool southerly change had started to bite.

Afternoon Ride:My commute home was super-fast tonight. It was a combination of a nice taily and feeling fresh and motivated. Not sure what my best ever PB is for this ride but a sub-55min would be top 5 if not better, not that I usually race for PB’s on my commutes it just happens from time to time.

Wednesday
Interestingly there was a lot of talk on the twitter waves leading up to this weeks NRRL. Someone who still remains anonymous to many, including me, has taken it upon themselves to try & own one of Melbourne’s longest running mid-week social / training rides. It all started on the Sunday prior with tweets from this new twitter user North Road Ride who tweeted this;

North Road Ride Wednesday to split. From 7th Sep: 545 = 2Bays, 6am = Mordy. Pls RT, tell your mates. #NRRsplit #SafeRiding

Which was later backed up with this after many questioned why?

#NRR Wednesday group split initiated in response to concerns expressed about deteriorating situation on Nepean Hwy #SafeRiding

Now I am not against this suggestion as the ride is getting so large that it has become quite unwieldy in recent weeks. But it was interesting to see the response come Wednesday as from what I could tell it didn’t really effect numbers or the attitude of the riders who still went long from the NRR 6am bunch. It was still 50 riders strong & in single file as they swept up myself & Trento “SprintDemon” coming through Edithvale. Then on the return leg it once again become a survival of the fittest with most just sucking wheels just to hang on. I heard later the 5:45am NRRL bunch had around 25 riders but have not had it confirmed by any of it’s participants.

Anyway back to my ride in the 6am NRRL, it’s funny how once changes are suggested you all of a sudden take the time to reflect & view a different perspective on something you previously thought was just routine. For the first time I actually felt this ride gave me no real training benefit, added to this was some of the riding etiquette I witnessed this week left a lot to be desired. It would later lead me to email my 6am-ers team-mates suggesting we do our own NRRL at a later time to maximise our precious training time & get in a better quality session. The added benefit will be that with only 5-6 riders it should be a lot less of an issue for other road users as well.

Then to top it all off one of the best & most respected (local) cycling blogs Cycling Tips also wrote a piece this week about the issues facing Beach Road rides of late. I just hope something good comes from all of this as I would hate to see it degenerate further & potentially have us loose such an iconic ride in this state. But for now I am done with the NRR Long as I’ll be doing a version of it with my own smaller 6am-ers bunch, so if you see us say G’day, give us a wave or a toot as you drive by.

Thursday
Little did I know today would be my last ride of the week. I was only going to be able to ride home from work anyway given I had a site visit already planned for the morning which meant I had to leave early in the work car & head up to Mt St Leonard. Pity I couldn’t ride to the top as it was a spectacular climb with a magnificent view.
So it was a simple commute home that evening that ended my first week of the second building block of my Journey to Warny.
Distance: 28kms, Time: 1:00hrs & Elevation Gain of 284mtrs.

Friday
What a complete wash-out!!! My only opportunity to ride was to commute to work in the morning as I had to bring the work car home that night. I had a Velo session planned & was really hoping the weather would hold out till at least mid-morning. But the pelting rain that was hammering our roof for most of the night & early morning meant I would not even get to suit up, it was just too wet & dangerous for me to be out on the road.
Kudos goes to my team-mate Brenton “BigHorn” Kaitler for showing true commitment to sticking to his training plan by smashing out his intervals at the Hawthorn Velo or should I say Hawthorn Pool on Friday morning. Top Effort Champ!!!

Saturday
I’ve been sitting here all-day with fingers, toes, legs & arms crossed wishing that the weather is good enough to get out on our traditional 6am-ers Sunday. I am really excited as we are doing a ride I & many other newer 6am-ers have never done before, heading all the way out to Toolangi & back. It should be a great ride after I ironically saw most of it by car during my site visit on Thursday. It’ll be about 150km round trip for me which will be just what the doctor ordered given the riding I missed this week.

Week 6 Totals
Distance = 266 kms
Ride Time = 8:17 hrs
Elevation Gain = 1,837 mtrs

Damn I actually thought these posts would get smaller each week.
Maybe it’s time for twice weekly posts now, even daily or on the days that I ride.
What do you the readers think or do you have any other better ideas?

I must say they are a fine piece of bent tubing, very light too I might add. With a manufacturer claimed weight of 248 grams for 42cm bars, I weighed my 44cm unscientifically at 246g. Nice!!!

So now all that is left is to work out what levers to hang from them but that’s a decision I’m still trying to come to grips with… hahaha. (sorry just had to go there)

Stay tuned!!!

Monday
Oh how I love recovery weeks the training plan called for an easy (E1) commute to work & back which is exactly what I did. Some would say 90k’s of riding is no recovery day but I can tell you after last week this was bliss, even if I followed a rain squall all the way from the City to Broady arriving to work soaked & filthy in the morning. Then like last week, riding home that arvo I saw a guy & his girl hoeing into their takeaway pizza at a time when my tummy was saying get home for dinner. Yummy!!!
Distance: 89kms, Time: 3:13hrs & Elevation Gain of 564mtrs.

Tuesday
Even though it is recovery week it doesn’t mean I miss out on one of my favourite rides of the week, the 6am-ers Hurtbox. Don’t you know, recovery week isn’t all slack with no play (intensity) it is just in moderation.

Little did any of us know how much HURT today’s ride was going to cause for 2 of our riders machines. First it was big Richard “Diesel” Read’s SS frame that well & truly gave up the ghost. Then lastly Brenton “Bighorn” Kaitler’s pedal decided it wanted to “exit stage right”.

Thankfully there was no falls & they could both limp their crippled bikes to the all important coffee stop at the end of the session.

Wednesday
With all the change of routine I just couldn’t fit a ride in today. Oh well an unexpected off-day never hurts.

Thursday
Morning Ride: Given I missed riding yesterday I was determined to do my planned session at the velo for this week. So it was a 5am start so I could get to CCCC’s Paker Park Velo to do 2x10min E3′s. Then have enough time to get back home, shower & into work at a reasonable time. I have to laugh when your fellow work mates joke that your late when arriving at 8:30am given they have no idea you’ve been up for 3.5hrs already & ridden over 40km’s with some intensity thrown in for good measure. Oh bless them!!!
I am happy with the how the stats look for the 2 intervals on a recovery week.

While at the velo it was interesting to see a HPV rock up to also do some laps. Even though I was pushing close to 40km/hr it was able to lap me every 5mins or so.

Man they can really motor along.

Afternoon Ride: Finally got myself organised to commute home from the CBD office. Much nicer only having to do 1hr instead of the old 1.5hrs from Broady much of which was on busy inner city & suburban roads. I just wish I had a descent camera on me tonight as the Sunset was sensational when I briefly looked back when merging into traffic. It was a real blood red sun setting in the distance, so the fisherman will be happy in the morning.
Distance: 71kms, Time: 2:24hrs & Elevation Gain of 314mtrs.

Friday
A E1 commute to work & back today. Stopped by the Hawthorn Velo in the morning to catch up with Nick “Gilmore” Eynon & wait for Jeff “2laps” Shaw.

Jeff took me to a great little cafe called “Liaison” off Little Collins St where I had a sensational Long Macchiato. Even though the cafe is a bit small it is well recommended.
Distance: 65kms, Time: 2:17hrs & Elevation Gain of 500mtrs.

Saturday
Well little did I know yesterday would be my last day of riding for the week. I arrived home Friday arvo to find my Mother-In-Law had been helping my now very run-down, sore & ill Wife most of the day. So given this weekend is Father Day here in AUS & it was planned that the 6am-ers traditional Sunday ride would be brought forward to Saturday that put paid to any more riding for me this week.

So rightly my weekend plans changed to staying home & doing my best at being the house-wife, ah I mean house-father!
At least I can wear in my Fathers Day present, Thanks Kids.

Week 5 Totals
Distance = 294 kms
Ride Time = 9:57 hrs
Elevation Gain = 2,027 mtrs

So after confirming it didn’t have one supplied, I was on a mission to try & get hold of the genuine Wilier Gran Turismo bespoke seat-tube clamp.
As you have to agree that it was going to be worth the effort if I could find one… SEXY!!!

So I begun what I thought was going to be a long drawn out saga. First I emailed wilier.it to see if it was possible to purchase one direct from them or through their Australian agent. Maybe it got lost in translation but I got no response so made the next logical move to contact Torpedo7 to see if they could help. My initial email sent to their Sales Department had a promising response with their Customer Service Manager saying “I have contacted our buying team and are finding out when we can supply the Wilier Seat post clamp for you.” The way it was worded got me pretty excited but some 2 weeks later I still had not heard anything further so my hope was fading that I would be able to secure one easily from these most likely of sources.

Then to my surprise last Friday the 19th August I received this from the Torpedo7 returns department, imagine my surprise & then delight after reading it.

Hi There

Thank-you for your recent purchase of the Gran Turismo Frame,

At the time you placed your order, we did not have any of the matching Wilier Seat Clamps, or extra rear derailleur hangers available so the frames were advertised without – however we have since received them into stock and would like to offer one to you at no extra charge.

If you would like us to do this please respond to this email by Thursday 25th August 2011 and we will arrange to have one of each sent out to you freight free.

So obviously I replied thanking them for this generous offer and on Tuesday the 30th August as promised, my Genuine Wilier Gran Turismo Seat Clamp arrived.

Torpedo7 for your outstanding Customer Service you are to be Congratulated!

It is not often you hear the good stories of retail staff going the extra step to satisfy their customers but when you’re on the receiving end it really is appreciated.
That is the reason I wanted to post my experience to ensure the people involved get the recognition they deserve.
So thank-you to all the staff involved at Torpedo7 especially to Customer Service Manager Karen & also Kristian from their Returns Department.

So “The Elusive Seat Tube Clamp” Saga closes before it really began. It was a lot easier than I had expected & I’m wrapped that it worked out just like I was hoping.

Finally the parts have started to arrive for the Wilier GT but I still have the biggest decision to make. Which Groupset am I going to put on this Italian Stallion…

But for now enjoy this little gallery of some BLING that will be going on the new machine.

You can also read another 6am-ers rider point of view of this ride dubbed the Yellingbo Linzer Torte Trophy Handicaps

Monday
A commute day, this time it was to work in the morning then back home in the arvo & all in wonderful sunshine. The highlight was seeing a little terrier dog with it’s head poking out of the top of its owners back-pack while she was riding merrily along the bike path. The dog was getting the ultimate free ride which I was really jealous of given my legs were still very full after yesterdays ride. I won’t bother you with 2 embedded ride tiles of the same route you’ve seen before but here are the total ride stats for the day.
Distance: 87.5kms, Time: 2:58hrs & Elevation Gain of 611mtrs.

Tuesday
Yep you guessed it another 6am-ers Hurtbox. I reckon today would have to have been one of the worst Hurtboxes since it’s inception over 12months ago for getting every piddly red light. It wasn’t just the main intersection traffic lights that were stopping us today but it felt like every single pedestrian crossing gave us the “BIG RED STOP”. Mind you I think a lot of the boys were glad for the rest given their battle weary legs were still trying to recover from Sunday’s Pav-Macca epic, mine included. But Diesel took the (NSFW!) HTFU award of the morning by leaving the Hurtbox cafe early to front up to a Ridewiser 1hr Ergo session straight after. Crazy!!!

Wednesday
North Road Long is a strange beast as you just never know what the ride is going to turn out like week to week. A few weeks ago I mentioned I thought it was one of the fastest & hardest NRR Long rides I had ever done. Then the last few weeks have been at a more normal pace, if there is such a thing for this ride. This week I expected it to be fast once again given the weather forecast was mild which equates to a much larger bunch going long. But what transpired put the fast ride a few weeks ago to shame & this was evident as the 60 rider strong bunch came flying by me heading to Franger at close to 50km/hr. This set the theme of the ride for the rest of the morning, I hit the hills around Mt Eliza as best as I could but was no match for the lead group led by Danny Kah & David Kelly who are clearly ahead of the rest at the moment. Coming back out of Frankston the pace while rolling turns was around 50-55km/hr & didn’t relent until I peeled of back at North Rd. The trip home from there seemed to take an eternity as I was completely empty, I am pretty sure I was only functioning on muscle memory alone. It’s this type of training that will reward you come Melb-Warny race day.

Footnote:
Seems everyone was talking about how fast & hard NRRL was today as you can read on these 2 blogs; Neil Robinson’s – htfu kid & Diesel – Spring is in the air flowers & pain

Thursday
Still very tired & sore from all the weeks activities just begged for a light commute home from work. Nothing really of note to report apart from seeing a bloke eating his takeaway pizza at a set of lights which had me wishing that it was mine to devour.
Distance: 44.1kms, Time: 1:26hrs & Elevation Gain of 353mtrs.

Friday
Morning Ride: I had a Velo session in my training plan but given the really hard rides earlier this week & that the my Cycling Club Championships are on tomorrow I decided to give the session a miss for this week. It’s still early in my preparation & I am interested to see how I am traveling in a race situation as it could provide an opportunity to fine tune the Warny training plan before it’s too late. I still rode but just a commute to work on what was a very brisk morning compared to the rest of this week.

Afternoon Ride: I only decided late in the day that I would bite the bullet & ride home as well. How stupid this turned out to be became evident as I struggled to even get home through total & utter exhaustion. It took me close to 10mins longer & some 2.5km/hr slower than normal due to this weeks worth of intense riding. In hindsight I would have been much better off driving home but after being told I would be moving offices back into the CBD I was fearful it would affect how much training I can do next week. In the end all I did was hurt my race preparation for tomorrow as you will hear shortly.
Distance: 88.5kms, Time: 3:09hrs & Elevation Gain of 571mtrs.

Saturday
My home club of Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club had their 2011 Road Championships today. This is one race that I never like to miss in my yearly calendar. So Hilly Modella was once again the venue I ventured to with hopes & plans to go better than my 3rd place from last year. Of which I only picked up the medallion today. ROFL!!!

I’ll post my full race report in the next day or so, keep an eye out for it although I must warn you that it was not one of my better performances. However I’m shocked but pleasantly surprised to see I was 3rd in my Masters 2 category (if it is indeed right). It may not be quite as good as 3rd in Open Men from last year but I shouldn’t be so hard on myself as I was told today.

So that completes week 3 of my monthly training block, so it’s my recovery week next week & as you can probably tell I am really looking forward to it.

Week 4 Totals
Distance = 469 kms
Ride Time = 14:53 hrs
Elevation Gain = 3,237 mtrs

Although I have liked both each also have aspects I no longer like. For the Ritchey’s the drop height was O.K but not the Ergo shape as for the FSA’s I love the flattened top section, although it seems this adds a fair bit of weight to bars that have the aero tops. Then there is the drop height & reach which over time has got a bit too much to bear for some unknown reason (maybe I’m just getting old & inflexible).
I decided I would look at the current trend of using a compact style of handlebar & after some research the following choices seemed a good fit for me.

So now which do I choose out of;
Euro Cool brands of 3T & Deda vs Rest of World brands of FSA, Pro, Ritchey & Zipp?

Even though I have made my decision I’ll hold off spilling the beans until they arrive.

However I am interested in which combo you would decide to purchase if this was your project and what reasons factor into the final decision.

Sunday
19 riders, yep 19 & most clad in the 6am-ers strip. What a sight it must have been although with the dense fog it was hard enough to see anything at all for most of the morning. It was a gentle pace down to Frankston with lots of chatter. Once in the hills around Canadian Bay Rd & Two Bays Rd a few of the boys tested each other out. As for me, I was just happy to tempo each climb as the head-cold was still making me feel pretty crap from the neck up. It is better to take it easy now than get worse & fight a losing battle for the next month or two trying to get rid of it. Once back in Franger it was smooth rolling turns in the mid-30′s along Nepean Hwy & Beach Rd which was very busy as usual. Service was quick & fast at Brown Cow Cafe as it seemed a lot quieter than last time we were there.
Home at 10:40am with 112km’s in the bank.

Also here is our official 6am-ers ride report from Sunday if you’re interested in a different perspective.

Monday
I was hoping to ride home from work to then be able to ride back to work after our Beach Rd Hurtbox session the very next morning. But the weather gods conspired against me with heavy rain from mid-morning putting paid to any riding today.

Tuesday
A “Perfect” 6am-ers Hurtbox session this week as we welcomed back Big “Diesel” after becoming a “Fellow” in Sydney. As he said post ride;

Apart from the rain!…
This morning’s HB contained the perfect requirements I thought.
Nice smooth turns down Nepean to Mordy keeping it all nicely together and consistent. Gradual ramping up all the way back with the first two weaker riders (or those with excuses) dropping onto the back of the bunch around Black Rock. Then staying pretty much together until the end.
Loved it. Nice work to the seven out there.
It was a horrible morning but a grouse one all at the same time

Check my HR graph from Strava below to see that “Gradual ramping up” Diesel was referring to. Sweet!!!

Wednesday
What a morning this turned out to be, if you didn’t see my special mid-week post on this ride then go check it out now.

Thursday
Just a typical commute home from work which I haven’t done for quite a while actually. The highlight was the tow down Syndey Rd behind a big tray truck then a nice high campervan. Was a brilliant kick-start to the ride that’s for sure. Oh this was to be the only weekday ride that was dry for the week, hopefully Winters last gasp.

Friday
Morning Ride: As Jeff “2laps” Shaw was heard to say this morning “I see the ninja rain is here”. I too was fooled by the BOM Radar as I got 5mins down the road still riding in a thick blanket of drizzle. My training plan called for a 2 x 10min E3 interval Velo session but I thought with this rain there is no way that’s going to happen. Well Hawthorn Velo must have been the only pocket in Melbourne with little to no rain, yes it was wet under foot but I was determined to do the session. Once again I was happy with my efforts after seeing the post workout graphs. But these 10min intervals are still hurting more than I like or remember. Hopefully one more week will help ease the pain or I’ll just ride faster.

Afternoon Ride: Just a commute home from work albeit a very easy commute after punishing myself this morning.

Saturday
Rest Day, Family Day & Clean Bike Day!!!
(& after this week they are all goin to need a lot of extra attention).

See you all next week.

Week 3 Totals
Distance = 421 kms
Ride Time = 13:54 hrs
Elevation Gain = 2,939 mtrs