|
What Matt I. saw:
Category:
Thu, 23 Dec 2004
Hi Everyone,
I want to thank all of you AGAIN for all of your support for my upcoming trip to compete in the cycling events at the 2005 Deaf Olympics. I have recently updated my website to express thanks to those who helped and links to my sponsors and supporters. Please check it out: www.mattidler.com.
Extra special thanks to the Fremont Freewheelers Bicycle Club for all of their support and donations. I would also like to thank the Fremont Freewheelers Race Team for their support and help. Garry Birch was a huge help in getting the ball rolling with my sponsorship, so a big THANKS!
I will keep all of you informed of the details of the trip. I hope to have enough time to email some of my training logs and race reports! You can contact me at this email for the duration of my trip.
I look forward to coming home with some excellent results!
Thank you everyone, and I wish you a very happy holiday season!
Best Regards,
Matt Idler
Wed, 29 Dec 2004
Greetings!
After a 14 hour non stop flight from LA to Melbourne, I am here! The flight itself wasn't too bad, I managed to get a few hours of sleep on the plane. Upon arrival, we took a bus to the town of Ballarat, about an hour's drive northwest of Melbourne. For 8 days we'll be staying at the University of Ballarat for training. It brings back memories of the college days-staying at the dorms, and eating cafeteria food.
The weather when we arrived, to my disappointment, was just like the weather in California, cold and a bit wet outside. The cycling team was a bit bummed, but we managed to get a quick ride out after dinner last night. Today's weather was very nice, it cleared up in the afternoon and we took a nice spin out to see the road race course. The course is a 10km loop with a category 3 climb in the middle.
The climb itself isn't too bad, I'm lucky to live in California where there are actual hills in races. Our veterans who are from the midwest tell me about their races - very flat. There are five of us, including Paul Wood who rode as a pro for a while. We also have two category 2 riders among our squad and everyone is really excited about training and making something happen when it gets time to race.
Our first outing last night was interesting. We all had a few hours of sleep and going out on the road, we almost had a few run-ins with cars. Since everyone drives on the OTHER side of the road, we had to accustom ourselves to riding on the left shoulder. It's really interesting and making turns onto other roads is a bit interesting! On today's ride we caught up with some local riders ( g'day mate! ) and they were surprised to hear I was from California. They were nice and told us to look out for some cars on the road up ahead. Everyone here is so friendly.
Tomorrow we will ride out to check out the sprint course and talk some tactics. I'll email all of you some more details as they come.
For now, I like this lifestyle: eat, sleep and ride!
I hope all of you are enjoying your holiday season.
Take care,
Matt
Thu, 6 Jan 2005
Greetings from Melbourne!
We all have now moved from the town of Ballarat to Melbourne. I like it here in Melbourne much better. There is much more to see and do. The opening ceremony on the 5th was a lot of fun. It was really interesting to see so many other countries and how they converse in their own sign language. I met a few people and we exchanged pins. The opening ceremony was very well put together with a variety of performances and music. They certainly made it a big deal out here, sending the mayor of Melbourne to speak and the governor of Victoria. I left a bit early since we had a race the next day, I'm sure glad I did. I heard the ceremony lasted until about 1130pm.
Yesterday we had the 1000m sprint. Now, I'm not a really good sprinter, I consider myself more of a climber. So I was pretty shocked when I placed 12th in the sprint! We as a team had a great outing.
Here's how the race worked: There were 35 contestants. Countries could enter anywhere from 1 to 5 riders. We entered 5 and all of us would have to qualify for the heats by doing a 200m fly. The course was much like a criterium course and the 200m was on a slight uphill. Only the fastest 16 would go into the race.
We have two very good sprinters on out team, Paul Wood and Trevor Kosa. Trevor Kosa reminds me very much of FFBC's "Biker" Bob Russell with his tree trunk legs and awesome sprint finish. Trevor seeded 1st followed by Paul Wood as 2nd.
I got matched up with a guy named Jan who is Czech. He had the same build as me and my plan was to just ride his wheel and see if I could jump just before the 200m. We played a bit of cat and mouse going up to the 200m mark and to my surprise he jumped way early just after the corner where we turned. I quickly got into a bigger gear and hammered just enough to get back on his wheel. Then he jumped again. I buried my feet into the pedals trying to see if I could get a bit more speed, but it wasn't to be, he crossed the line about a half bike length. It wasn't so bad since he was seeded 5th, so I felt good about my performance.
Johnny got 8th and Paul got flicked at the corned by a Slovakian rider who cut him off and supposedly hit the brakes on the corner before the final sprint. Paul protested, we paid 50 bucks for the protest, and lost. But, we had a golden moment in Trevor who out sprinted everyone and beat the big diesel-big-gear-masher German in the Final to win gold for us. Man he's fast! We all went back to Melbourne happy and rode bikes to the pizza place where we celebrated.
Today I'm doing a recovery ride around town and then the time trial is tomorrow. We'll head back to Ballarat and I think we'll have a good time trial. I'll be second to last for the time trial start. Who is behind me? The big-diesel-big-gear-masher German is behind me. It could be a good thing. He's probably wasted from Trevor wearing him down in the sprint for gold ( he did 9 total sprints to win the gold medal ).
I'll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, here's some pictures! ( two are of me, the first two, the third is Trevor and the podium finishers, the 4th is a picture of us waiting for the rain to clear before resuming, the 5th is a crash, it was nasty and took out both of them in the sprint. We had wet ground most of the race.)
I hope you're all doing well! Take care and I miss you all.
Matt
01/10/2005
Greetings,
I haven't had much time to get to a computer, so I'll be telling you about
two races.
On Saturday we had the time trial which is a race against the clock. It is
an individual event, with one minute separating each rider at the start.
Personally, I haven't had much experience in time trials, so I wasn't sure
what was going to happen. My plan was going to just try to turn over a big
gear keeping my heart rate in check. The course was a simple out and back
for 32km ( approx 19 miles ). The starting list didn't do well with me, I
was in front of the gold medal winner 4 years ago, so I knew he was going
to be pushing hard. After I got out of the starting gate, I quickly got up
to speed and settled into a pretty good pace.
There's not much to tell
other than that the German champion from 4 years ago passed me just as we
got to the turnaround point. I was pretty happy with my performance since
I was able to maintain a good pace until the turn around mark...but when I
turned around there was a HUGE FIERCE headwind. It was a lot harder to
turn over the pedals, but I managed to get back in a respectable time.
I was 3rd on my team, but finished 26th out of a field of 34. Not my
strongest event, but nevertheless a good experience. The best part was
when I came to the finish line, there were hordes of people cheering. What
a great group of people they had there!
We did a recovery ride on Sunday and just rode around town to loosen up
the legs in preparation for the road race. The nice thing about having a
bike here is that you can see more of the city. Its a very nice city here
and I'm still getting used to the Australian accents here. The people are
very nice and easygoing.
Today we had the road race. The 5 of us had been talking about it for the
last two weeks. Racing is really all about the road race, and especially
important to the Europeans. Where we live, we have criteriums the 4 corner
business park race. In Europe, its a whole different ballgame.
The course
was pretty brutal, it was a 10km loop with 10 laps to make it 100km ( 62
miles ). There is a very long and large hill in the middle ( 2 miles at
6-7% grade ). To make matters worse, the temperature was hovering in the
90's. My game plan was simply to hang in the pack and see if I can cover
some of the attacks. I knew the attacks would happen fast and on the hill.
France, Italy, and Czech Rep all have very strong riders so we were going
to watch out for them.
At the start, sure enough, the attacks come right away, and on the hill.
Italy started an attack which was quite week and everyone was all over it.
On the second lap, the pack started to get smaller, France and Italy sent
some people to attack and they were dropping the hammer right away. I was
told about 10 people were out of the race already. On the hill we were
doing 14-15mph and that's fast for me, my heart rate was redlining the
whole time. I was on the tail end and just managed to stay with the pack
for the 2nd lap.
By the third lap, two of our team mates were out. Going
up the hill the 3rd time, I wasn't able to stay on, they were just
shooting up that hill and I could see the shedding right before my eyes. I
am really amazed at the strength of the Europeans. I was off the back with
the pack still in my view, but the pack got smaller and smaller, I
couldn't see them anymore. There were about 10 people in that pack.
I was riding alone for one lap when Rory, my other team mate was behind me. I slowed for him and we worked together to make up some ground. In the process we caught some other riders. We passed about 6-7 people and were
confident that just maybe we might be able to catch the pack. In our group
we had 4 people ( Canada, Italy, myself and Rory ).
Going into the 6th lap
the race promoters pulled us. I was extremely upset. My legs were starting
to feel great and I could feel the 2nd wind and was ready to make up the
ground. Nothing else we could do. Going back to our pit, we watched the
rest of the race. When we were pulled, the race had maybe 10 riders left
and they were approx 8 minutes ahead of us. Wow. That's some strong stuff.
2 riders from France and one from the Czech Republic made a huge breakaway
and gained three minutes on the pack. At lap 8, they were still pulling
strong. The Frenchies dropped the Czech and then they were two and half
minutes apart from the pack. They ended up both coasting to the finish
line hand in hand, the older French rider allowing the younger one to
win the gold. Italy took 3rd. 1-2-3 all looked like toothpicks, man, they
were so light.
Now I can understand how European cycling is way different
that riding in the states. I have never seen such strong hill climbers and
finishers. It's a great experience watching these guys race. Obviously I'm
disappointed in my performance, but I did the best I could. I finished
knowing that I still felt strong and could have at least made an effort to
catch the pack. I'm good with that.
Wednesday will be the points race. This will be interesting too, it's a
sprinters race pretty much: Every second lap is worth points. 1st gets 5
pts, 2nd gets 4, 3rd gets 3 and so on. There will be 50 laps, 25 of them
worth points. I'll let you know how that goes. Meanwhile, I'm off to the
spa. Time to rest the leggies and get ready for another blistering race
with the euro boys.
Hope you're all doing good. I hear its wet over there. Stay dry y'all.
Matt
Back to top
| 
