Ta, not Caufield then.... :D

No. Blood hill is only 800m long and it hurts five times as much.

Guys will put in little attacks on the flat about 3km before Blood to sap the juice out of your legs. Then you dive down into a valley reaching about 60kmh before climbing 'Little Blood', a 400m pimple that you can grind over in a big gear if you are strong and silly. It pays NOT to be first over Little Blood if the pack is still all together.

Then you dive down into another little glen reaching 65kmh at the base of Blood Hill. Blood Hill is a 'creeper' at the bottom. The incline gets steeper gradually, and that makes it really hard to decide what gear to climb in. Once you are on the hill proper it is purely a tempo climb, but if you're in the wrong gear you will be out the back pretty quick. Serious lunges for the finish (which is 3.5km away) occur on the last 80m of Blood because it flattens out quickly at the top and you can make serious ground on anyone still climbing. Find a wheel and stick to it, no matter what happens, no matter what you legs are telling you. The pain will go away (sometime before June).

I forgot to mention that going out is the hard part of the course because you're climbing most of the way. Blood Hill is a mental thing, its only that it's at the end of the lap that people get all worked up about it.

Agreed, watch out for rolouers at the turn!

thanks

So Paulie Shaw's a veteran male? Any other old bastids from here in there? ;)

hmmmmmmm....never seen first names used for an alphabetic order :)

I'm sure you're sick of the (Paulie Shaw) hack, washed-up actor jokes? :p

In latest UCI News:
Rory SUTHERLAND (AUS), tested positive with clomiphene and hydroxy-Clomiphene during the race Deutschland Tour (GER) on 23rd August 2005, sanctioned by ROYALE LIGUE VELOCIPEDIQUE BELGE, suspension of 15 months from 16th September 2005 to 15th December 2006, disqualification from the race

and here's the drum on clomiphene:

"Is clomiphene for you?"
Clomiphene can help you conceive if you ovulate irregularly or not at all, particularly if you have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). (If you have PCOS and this treatment doesn't seem to work for you, your doctor may also prescribe metformin, an insulin-sensitizing drug that can help you respond to clomiphene.) You might also take clomiphene (and other fertility drugs) before you undergo an assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), to encourage you to produce several eggs for the procedure.

Clomiphene can also help men with a hormonal imbalance (that originates in the pituitary gland or hypothalamus) linked to a low sperm count, or poor sperm quality or motility (its ability to move).

groovy. sp d grade ot os tjem. scary! will do akuna this sat as well, so hopefully that will get the legs a little more prepared.

thanks heaps for the insight jock, and welcome back to BF ;) is it still ok to get that pump off you on the 23rd?

That'll be fine. Although I could drag it out a bit to keep you coming back for more pain each week

meh pain or no pain ill be there :) actaully pervesley i enjoy the pain..... i intend on doing the CC RR's for the season, mixing them up with one or 2 MTB races a month as well. should be fun.

was speaking to a friend of mine who jumped from D to B grade MTB in the space of 6 months :O apparantly he started racing road in the same period and is knocking on the door of A grade in both as well as just picking up Merida sponsorship. some people are just freaks.

yup, since the aussies pronounce shaw/shore, it's become an old gag.

Kinda rules out some names for new arrival e.g. Sandy, Toby, Rick etc :rolleyes:

Blame yer parents. :p

Answer me a question. Trying to work out where I'll house myself the night before the race. Not keen on the whole camping bit and I'm not sure about travel times from various places around Sydney. The closest friends I've got down there, one lives in Glenbrook, the other in Pymble. So you Sydney folk who have a better idea of how long it takes to get places, how long do yers rekon it would take to get up to St Albans from those two locations, on relatively quiet roads and sticking reasonably close to the speed limit?

id take the pymble option, although neither is local! depends what time of the morning, but id say at least an hour, hour and a half?

Thanks Commo. Well the race starts at 6:30 and I'd want to be there 30 minutes early at least. That's making it look like a very early rise. Both locations also have a downside. Glenbrook has a couple of squarking kids, Pymble is a sharehouse full of hotties. Both would hamper me getting sleep. Looks like I'll have to camp. :(

Dependin on baby situation, I'll either camp or drive in the morning. From the north I reckon 1h30m.

New baby? I'd camp. ;)

You'll be a tired sucker for the race anyway. :(

so if the bay comes you will camp? ;)

I actually went for a ride today. Please, a round of golf claps everyone :o

Funny thing about being in a cardio black hole. Lungs don't work, but power is still there. This dude I've seen before on an all white GT came flying past me, so after umming and ahhhing for about 10 seconds, I decided to be a tosser and catch him. Up in into the big ring, put the powder down...cool, catching him....look at speedo....53kph!

WTF?

Reckon I did that for about a whole 30 seconds!

*pulls he-man pose*

:D

I can hear Nev p¡ssing himself laughing.

put the powder down? WTF? :eek:

<-- has vision of Wokka laying a line across the handlebars, inhaling hard, then disappearing in a cloud of dust. :lol:

We went for a ride Sunday. It's weird being in shorts and a t shirt, and riding past heaps of snow.

Man, I'm such a 'no-life' that I do that almost every day !!!:p But I reckon you already figured out that I'm that sort of tosser :)

Yes....errm....."putting the powder down" is a famous Melbourne saying :rolleyes: However, my lungs do feel like they're predominantly made from dust this morning, so it's probably not far away from the truth.

I wish I had your motivation Nev. I just struggle to get on the bike this year. It's either a mild form of burn-out or something else to blame on getting married. ;)

I can imagine it would be weird. That kind of behaviour is usually reserved for young ladies looking to attract cock. Maybe some longs would have been more appropriate?

In Utah "Attract Cock" has a completely different meaning though, and probably involves a shotgun and a saucepan.