Cyclosportif Cicli a Swan Valley - CycleOther

Within 5 seconds I was drenched to the bone, no exaggeration it was that wet that water was running down my legs into the booties and I had a lovely swimming pool of sogginess in my shoes. surprisingly it wasn't cold if you kept moving.

It was a strange start to the cyclo we started in a big group controlled rolled out for 6kms to the actual start where we broke into our teams and started 1min apart like a normal team time trial.

We headed out as a team and attempted to ride together as a team and do the best we could in the torrential rain, gale force winds and squally gusts of wind. The first half of the lap was with a tail wind so we thought we were doing ok. turned the corner and realised it was going to be a very difficult day. Our team of 8 were quite good we were very vocal and I did my best to keep everyone happy and motivated.

the weather went from bad to worse really, the rain was the least of our troubles. It was a matter of trying to keep your eyes open to the rain, (glasses were absolutely useless with the bucketing rain) watching where you were on the road, watching the bike in front of you making sure oyu didnt' run up the back of them, trying your very best to keep the bike up right with squally cross winds. and then to top it all off try not to cry when it started hailing. Oh and trying not to get killed when groups passed from behind, with oncoming traffic, some of the guys riding today were really agressive and dangerous riders.

I may have yelled at one group that passed us when it was seriuosly dangerous. they yelled at us going passed, saying tight left keep a tight left. We were virtually in thegravel to begin with. they were passing us riding three abreast with a car coming towards us. we were in single file. I yelled back at them was not impressed at all.

Lessons I learnt :
Hail Hurts!
trying to ride a tri bike in severe weather conditions is dangerous.
thinking about food for 50km's makes you really hungry

I bascially kept myself entertained wathcing my bike computer, it does wierd things under lots of water, at one stage it told me we were riding at 122km/hr awesome I wish we were that fast :)
I also did a survey of what all my team mates wanted to eat once they'd finished. I was extremely hungry for some strange reason. most of their answers were boring. I wanted the following, A stuffed jacket potato with sour cream and cheese, followed by a hot chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce and icecream followed by a very large glass of wine. (yes I was a tad specific! :) )
On the third lap I realised some of my team mates were really struggling, I ws feeling ok but was concerned for our safety, so I did a quick survey/vote to see if we should continue or just finish after the 3rd lap and not do the 4th lap. I figure we did our bit just getting out there, we weren't playin for sheep stations so wasn't any point people suffering for much longer. We had a group consensus that it was best to finish after 3 laps.

Luckily the decision was actually made for us. they called off the event after the 3rd lap. I'm not really sure why the did this as the conditions weren't any worse then when we started, what I actually think they should have done was cancelled it to begin with.


Not start a race like this to begin with, never ride slammer in those kind of winds ever again. I really struggled to keep the bike up right.

once the race was called off we still had to ride the 6k'ms back to the car. this was the hardest and longest k's I have ever ridden, my neck shoulders and hands were screaming out in pain, the tension of gripping so hard on the brakes and sitting up right for the entire ride really took its toll.

as soon as we got back to the car park, I threw my wet sodden muddy bike into the back of my car and pretty much stripped in the car park. I had a towel which I used but I really didn't care too much at that point in time. I just wanted dry clean clothes, it was warm enough when we were riding but the minute you stopped it got really cold.


The severe weather conditions. the radio apparently had been putting out announcements for people in Perth to stay in doors unless absolutely necessary all sunday arvo footy games were cancelled etc. it was that bad not just me whingeing.

I am absolutely shattered after the race and I think that is mentally too, it took a hell of alot of skill to keep the bike up right and also it was just a really big effort to focus and concentrate the entire time. I can not explain how difficult this ride was.


Very very hard day! the organisation was great and they really tried ot make this a great day, it was teamed with events at the velodrome all tied up with Tour De France with a french theme etc. the weather can't be helped but I do think it actually should have been cancelled sending 400 odd people out in the storm front is a recipe for disaster I think. I think it was veryl ucky people weren't injured yesterday, there were a fair few spills but luckily I think there were no major accidents.