Australia
Australia
It's been a very long time since my last post, especially in
English, but I'm going to try to write a whole lot more this year.
The plan is to make a blog-like page for my website with some good
behind-the-scenes info on racing the pro-circuit and a bit of my
personal life. Of course you can also follow me on twitter where I
try to keep everyone very up-to-date: http://www.twitter.com/koendekort
I've only just returned from Australia, I've been there for a
very long time although it never seems long enough, also because I
left my partner Kaitlin behind for another few weeks while I'm busy
with training camp and races. At first I had a good holiday in
Australia, no riding and enjoying the good weather, spending time
with my partner's family and our friends. We stayed in Melbourne
most of the time but we made trips to: Noosa, Toowoomba, Bundaberg,
Fraser Island, Lady Musgrave Island, Brisbane, Adelaide, Coffin Bay
(Port Lincoln) and Geelong. I started training again from the end
of October, first only short rides but by the end of November I was
doing big training weeks. Especially the last month, when I was
staying in St Kilda, I trained a lot, I even did the famous 'Hell
Ride' a few times.
I'll have to explain riding in Melbourne first. Lots of
professional cyclists live in and around St Kilda: Matty Lloyd,
Baden Cooke, Greg Henderson, Jeremy Hunt, Mitchell Docker, Matty
Wilson and Simon Gerrans, to name a few. For me that's very good
because I can train at a very high level with these riders but
beside the professionals there are hundreds more cyclists out....
Every day! In the weekend I dare to say there are thousands out on
the bike! When I first arrived in St Kilda and rode on 'Beach Road'
(THE road to ride on in Melbourne) I was dumbstruck to see all
these groups ride past. Big groups of up to 50 riders at a time
were everywhere, going both directions. What a cycling culture!
The 'Hell Ride' is the biggest thing on Beach Road. A big group
of over 100 high-level cyclists get together on a Saturday morning
to ride from Black Rock along the coast to Mount Eliza and back,
and it's ON! It's a full-on race through normal traffic (hence the
Hell-ride I suppose...) but I have to say we stop for traffic
lights and don't do any dangerous stuff. Everybody knows about the
Hell Ride because I've heard it's been crazy and dangerous in the
past and there has been some controversy about it in the media.
It's good training for the professionals as it's a pretty good
simulation of a race and everybody wants to win in it.
Just before I left Australia I did the Jayco Bay Cycling
Classic, 4 criteriums in 4 days near Geelong and Melbourne. The
races are done in teams of 5 riders with a total of 90 riders in
the race. The crits have teams are made just for that race with
their own sponsor, a bit like the 6day races on the track in
Europe. Some of the big-name riders in this race were: Robbie
McEwen, Graeme Brown, Brett Lancaster, Leigh Howard, Matt Wilson,
Greg Henderson, Matthew Hayman, Chris Sutton, Baden Cooke, Jeremy
Hunt, Matthew Goss and a whole lot more. I did the crits for the O2
networks team so I wore a jersey with O2 networks on it but the
Skil-Shimano knicks, socks, gloves etc.
The crits were very tough, fast racing on very short circuits.
The 3rd crit had the shortest circuit, a 600 meter
hot-dog circuit (A 300 meter road up and down) but the
4th crit was only 850 meter long as well. I felt really
good and I was happy that all the hard training from the last
months paid out and I was able to place myself top 10 in the bunch
sprints the first 2 crits and break away by myself the last,
harder, 2 races. Resulting in a 4th place the
3rd race and a 10th place overall.
Now I'm back to reality in cold Europe. It was a bit strange
going from 40 degrees in Melbourne to 8 degrees
below zero when I landed in Amsterdam last Friday.
Training with these temperatures isn't easy but I managed to get a
decent amount of hours in. This week is a relative easy training
week for me in which I have UCI and team obligations. I've already
done the photo shoot with the 2010 Skil-Shimano team, UCI blood
test and a VO2max test. I still have a bike measurement test,
time-trial aerodynamic test and team press day coming up. Next
Sunday I'll leave with the team on training camp to Mallorca. Of
course I'll keep you all updated on Twitter and this website.
If you want some more info on riding in Melbourne or on the
Jayco bay cycling classic see my friend Wade's website: http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com.