Revolve24 - Adelaide 2019
Discussion
Three weeks ago I was looking at the ultradistance calendar for races other than the WTTC24 in California in November. Sadly most of the events are in the States and I didn't really want to travel that far.
Then I spotted Revolve 24 in Adelaide - and could think of no reason not to. Which was irritating.
Three weeks later and a 9hr flight to Australia found me loading the bike into the back of the rental SUV in Adelaide - Next stop:The Bend Motorpark.
Scratch that, it's my first time to Australia. Next stop: The beach.
The beach ticked off, I headed to a strange little backwater town called Wellington, where I had booked a room in a B&B that was formerly the local courthouse (seems extravagant to have an entire courthouse for a town of seemingly 5 people, but anyway..).
I arrived to find the place locked and empty - with a note pinned to the door asking me to call. "The key is in the safe. You're the only guest tonight so we're not there. Enjoy the peace and quiet and help yourself to the kitchen". Perfect for making the peanut butter and banana sandwiches I'd need for Saturday night! Having not slept on the overnight flight from HK, I went to bed at 9pm with a thumping headache, but had one of the most restful nights' sleep I can remember. I awoke to the sun glaring through the low hanging fog over the river.
Anyway - onto the more important bit. Revolve 24 Australia.
I'll point out here - I opted for the 12hr event. I haven't ridden more than 5hrs since WTTC24 so figured I'd use the 12 as a marker for how things are going in prep for this year in Cali.
First and foremost - it was superbly organised, and The Bend is a great location. It opened last year so is still shiny new and the surface is the stuff dreams are made of.
If the Brands running of the event is as slick - I emplore people to give it a go. Dare I say it in public - the organisation is much better than the RAAM WTTC (although granted, Revolve have an entire race track and venue - WTTC has a carpark next to a roundabout)
The 12hr race is also called "Dusk til Dawn" - starting at 7pm and finishing sometime the next morning..around sunrise.
So none of the riding was done in conditions like this:
With my corner of the pit garage shotgunned, and having fettled the bike - I laid out my stop 1, stop 2 etc supplies and went to sleep in the car as best I could for a couple of hours ahead of the briefing. All that was left at that point was to fit the new Exposure Toro light (which I annoyingly forgot to get the tax back from on my way back through the airport), and use the facilities.
At 7pm, we rolled off from the pit lane (the 24hr event started at 3pm hence starting from a closed pitlane).
(Rapha haters look away now...)
Now - I've never ridden a 12hr event before. Nor had I ridden a lap of The Bend. So it was something of a step into the unknown. I had my Garmin set to warn if I went over 250W and for the first few laps it was pinging away incessantly, but once the initial adrenaline had worn off, I set into a pace. What pace to settle into though? I went for 'this hurts a little bit but lets see how we get on' which seemed to be going fine.
There was a 30kph sourtherly for the first 3hrs...which on 90mm deep wheels and aero frame made cornering the unnerving side of interesting - but mercifully down the start / finish straight (the only long straight on the circuit), it was a tailwind.
You never know who's going to turn up to an event like this. On this occasion - Tim Decker - head coach of Australia Cycling - was there to break 900km in 24hrs. To do so, he had recruited half the Australia sprint team (I think 8 in total) - to run a paceline for him. They were flying (this is relevant, stick with me).
I was in the lead for the first 15 or so laps, but from lap 10 I was aware of someone on my wheel (by now we were in darkness) - and was getting increasingly irritated that they weren't taking a turn. somewhere around lap 15/16, the paceline went past, and the guy who had been on my wheel joined them - and off he went. I tried keeping up for a bit but the "beep beep beep beep" was the Garmin telling me I was way over my limit - in fact to sit on the back of their line, I was riding at over my FTP. There was obviously no way that was going to work so I dropped off and carried on with my own race.
As is seemingly always the case with a circuit - there were bits I liked, and one sodding cynical little dip and rise that I built a healthy and entirely irrational hatred for, but I'm over it. It's fine.
I passed the guy who was setting up next to me in the pit straight a few times in the first few hours - I was bouyed by "I can tell when it's you coming past me because of the sound your bike makes - it's really cool!" [/smug face]
I lost a lot of time on my first 24hr through stopping. If you're not moving, you're not racing.
So my plan was to stop at 3, 6 and 9hrs. 3 and 9 being to swap bottles and go, stop 6 to shake the legs off, take a moment to breathe and eat. In all, I had 15 mins off the bike and it worked well.
During the night I had the ususal 'what the hell am I even doing here?' thoughts - but somehow that's part of the fun. At times it was a slog though, and there was a clear thinning out of the numbers on track.
With an hour left, I was starting to get shooting pains through the outside of my left knee if I dropped my toe, which is a concern for future events. Regardless (and by not dipping my toe) I started to pick up the pace again - I knew my position was unlikely to change, so it was about getting the distance in - I had dropped from 7-8 min laps, to 10-min laps. If I could just summon up the energy to kick for an hour, I'd get an extra lap in.
I did, and I did - and in a nice twist of fate, on the second to last lap, the guy who was winning went past me - at a pace I could hold on to. So we did a couple laps together at a good pace - and on the final lap we passed the guy in 3rd, and we crossed the finish line together.
My first 12hr race. I came second - 386km, 6000ft, 11h 45min.
This thing was an absolute weapon:
(she's called Vanessa....FELTz...geddit?)
So - California next, where I want to break 400 miles in 24, and then...back next year to go over 400km in Aus..?
What would I do differently - Well for Revolve, I maintain the Felt is faster than my XR-4 from a purely aero perspective - so probably add a more aero bar (tri-bars not allowed), an aerosuit and only put on the rear bottles (the extra kilo is noticable on the ups). It's that or stick some deep wheels on the Bianchi - and that'll cost way more than a bar. Also having seen the angle the bars were at when the bike arrived in adelaide - I don't want to entrust the XR-4 to baggage handlers. I'm also sorely tempted to put DI2 on the Felt.
It would also be useful (!) to have someone there for support (moral and mixing drinks etc).
For California - This has shown I can ride 3hr blocks effectively - and also the sort of wattage I can do over the shorter period. For Cali this year I'll be riding the Felt with TT cockpit and with the seatpost flipped for TT geometry (last year I rode it in road setup with tri bar bolt-ons, but without adjusting the geometry for them - it didn't work very well).
Food wise, I still need to find a balance - as my stomach was starting to sting a bit after 10hrs. I need to work on easily consumed savoury options.
I shan't be challenging Gruffy or Chris Hall etc any time soon...but I'm chuffed with this weekend and looking forward to the next 'just...why?'.
Then I spotted Revolve 24 in Adelaide - and could think of no reason not to. Which was irritating.
Three weeks later and a 9hr flight to Australia found me loading the bike into the back of the rental SUV in Adelaide - Next stop:The Bend Motorpark.
Scratch that, it's my first time to Australia. Next stop: The beach.
The beach ticked off, I headed to a strange little backwater town called Wellington, where I had booked a room in a B&B that was formerly the local courthouse (seems extravagant to have an entire courthouse for a town of seemingly 5 people, but anyway..).
I arrived to find the place locked and empty - with a note pinned to the door asking me to call. "The key is in the safe. You're the only guest tonight so we're not there. Enjoy the peace and quiet and help yourself to the kitchen". Perfect for making the peanut butter and banana sandwiches I'd need for Saturday night! Having not slept on the overnight flight from HK, I went to bed at 9pm with a thumping headache, but had one of the most restful nights' sleep I can remember. I awoke to the sun glaring through the low hanging fog over the river.
Anyway - onto the more important bit. Revolve 24 Australia.
I'll point out here - I opted for the 12hr event. I haven't ridden more than 5hrs since WTTC24 so figured I'd use the 12 as a marker for how things are going in prep for this year in Cali.
First and foremost - it was superbly organised, and The Bend is a great location. It opened last year so is still shiny new and the surface is the stuff dreams are made of.
If the Brands running of the event is as slick - I emplore people to give it a go. Dare I say it in public - the organisation is much better than the RAAM WTTC (although granted, Revolve have an entire race track and venue - WTTC has a carpark next to a roundabout)
The 12hr race is also called "Dusk til Dawn" - starting at 7pm and finishing sometime the next morning..around sunrise.
So none of the riding was done in conditions like this:
With my corner of the pit garage shotgunned, and having fettled the bike - I laid out my stop 1, stop 2 etc supplies and went to sleep in the car as best I could for a couple of hours ahead of the briefing. All that was left at that point was to fit the new Exposure Toro light (which I annoyingly forgot to get the tax back from on my way back through the airport), and use the facilities.
At 7pm, we rolled off from the pit lane (the 24hr event started at 3pm hence starting from a closed pitlane).
(Rapha haters look away now...)
Now - I've never ridden a 12hr event before. Nor had I ridden a lap of The Bend. So it was something of a step into the unknown. I had my Garmin set to warn if I went over 250W and for the first few laps it was pinging away incessantly, but once the initial adrenaline had worn off, I set into a pace. What pace to settle into though? I went for 'this hurts a little bit but lets see how we get on' which seemed to be going fine.
There was a 30kph sourtherly for the first 3hrs...which on 90mm deep wheels and aero frame made cornering the unnerving side of interesting - but mercifully down the start / finish straight (the only long straight on the circuit), it was a tailwind.
You never know who's going to turn up to an event like this. On this occasion - Tim Decker - head coach of Australia Cycling - was there to break 900km in 24hrs. To do so, he had recruited half the Australia sprint team (I think 8 in total) - to run a paceline for him. They were flying (this is relevant, stick with me).
I was in the lead for the first 15 or so laps, but from lap 10 I was aware of someone on my wheel (by now we were in darkness) - and was getting increasingly irritated that they weren't taking a turn. somewhere around lap 15/16, the paceline went past, and the guy who had been on my wheel joined them - and off he went. I tried keeping up for a bit but the "beep beep beep beep" was the Garmin telling me I was way over my limit - in fact to sit on the back of their line, I was riding at over my FTP. There was obviously no way that was going to work so I dropped off and carried on with my own race.
As is seemingly always the case with a circuit - there were bits I liked, and one sodding cynical little dip and rise that I built a healthy and entirely irrational hatred for, but I'm over it. It's fine.
I passed the guy who was setting up next to me in the pit straight a few times in the first few hours - I was bouyed by "I can tell when it's you coming past me because of the sound your bike makes - it's really cool!" [/smug face]
I lost a lot of time on my first 24hr through stopping. If you're not moving, you're not racing.
So my plan was to stop at 3, 6 and 9hrs. 3 and 9 being to swap bottles and go, stop 6 to shake the legs off, take a moment to breathe and eat. In all, I had 15 mins off the bike and it worked well.
During the night I had the ususal 'what the hell am I even doing here?' thoughts - but somehow that's part of the fun. At times it was a slog though, and there was a clear thinning out of the numbers on track.
With an hour left, I was starting to get shooting pains through the outside of my left knee if I dropped my toe, which is a concern for future events. Regardless (and by not dipping my toe) I started to pick up the pace again - I knew my position was unlikely to change, so it was about getting the distance in - I had dropped from 7-8 min laps, to 10-min laps. If I could just summon up the energy to kick for an hour, I'd get an extra lap in.
I did, and I did - and in a nice twist of fate, on the second to last lap, the guy who was winning went past me - at a pace I could hold on to. So we did a couple laps together at a good pace - and on the final lap we passed the guy in 3rd, and we crossed the finish line together.
My first 12hr race. I came second - 386km, 6000ft, 11h 45min.
This thing was an absolute weapon:
(she's called Vanessa....FELTz...geddit?)
So - California next, where I want to break 400 miles in 24, and then...back next year to go over 400km in Aus..?
What would I do differently - Well for Revolve, I maintain the Felt is faster than my XR-4 from a purely aero perspective - so probably add a more aero bar (tri-bars not allowed), an aerosuit and only put on the rear bottles (the extra kilo is noticable on the ups). It's that or stick some deep wheels on the Bianchi - and that'll cost way more than a bar. Also having seen the angle the bars were at when the bike arrived in adelaide - I don't want to entrust the XR-4 to baggage handlers. I'm also sorely tempted to put DI2 on the Felt.
It would also be useful (!) to have someone there for support (moral and mixing drinks etc).
For California - This has shown I can ride 3hr blocks effectively - and also the sort of wattage I can do over the shorter period. For Cali this year I'll be riding the Felt with TT cockpit and with the seatpost flipped for TT geometry (last year I rode it in road setup with tri bar bolt-ons, but without adjusting the geometry for them - it didn't work very well).
Food wise, I still need to find a balance - as my stomach was starting to sting a bit after 10hrs. I need to work on easily consumed savoury options.
I shan't be challenging Gruffy or Chris Hall etc any time soon...but I'm chuffed with this weekend and looking forward to the next 'just...why?'.
Edited by keith2.2 on Monday 18th March 06:04
Edited by keith2.2 on Monday 18th March 09:11
Gruffy said:
Congrats Keith. That 12 is a tough format, running dawn to dusk. Tempted by the Brands Hatch Revolve? Or too close to Cali?
Thanks chap - I must admit I enjoyed it - at no point did I get sick of going round and around and around and around...it was much less tedious than the Cali course. This possibly from previously racing Karts - including british rounds of the European 24hr champs - the cornering added a nice bit of rider engagement to proceedings.I keep agonising over Brands - but there are indeed three things that put me off - definitely the proximity to Cali - 4 weeks between seems like I'd have to compromise one for the other, in which case why bother - but also the fatigue that comes from the 12hr flight means that to be there long enough in advance to get over the fatigue from the flight would put me firmly into jetlag territory, so I'd need to get past that as well.
Of course the primary concern is the run up Pilgrims to Druids!
...but Cali is the most solid excuse.
REASON. I meant reason.
Edited by keith2.2 on Monday 18th March 09:29
Great write-up and a superb result to come second! Seems like you have conquered the urge to faff, considering you only had 15 minutes off the bike - whenever I do long rides, the more tired I get, the more I get the urge to take longer and longer over my stops, and to stop more frequently...
keith2.2 said:
…previously racing Karts - including british rounds of the European 24hr champs
Teeside 24 hour kart race was my first ever endurance thing! That's going back a long way though.keith2.2 said:
there are indeed three things that put me off
4 weeks is do-able and possibly even beneficial if you avoid injury and recover well in between. The jet lag could work in your favour if you're doing the 12 again and you 'stay' in your time zone. There's no question a 12 hour flight is not ideal.keith2.2 said:
Of course the primary concern is the run up Pilgrims to Druids!
It's not Druids you need to worry about. That's only really 10s of effort each lap. It's the series of shallower, draggier climbs up Surtees, Hawthorn and Derek Minter Straight that do the damage.I'm sure you'd find a decent crew of PHers to support you at Brands too. There's usually quite a few of us working in teams or riding solo and it's a good crowd.
Reading back - funny how things change isn't it 
I raced Brands (and sacked off the concerns about jetlag - went to HK-Jarkata Wed / Thur then HK London on Fri to race Saturday)
I bought new wheels for the Bianchi.
I'm still doing Cali - but I'm definitely going over the initial target above
I've also entered Aus again for 2020. Where I'll be running the Bianchi. On yet another set of new wheels
I raced Brands (and sacked off the concerns about jetlag - went to HK-Jarkata Wed / Thur then HK London on Fri to race Saturday)
I bought new wheels for the Bianchi.
I'm still doing Cali - but I'm definitely going over the initial target above
I've also entered Aus again for 2020. Where I'll be running the Bianchi. On yet another set of new wheels
Gutted.
After winning the 12h Revolve at Brands, and with a year of coaching under my belt, I had high hopes for a return to Adelaide this week to smash last year's distance and hopefully manage to win both revolve events. Tapering has gone well, mentally and physically really looking forward to it and the XR4 is in fine fettle. Along with the training, I've got a couple more 12 and 24hr races under the belt. All coming together nicely.
Sadly it's not to be - Sunday morning Australia implemented a 14 day quarrantine for all visitors. I was due to fly on Wednesday evening. I considered rushing packing the bike and booking an earlier flight but there was no option to get to Australia before the midnight deadline.
So this weekend I'll be doing some hills on Lantau Island and keeping an eye on the race results from afar.
Really frustrating, but there are more important things going on, and there's always next year...
After winning the 12h Revolve at Brands, and with a year of coaching under my belt, I had high hopes for a return to Adelaide this week to smash last year's distance and hopefully manage to win both revolve events. Tapering has gone well, mentally and physically really looking forward to it and the XR4 is in fine fettle. Along with the training, I've got a couple more 12 and 24hr races under the belt. All coming together nicely.
Sadly it's not to be - Sunday morning Australia implemented a 14 day quarrantine for all visitors. I was due to fly on Wednesday evening. I considered rushing packing the bike and booking an earlier flight but there was no option to get to Australia before the midnight deadline.
So this weekend I'll be doing some hills on Lantau Island and keeping an eye on the race results from afar.
Really frustrating, but there are more important things going on, and there's always next year...
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