Australian Summer 20/21 - What are your goals? Motivators? Achievements?

Well, luckily for us over here in Australia, our 20/21 Christmas and Summer holiday period is just around the corner! Boom!

This means bulk rides outdoors in the heat, longer rides with daylight savings, back to those fast paced group bunch rides, breaking in that new kit you’ve just bought, flashing that new form you’ve built through winter and spring on the trainer (for most of us this was our only option with the restrictions we had outside!) and some good ol’ fashioned KOM/PR hunting around our local routes - this is of course pending the COVID-19 restrictions easing. If it does, crit racing might be back on too.

What are goals this Summer? What are you hoping to achieve over the Summer cycling period? How is your form at the moment? What have you done to build your form? Have you got a particular place in mind that you’re going to head to over the Summer break to cycle?

Keen to hear from others who are just about to break out of the colder months and into some bloody amazing weather! :raised_hands:t3:

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A summer of crrits, the Otway Odyssey and then, hopefully, an autumn and winter of handicap races in NSW. And lots of MTB riding. It’s good to finally have some events locked in, can ride and train with a bit of purpose now.

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I really wanted to hit the Convict 100 when it came back online. Border closures knocked that on the head as I don’t have time for the very basic quarrantine procedure.
It’s a fun day (or 2 if you camp out the night before).
I’m going to contact the Croc Trophy crew this week about 2021.

There’s crit racing going on locally. Not sure if I’m upto speed with the group racing dynamic yet.
Maybe one Saturday in the near future I’ll ride to Murrarie and get dragged into racing.

Has anyone signed up under the new multiple discipline cycling body yet? I let my memberships lapse earlier on this year as it seemed like I’d be pissing into the wind.

Been pretty lucky in wa with almost no restrictions currently. Just completed a couple xcm races. Got 6th and then 1st.
Doing state xco champs in a few weeks followed by a 3day stage race.
Not expecting a result in either of these but looking forward to the race.

Also hoping to get to a few crits in between work. Seems to have found a groove with training and life and a couple of good results recently have given me that bit more drive to stay the course currently.

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Yep, I re-signed MTBA thinking I can use it to race CA again, but I think there’s a top-up required? I’m also a member of my local Vets club and we race crits every week and do a RR each weekend.

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This is what I’m confused about. Is the CA membership still going or is that been superseded now? Not sure how the new membership structure works!

I’m in Melbourne. At this time of year I would be getting into some interval sessions after a long Winter of base training… and would hit the alpine areas from about mid-November for the self-paced 7 peaks challenge. If I’m able to carry the form through to Feb, I’ll do the 3 peaks challenge ride as well.

Having been in lockdown in Melbourne for the past 6 weeks (I also work for the Department of Health here and we’ve had a ridiculously busy Winter as you can imagine) I’m well behind on my training. I’m in the South Eastern suburbs and within 5k of some good punchy climbs around the Toorak area so I’ve been trying to get some quality work in but with the 1 hour (and recently 2 hour) limit on exercise it’s been very difficult. Indoor training is fine, but it’s not the same. And who knows when the lockdowns will end, and to what extent?

SOOO, this year is going to be a massive change of pace. I built up a v-brake aluminium gravel grinder (Giant Cross bike) I picked up off Gumtree just before lockdowns started and with parts slowly bought online. It’s got a rear rack, and one of those fashionable handlebar bags is on the way in the mail… gonna hit some rail trails around Victoria with a few buddies and do some overnight bike-packing with my girlfriend. Totally different style of riding… looking forward to the change.

https://www.railtrails.org.au/trail-descriptions/victoria

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Yeah same here @robertbb except I fall about 5km short of the limit for heading to the Boulie! Spewing. Atleast you have the Boulie there to hit up. Although, I imagine the Boulie would be absolutely packed at the moment with the 5km rule. The Boulie is packed even on a quite day so I can only imagine what it is like right now! Is Toorak close enough to the Mt Pleasant loop as well? That is one loop that I miss. That and Beach road on Sundays. It has been ages since I have been able to do a Boulie, Mt Pleasant and Beach Road session! Fingers crossed the 5km rule eases soon and we can disperse a bit and get back to those amazing routes again.

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I’m actually in Elsternwick, and Beach Rd from here to Mordy and back is my regular ride before or after work. Never appreciated how lucky I am to have such easy access to it until it got taken away :crazy_face:

I’m actually not within the 5k rule of the boulie. But I did a reccie ride early in the first block of lockdowns and discovered the hills around the St Kevins boat house. Glen Rd Toorak is great for 30 second efforts (200m @ 15%-20%). Hopetoun road in Toorak (starting on Toorak Rd and heading South towards Malvern Rd) is about 700-800 meters at a solid 8% so it’s a good ~1.5 minute effort. Been doing endless repeats of these… connecting them with the streets in between.

If you’re within the 5k, I’d recommend checking them out! There’s a few other good little hills round Heyington train station too. As a bonus, it’s suuuuuper quiet. Barely any people, cars or - surprisingly - cyclists. Some of the mansions in the area are a bit obnoxious… lockdown wouldn’t be as bad in one of those!

anyone in Radelaide!!?

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Very jealous of your ability to ride the Adelaide Hills and Willunga @skb!

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we are very fortunate here. no restrictions, weather has been good. There’s racing happening.
I did my first crit last week.

My only goals are to stay consistent. I’m in the best cycling form I’ve ever been in due to the last 18months on TR (low volume plans) and I want to keep it going.

I have definitely got a bit of abdominal flab that could be done away with so I’ll try pay a bit more attention to my diet.

For all my “success” with TR, I haven’t been able to convince anyone else I ride with to try it. I’ve given up- their loss. I’ll just let my legs do the talking from now on.

Looks like the Tour Down Under will still go ahead but not sure what it will look like with travel restrictions and quarantine etc.

I have the same issue @skb. What do your friends say to you when you tell them to try it? I get the piss taken out of me for doing TrainerRoad sessions actually! No one seems to believe in it around here or the benefits of doing structured sessions. I don’t try anymore and just do my own thing, really. Run my own race. I haven’t had much of a chance to test the form out yet because we are still in some pretty solid lockdown measures and can’t leave our 5km boundary - very tough for cyclists. I just hope the form I have built inside over the last few months translates into some solid form out on the road when things open up a bit more! Has your form improved much using TR?

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I’m going to contact the Croc Trophy crew this week about 2021.

I’m interested in this too, but it’s a very international event and Australia might still be quarantining visitors next October. The Government said last week they expect overseas visitors to return “late 2021”. :worried:

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Some mates have done it and it’s a bucket list event for me, be interested what they say about 2021. Even the Port to Port stage race in NSW is cancelled for 2021, those large events with multiple stops must be a nightmare for permits at the moment.

I didn’t know the P2P was off for 2021. Crap! I really enjoyed that race last time.

It’s definately going to be busy once events start back up. At least that should mean some good turnouts.

PS. I’ll report back once I’ve spoken to the Croc organisers.

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you’ll be crushing it compared to people training without structure.

my mates seem to think I’m insane spending that time staring at a single power number despite me telling them I also use the time to watch youtube/listen to music etc.

these same mates ride more hours than me but I would say are just maintaining fitness whereas my fitness is continuing to improve. getting up at 4:30am and riding a couple of times a week before work on cold, wet winter mornings seem to be a badge of honour… I like my rollers better.

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I guess that is the benefit of the indoor trainer! I also find that I am working harder on the trainer because of the heat generation, lack of mini breaks etc. It correlates to better performance outside when I do go out on the road on the weekends with the bunches.

So it appears you can either get an ‘off road’ licence or one that covers all disciplines. I’ve got an MTBA licence already and the FAQ seems to indicate that post-1 November I can join a road club and just pay the club fee, not the additional insurance. So I guess it will still cost me the extra $100 but at least I won’t be doubling up on insurances so it’s cheaper than it would have been in the past to have the ability to race both road and MTB. I think?!

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I think the highlight of my summer would be if Dictator Dan would even allow me to go down for a solo spin down Beach Rd.

Seriously though, I will be doing the Alpine Classic 250 in late January (deferred entry rolled over from last summer’s bushfires). And I just scored a free entry to the Road Nationals Gran Fondo in Ballarat, so I’ll be doing that too. Looking forward to some hill climbing in the 'Nongs, then working up to Donna Buang and Lake Mountain.

I had been planning to try my hand at some sprint tri’s in November, but that ain’t happenning. Perhaps in March though.