NSW TEAM TIME TRIAL CHAMPIONSHIPS 2005

The NSW State Team Time Trial Championships were conducted at Gunning (Near Goulburn) on Sunday 24 July 2005.  Randwick Botany had 8 teams entered or 32 riders.  Initially we had 10 teams but unfortunately our Women's B team had to withdraw due to a training accident on Thursday before the even.  We also had to cancel our Mens C team and re-shuffle riders with various riders out with coughs colds, etc etc.  Despite that we didn't do too bad with 3 teams winning medals, Gold Silver and Bronze.So firstly let me introduce you to our medal winners

THANK YOU

A big Thankyou to all who made the day possible.  Firstly to AE Displays who manufactured all our Cyclist Ahead warning signs kindly organised by Joe Gatt.  Matthew Hynes who got to Gunning when the sparrows started chirping and then pitched the Randwick Botany Tent.  Then he drove 20kms behind one of the Masters teams and a further 80kms behind the Mens B team before pulling down the tent and throwing it in the back of his ute for the trip home.  Could not have done it without you Matt.  From all the guys and girls, a big thank you.  Thanks to Joanne Buckton who represented our club and assisted the day as Commissaire.  Thanks to all the others who helped by driving support vehicles.  Thanks to Tony Horneman for being event  photographer.

Our Elite Women's team.  From left, Emma James, Laura Bortoluzzi, Brittany Orr and Tanya Newton.  The girls rode fabulously took the gold medal coming in 30 seconds ahead of silver medalists, Canberra CC. 

Our Mens Masters 2-4 A team.  From left, John Boles, Mark "The Slapper" Robertson, Mark Arnold and Pat Naughton.  Check out the determination on the "race faces" of Mark Arnold and Pat Naughton.  You would think if someone had enough money to buy a $15,000 Ducatti, he would have enough money to update his uniform.  Slapper if you must wear black and white uniform when everyone else if wearing red white and blue, you could have least had black arm warmers and booties.  Where do you even buy yellow arm warmers and red booties ??  You must have had to shop around for them.  Oh well at least they match your magnificent Argon 18 Mercury Time Trial bike.  Congratulations Silver medalists.

Chief Commissaire, Ken Martin congratulates our Bronze medal winning Elite Mens team.  From left Chris "Spongee" Jenkins, Natan Page, Josh Marden and Shaun "Higgo" Higgerson.  Higgo was having a go at my wife (Joanne) because of the colour of her boots.  Check out Higgo's hair !! 

Now I have to tell you that I have issues with the Goulburn Cycle Club.  Who the hell took those photos of the course showing all the beautiful long downhill straights. Course photos.  Based on those photos, I set about building the "Dream Team".  A team of "Downhill Experts".  Big men with gravity on their side. I've heard the saying "looking at the world through rose coloured glasses" but I didn't know there was a rose coloured camera lens.  Obviously the photographer had one of them snapped on the front of his camera when he took the shots of the course.  Somehow it managed to make the dozens of hills (twice as many as Calga) look like flats.  I was a little disapointed as a lot of training and calories went into building these elite bodies for the event but suffice to say that we suffered a little on the climbs

I was feeling happy and confident as I looked down the 1 kilometre downhill starting straight.  Little did I know that after the horizon, it was gently undulating (yeah right!!) Undulating like the Pyronese.  To be fair, no they were not as long and as steep as Peat's Ridge and Blood Hill but there was twice as many of the mongrels.

This team had a few moments of embarrasment.  First of all and not mentioning any names, they almost did not make it to the starting line.  There is a moral to the story.  If ever you padlock your bikes to the roof of your car, remember to bring the key with you!  The real embarrassment however was having my team with collective weight just under 400kilos,  absolutely FLOG them.

Team Argon 18 and big Bazza "The Princess" Mourad takes us out at what he does best accelerating the team up to about 60kph.  Hang on !!!  We did find the Princess's weakness though a category climb.  You have heard about Category 1 & 2 and Hors category climbs in the Tour de France.  Well we found out that Bazza has trouble with any category climb that goes up any angle above level.

Now I have to mention our Sister club Caravello.  Congrats to the U17 Boys who took out the gold medal.  Dominic ran up to me and said, "Did you see my boys, did you see my boys?"  I said to him, "Did you see my girls !!!"  Then we kicked their butts in the Elite Men's. 

Talking about the girls, here they are making the turn at the halfway mark.  Brittany takes them round followed by Laura, Tanya and Emma. State champions now.  Good one girls !

Talking about Caravello, here is our girls's support car driver, none other than the "King" of Heffron, our old mate Anthony Spurgeon.  Why is he driving support car for the Randwick Botany Women's team you might ask?  I think that Dean Martin spells out the reason in those immortal lyrics, "When the moon hits you eye like a big pizza pie, That's amore"
 

The Master's B team and even though Chris White used to play fullback for the Romans and we estimate that he is about 135 years old, we still have to race him up in the Master 2 to 4 division.  Here's the boys.  From left Andrew (I went shopping with Slapper and we got a great discount on arm warmers) Kirk, Chris "Methusula" White, Marco (not related to Pantanni) Turner and Richard "Lance" Westmoreland.

Here's the Men's B team.  Unfortunately we had to start with only 3 riders.  We had some great talent notably Dave Treacy just back from Europe, Brent Jenkins and Dave Whyman but all the boys had to pull out for various reasons, the main one being illness.  So unfortunately the boys had to start with only three riders.  Whilst I know that nobody can suffer like Pat "Paddy" Jones, I knew that young Robbie and Rollo were pretty fit and were going to hurt Pat.  I wondered what all this arm thing was at the start of the race.

It soon became very obvious along one of the Goulburn Cycling Club's defined flat sections as I followed the boys in the team car with Matthew Hines. I suddenly knew what all the pre-race arm exercises were about.  Boy were we set-up.  Matthew had the GPS tweaked and it was feeding us out average speed, speed now, distance traveled and even elevation so we knew how far these "flats" were going for.

Here's the Men's B turn at 20 kms.  Paddy was fresh as a daisy at this point.  Only 60 to go boys !!!  Robbie Cater leads Nathan "Rollo" Rollason around with Paddy Jones bringing up the rear.

A great shot of our Gold medal girl's team passing the Bathurst Women's team with Pat Naughton and Tom Skulander cheering in the background.

Here's another pass of the Elite Men's team as I passed them a second time.  Director Sportif Ritchie Jenkins has a huge ear to ear grin on.

Sorry Clive Hammerson, Dieter Winkler and George Youhanna, no photos of you in action.  Perhaps it was because you were not there when Tony was looking for you to take the picture.  I know our team has to do a bit of work in terms of weight and fitness but I reckon your team could do some work on motivation and organisation.  Classic statement I hear back from George in the lead up week to the event, after we have all been training in our respective  teams in the mornings, "Has there been training on?"  Not to mention Clive's warm-up before the race, "Let's ride down the hill into Gunning and get a coffee in the Cafe"  Then Dieter saying, "We've got plenty of time before the start"  Then the best one when Clive and Dieter are finally on the line, 3 and a half minutes after their sheduled start time, they are calling out "Where's George?"  Good one guys !!  Then there are some pre-race favourites, some other classics like day before the race, "John I have lost my license".   John, "I haven't got any RBCC kit"  and my personal favourite after the question from Whitey day before the event, "How are you getting down there?" Answer, "Haven't thought about it yet."

Well that's it for another year.  Start training for for 2006.  As for my team in 2006 we have already got the motto happening simply, "GOLD IN 2006" .  Till next year.............

Last updated: Tuesday, 05 December 2006

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