Before

Some time in January

My performances in my local criterium races of late have been outstanding. Sadly, not outstanding in a good way. But it wasn’t a problem. Every bike racer knows that there are two ways to do ok at bike racing – the first is to finish ahead of everyone else, and the second is to have good excuses. And I’d figured out the perfect excuse for doing badly at crits.

My perfect excuse was that my training was focused on long distance at the moment.

Nath: “Oh cool, what’s your next race?”

Rowan: “I’m maybe thinking IndyPac.”

McCosker: “It won’t happen.”

Rowan: “Oh, I think it might, if things go ok.”

McCosker: “Nope, no way. The borders will all get closed and it won’t go ahead.”

I had to admit, I thought he was probably right.

The day before

Things hadn’t gone the way I wanted. My plan had always been to arrive in WA close to the start to minimise the risk of any Covid issues. The plan was to arrive just in time to join the pre-race event in Fremantle on Thursday evening, but a flight delay put paid to that, and instead I arrived late on Thursday night. I went to bed pretty quickly, confident that I had plenty of time to get everything ready on Friday. Somehow, that didn’t work out.

Having failed to meet the other riders at the pre-race event I was keen to get to the wheel dipping on Friday morning, but I thought I had plenty of time. I would have, too, if I’d brought a 5mm Allen Key with me. Of course, I hadn’t, because I knew everything I brought with me I would have to either throw out or carry back, and I figured the 5mm key in my multitool would be fine. And it was. If you think being able to turn a bolt 60 degrees at a time is fine. Which it is, if you have a lot of time. Which I didn’t.

I got the bike in ridable form, but by the time I rolled down to the beach it was well past the designated meeting time and the others were nowhere to be seen (actually from what I heard later they might have just been around the corner, but I didn’t know that at the time and just assumed I’d missed them. So I dipped my wheel on my own, had a quick splash in the Indian ocean, and headed back to sort out everything else.

At this stage I was still thinking I had plenty of time, so I wasn’t hurrying. I got the aerobars on straight, and then decided I needed some lunch so I walked into town to do some shopping and buy some supplies. Lithium AAA batteries for my spot tracker were high on the list, but weren’t anywhere to be found. I ended up spending a couple of hours checking every shop and chemist for them, finally finding one place that had two packs of two. The tracker takes four. I probably would have been happy with four if I’d looked in two shops for them, but having looked in over a dozen shops I instantly became worried that I’d never see any ever again, so getting another set became a priority.

Finally I got back to the apartment I was staying in and went to finish putting the bike together, specifically wiring up my dynamo. Disaster. The wiring harness had got caught on something, somewhere, and was in pieces. I was lacking in tools to rebuild it but some scissors and a knife did the job. They did it slowly though, and I suddenly realised it was pretty late in the afternoon.

I needed chain lube, and I had already checked that TBE Myaree had what I wanted in stock, so I jumped on the bike to get there. As I walked in and headed for the chain lube I could see up the back a staff member joined me with the opening line “We know who you are and what you’re doing, what do you need?”

I was a bit surprised and flustered, but got myself together enough to explain that I was after some chain lube, and also if they were able to tighten my front disc for me it would be great, and also did they have a really fine screwdriver so I could change the battery in my heart rate monitor?

The answers were yes, and yes, and yes. Stef (as she later introduced herself) said to the mechanic in the workshop area “Travis, this is Rowan and he needs his front disc tightened”.

I was even more surprised. I had to ask. “I get how you know what I’m doing, by looking at my bike, but I could be any one of ten riders – how did you know what my name is?” and then it came to me – “Oh, of course, it’s because I emailed to ask about the chain lube, isn’t it.”

“No,” replied Stef, “it’s because it’s written on your shirt.” Sometimes the answers really are obvious.

Anyway, I’m claiming that as the reason my mind seemed to just fail me, and I forgot half the things I had gone in for. Travis tightened my disc, including replacing my dynamo wiring, so quickly I literally missed that he did it while I briefly looked away at my heart rate monitor, and then I was out of there. Heading out, I saw a JB HIFi, where happily I found some spare batteries. I then rode half way back to my apartment before remembering I wanted to use a track pump to get my tyres up to pressure, so back I went. Thanks for the great help Stef, for the second time. Finally, I was done, and it was time to head back and pack my stuff. And lube that chain, since I’d just got the lube. Got to look after the chain. Otherwise, it’ll… Ah bugger. Back to the shop. They were closing up, and Stef stifled a laughed at me as I rode in this time, and I really can’t blame her. She was very kind though and got me the quick-links I wanted without even making fun of my appalling memory. So thanks, Stef, for the third and fourth times!

From there it was home to pack my stuff and get a good night’s sleep. Somehow, that didn’t happen. I took the scenic route home because I’ve never really looked around Fremantle, but should still have had heaps of time. I packed slowly, but got it done, and headed out to get some dinner. Fremantle was going off, and I took my time, stopping to see some live music and then ducking back into Coles for some supplies for day one. As I walked through I saw a tall, lean guy thinking very hard about Clif Bars. I figured I shouldn’t miss my chance to say hi, so I got to meet the mighty Eddie B before the start. We had a quick chat then headed our separate ways, each a couple of Clif Bars heavier.

Dinner was good and finally it was time to head home. All I needed to do was put the route (which I had already broken down into sections small enough for a Garmin) onto my two computers. I would do that while I watched the Facebook recordings from the night before, so I at least knew who the other guys were. That was when I realised Boyracer Rob wouldn’t be joining us – a great shame as I had been looking forward to seeing him again. Hopefully his recovery is progressing well though and I will see him on some other start line some time.

Loading the route was progressing. I put it whole onto my Wahoo, no problem. I went to put the 40 or so smaller sections on the Garmin, and it had decided it wasn’t taking courses from my telephone, like it always had before. No problem. My support team was still awake back in Canberra, and she quickly moved each of the sections to a different program, so I could get them on the Garmin. The first 11 went on slowly, but fine. Then they stopped. I tried section 12 again. It said it was there. I looked for it. It wasn’t there. It was already 11pm, and the start was at 6:22. I really wanted to be in bed. I tried again. And again. And again. I tried section 13. It said it was there. It was there. It was midnight. I tried section 12 again. It said it was there. It wasn’t there. I deleted section 11, and tried adding it again. It said it was there. It was there. Why wasn’t section 12 loading? I tried section 14. It said it was there. It wasn’t there. It was nearly 1am. My body was still on East Coast time, and thought it was 4am. My mind didn’t think anything, it had gone to sleep hours ago. Section 11 loaded, section 13 loaded, but 12 and 14 didn’t. I sat, metaphorically banging my head against the wall of loading courses onto my Garmin, for a couple more hours. And then I had a thought. I deleted a different course that I had loaded on the unit. I added section 12. It said it was there. It was there. The problem was the memory was full. The bigger problem was that Garmin didn’t think to add a message to say that. And the biggest problem was that it was now nearly 3am, and I’d be lucky to get 3 hours sleep!

Quickly into bed, to get as much sleep as I could. The rest of the courses would have to be loaded on the road.

The Morning

Finally, it was the big day. And I was tired. I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I had to, because I wanted to be at the start line before the start. I’d missed meeting the other riders at every opportunity so far, I needed to be there at least a bit ahead of time, so I could at least say hi.

I shoved down some breakfast, got dressed, grabbed my loaded bike and everything else I had taken to the apartment, and headed out. A quick stop at the rubbish skip to throw away the torn jeans and ripped t-shirt that I had been wearing for my time in Fremantle, and down to the lighthouse. There were lots of people crowded around, and standing in front of the lighthouse a neat line of 8 riders, packed and ready to go. I rode up, ready to greet them.

“Ah, Rowan, quick, we need pictures in front of the lighthouse!” Damian was there, making sure that social media coverage was good for everyone watching around the world. I went to the lighthouse. Then we needed pictures of us all standing in a line. I slotted in between Ed, who I’d met, and Alan, who I quickly met right then. And then we had a minute of silence in memory of Mike Hall. With the sun rising in our faces it was a beautiful moment to think about the passion Mike lived with and the opportunities we all still had, and then Damian was saying “See you in Sydney”. Time to go.