A great weekend of cycle racing
Dubbo Cycle Club hosted the State Junior Track Championships and Dubbo Track Open last weekend. Lizanne Wilmot was one of many who came up from Sydney to compete. Here’s how she saw this major country cycling carnival.
THE best part of Country Carnivals is
(a) road trip with mates (b) solid racing on interesting tracks
(c) the food and hospitality (d) winning sashes
(e) All of the above! Answer: E Country carnivals, where have you been all my life! Well, I know what my excuse was. I don’t have a driver’s licence, and getting out of the city is hard.
I can take the train, but not the Countrylink ones. And if I’m going to box my bike, I’ll jump on a plane. But this year I made it my goal to do all the country carnivals. This kind of worked. I made it to two.
The others I was either out of Australia or down in Victoria sprinting. But for the ones I did do, I had an absolute blast, and next year I will be making an effort to get to even more – Coffs, Orange country, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, I’m looking at you!
The trip started out one night at Tempe. I basically said, “Let’s go to Dubbo. I’m booking a house.” I booked the house, and Tom Bolton, Alex Chubb, and Anthony Pham had no choice – Dubbo here we come.
We drove up Friday, dropped out gear off at the house, and proceeded into town to meet up with our fifth partner-in-crime, James Schneider, for a civil evening of carb loading, hydrating and dancing.
Saturday, race day, it was hot. Not only was it hot, but we over-hydrated the night before and we suspected our racing wasn’t going to be on top form. We headed to the local café to discuss our race plans.
We got to the track, and with mid-afternoon approaching 40 in the shade, no warm-ups were needed. Us city folk were not ready for ‘dat’ heat. We tried to convince the locals to take it easy in the racing, but no dice.
The racing was a hard hitout from go. I raced a solid scratch (burning most of my matches for a second in Div 2!) followed by losing my line/almost flipping my bike in the keirin.
Dubbo track was a lot harder to ride than I had anticipated. The combined handicaps were physical, and the women’s wheelrace had me on my limit. All I remember of that race was, “Get on Simone’s wheel, hold the wheel...”
I got to the front with one to go (remember Lizanne, one lap is 400m). Alright, hold pace, pedal circles, up the pace, too soon... ouch. Go, go legs, go!
I crossed the line first and then cuddled up on the grass. The world was spinning. Next thing, one of the juniors was asking if I was OK. I answered (happily/sarcastically) ‘no’. He then asked if he needed to get help, so I had to explain that, no, I wasn’t OK, but I was OK with not being OK, and it felt good to be cuddled up on the grass.
When I finally opened my eyes, I had a huddle of juniors making sure I was alive.
So I flopped back onto the ground and continued to recover.
Such. A. Gooooood. Race! At this point I was five races in, totally cooked, but had two more races left.
The feature wheel race saw the front markers being swamped by the super-hot back markers, with James Schneider leading the charge.
Then finally the end of the good night scratch race (of death). I think I got spat out the back three maybe four times. Each time, finding a little bit more to get back on. Even with 300m to go, I thought I had a chance. My legs had other plans.
The night was warm, the beers were cold, and the whole experience was totally worth the road trip.
I highly recommend everyone make a goal for the next track season: try to make at least one country carnival. Get out of the city and race somewhere new!
Huge thanks to the Dubbo Cycle Club for putting on a fantastic carnival over the weekend. I had an absolute blast road tripping from Sydney. I’m all pencilled in for next year.