Hey Frank, Can I Borrow A Couple Of Bucks From You?

Day Two – Afternoon Session.

Sean The Man wants to meet up for coffee, so we head over to Espresso Alley. One coffee becomes two, and two becomes an issue. I’m wired, totally buzzing. He’s telling me what he wants me to ask the riders, specifically the ones who also race on the road. He wants to know what the contrast is, where the differences are. He also wants to know, off the record, about their first kisses. Dude is a romantic.

In order to wash off some of the excess energy I ride my bike down to the arena. I’m allowed a thirty minute ride today, and figure a quick trip down Hoddle Street will take about that long. I resolve to take it easy, but a combination of the coffee, the sunshine and Rage Against The Machine have me splitting lanes and skitching off utes in no time. The Herald-Sun hasn’t picked up on the “Shane Perkins and Child Without Helmets” scandal, so I figure I’ll be ok. 

 

Kids lingering with intent. 

After a quick lap of the venue, to get some sweet shots of the crowd outside bathing in the midday sun, I lock up my bike. I’m parked just near the spot where last night I heard what sounded like schoolgirls giggling. Seven years as a teacher have taught me that where there are schoolgirls giggling there is trouble, so I went to check it out. Sitting outside, in their brand new rainbow stripes, were Kristina Vogel and Miriam Welte. They were nattering away in German, hyper and excited. They let me take a photo and I resolve to invite them both to the Fyxomatosis Paris-Roubaix party on Sunday night.

Two new World Record holders.

When I enter the venue things are starting to warm up again. Aside from the Women’s Team Pursuit qualifying, it’s all sprints today, even if one of the sprint events is part of the Omnium. And it’s mostly women, too. I’m unsurprised to see the women shunted down the program like this, but a little disappointed. I get the impression that after last night everyone here sees the competition as wide open, with more possible winners than anyone thought.

I wander around and take some more photos. Roy Van Den Berg from The Netherlands is warming up on the rollers, and I tell him I write for a hipster website for cool people (true!) who would kill for a picture of his tattoo sleeve. He not only obliges but pulls his jersey back to reveal the work on his ribs. I also tell the New Zealand team that they have won the popular vote for coolest team here, and get a photo of one of Natasha Hansen warming up on the trainer.

 

Roy Van Den Bergh. Tough nut.

Natasha Hansen from team NZ. Look at those oversized headphones. I bet she's listening to some sweet NZ hip hop I've never heard of.

Weirdly, though, when I ask Meares and McCulloch for a photo they look dubious. “Well,” Meares starts, “You’re not really supposed to, but if no one is looking…” I take her lead and try to look like I’m texting. In return she pulls a rad sneaky-photo face, while McCulloch cracks up in the background. This is the second time I’ve encountered Australian over-cautiousness, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Sneaky Meares photo. 

The women warm up and I wander over to the paramedic tents. Russell Nelson is working today, and it’s nice to talk local racing for a while. His son, Brent, is perhaps unlucky not to be here – or at least unlucky not to be on the road to being here. Making the Australian team isn’t only about being a really fast bike rider – there’s always a little more too it. But we sit and chat and make jokes about the quality of the coffee.

I get a text from Hamish midway through this conversation. He works for the ABC and knows news when he sees it. He’s pretty pissed, however, to have seen the Dutch team get pulled over by the local constabulary earlier this morning. The photo reveals three bike cops, two foot cops and a divvy van lecturing one guy in a team jersey. It’s not a great look – with Perko getting hit by a car earlier this week, it’s starting to seem like Victoria ain’t a great place to be a cyclist. 

 

To Protect and Serve. 

The Women’s Sprint qualifiers are up first. I’m really looking forward to seeing them. I mean, they’re the fastest women in the world, and they’ll be going as fast as they can. I don’t really care about the times, or the order of qualifying, unless someone breaks a world record. I just want to see the lines they take, their pain faces, what they do when they’re in the box. When they start up the crowd seems subdued, but clap politely when each rider goes by. Melbourne sports crowds are generally good crowds – even at the footy I don’t hear much dickheadery any more, and it’s good to see the folks here support less famous teams and athletes.

Monique rocks up and has once again brought me some food. She’s here working with the Canadian team, who she describes as quiet achievers. Sure, folks know they have Tara Whitten in the omnium, but their pursuit team came second to Team GB at the London World Cup a few months back. “No one really talks about them,” she says. Well, they do now. On the track my new favourite, Miriam Welte does an 11.0, and I’m saddened to realize that even if I were a woman I wouldn’t be competitive at this level. Bummer.

Shuang Guo gets thrown onto the track by her coach and, after rolling around for a couple of laps, sets the new fastest time. I kinda like that China are becoming a force in cycling, which can often be a bit of a rich white dude’s club. The rich part of that equation still stands, but at least the race and gender walls are coming down a little bit. 

 

Chinese Camp. Lots of headscarves. 

When Meares rolls onto the track the crowd immediately starts up. She’s been around a while, and is well known and well loved by the fans. She’s very slow around the track, ticking over what seems to be a huge gear. When she starts to turn it up a little in the back straight she looks calm on the bike, rock solid on the saddle. She jumps out of the saddle 75 metres before the start line, and continues to push until out of turn two. The splits reveal that she’s up by 0.2 at halfway. Her hips start to move as she struggles with the gear into the final straight, then lunges for the line. The time takes a couple of moments to appear on the scoreboard, but when it does, the crowd – smaller than last night, but still considerable – absolutely bursts wide open. It’s a new world record, 10 seconds and 782 thousandths of a second, which apparently translates to an average speed of 66.777 ks per hour.

She looks as shocked as anybody. She’s pumping her fist, looking surprised and stoked and totally taken aback. The crowd is roaring at her, and she seems to be roaring back. The noise is out of this world. I get goosebumps again.

The sprint heats are up quite soon after, and there’s some good racing, but not a whole lot to get too excited about. Vicky Pendleton allows herself to get boxed in, and only wins her heat due to a late rush at the line. Meares throws a mean hook on the bell lap. A Chinese rider is bumped by a French rider, and the Chinese slips and does a whipskid to make Benzy proud. McCulloch gives Sandy Clair too much length and Clair holds her off. There’s some sweet trackstands. The racing is close and evenly matched. It’s good watching, but not frantic, and I do more tweeting than writing. That’s right. There’s a difference. 

Sweet trackstand action.

The Women’s Team Pursuit Qualifiers are up next, and I gotta say, they’re not very interesting. I take the opportunity to go get a coffee, eat some hot cross buns, send some emails, regret some bad decisions. Eventually I get up and go for a wander. I’m intrigued by the Cuban team, so hunt for them. When I find Lisandra Guerra we have a chat about her home town, Matanzas. I was there sometime in the early 2000s, and tell her about cycling all over the hills in the surrounding area. Her English is very good, but she has that slight lisp that Spanish speakers sometimes have, which is incredibly cute.

Cuba's Lisandra Guerra. 

I’m only brought to attention by the crowd, who acknowledge the Australian team the only way they know how. You know, by cheering. The three women are out on the track, and they look like they’re going incredibly slow. The scoreboard says otherwise – in the first kilometer they have outstripped Canada, in the second they are one and a half seconds up, and by the start of the third they are one world record pace. This is getting out of hand – if these women get through, it’ll be five new world records in four events over a mere one and a half days.

But get through they do, taking about one and a half seconds off the old mark. Over three kilometres, that’s huge. This track is wicked fast. I can’t begin to imagine what Jack Bobridge is going to do in the pursuit.

The women don’t get to rest on their laurels for long, however. Team GB comes out on the track, and a little over three minutes later have taken the world record back, lowering the number by another 0.2. The crowd gives them a cheer, but they’re a parochial bunch, and their hearts aren’t in it.

 

Team GB in motion. Pic c/o Omnisport.

Yeah, that says it all. Pic c/o Omnisport

There are more sprint heats going on, and the usual suspects make their ways through. I gotta say, Vicky Pendleton has a real scrappy style on the bike. She stands quite upright when she’s out of the saddle, and pushes the bike around with her arms, a bit like Sean The Man. It’s a big contrast to Meares, who is generally like a rock on the bike. I don’t really care about style on the bike, but usually on the track style equals strength, so it’s interesting to note. She does alright though, so I should probably shut the hell up.

The omnium starts up next – the first event is the flying lap. It’s boring as hell. The omnium is a controversial event – given the nod for the Olympics, folks have an extra incentive to do it, but there’s some legitimacy to the argument against. Jacks of all trades, masters of none. I’m not totally down on the omnium, however. The best thing it has one is introduced the Elimination race to World Championship and Olympic competition. The Elimination – aka “Miss and Out”, or my favourite name, “Devil Takes the Hindmost”, is the essence of track racing – it’s a little wacky, a little fun, but also a bloody hard race in which you have to sprint every lap and be very comfortable riding with your face in someone else’s armpit. The men’s omnium elimination is on tonight, the women’s tomorrow night, and I can’t wait. 

 

How I see Nath, up in his timing box. 

What Dreams Are Made Of.

 Jacky Bobby's sweet ink. I think it's a dragon.

Day One – Evening Session

In the time between sessions Gene and I wander around some more. We spot the US team mechanic and I ask if we can take his photo, because, “He looks like every other Bike Mechanic I’ve ever seen.” He seems to enjoy that and gets chatting. “What’re you up to?” I ask, and he shows us – taping wrenches into a seatpost in order to get the weight above the prerequisite 6.8kg. He also tells us he’s running 22mm tyres, and quotes the recent research. At this point I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d started a sentence with, “and my mate Blakey told me…”

 

Team USA's bike mechanic / Shifter Dan's long lost brother?

I also head over to the Australian camp for the first time. I figure I’ve seen these guys around a bit, and even raced some of them, so they won’t be up to much. On closer inspection, however, it appears that their BTs have been modified, so I ask to take a picture. The head mechanic umms and ahhhs a little bit, and then turns me down. “If someone has a close look at the photo they might see what we’ve done,” he tells me. It’s the first time I’ve been knocked back, even when I asked Clara Sanchez to wink at me.

 

Clara Sanchez winking at me.

The sprinters are gradually rolling in for the Team Sprints tonight. I notice their bikes first – all of a sudden there are beefy stems and sprint bars everywhere. Pretty soon afterwards there are beefy women and men to match. They’re all out on the track between the sessions, doing flying entries and starts. I have orders to take a photo comparing Gene’s legs to Robert Forstermann’s, but I’m yet to see the distinctive German anywhere.

I do, however, bump into “local” boy, hipster favourite and occasional roller racer Josiah Ng, who has been called in at the last moment to ride the Team Sprint for Malaysia. He seems pretty relaxed. “It’s not really my event, so there’s no real pressure. It’s fun!” He tells me. Apparently he’s not generally one of those guys who uses the terror look, preferring to keep it nice and relaxed, saving the energy for the race.

Ted Ballieu opens proceedings, but no one – and I mean no one – is listening. I’ve heard rumour that the Melbourne World Cup has lost its state government funding, so Ballieu is wanting for friends in this crowd. And I thought the Liberals only cut funding from schools and hospitals. Cycling Australia’s – and formerly Brunswick’s – Klaus Mueller speaks next, and even fewer people listen to him.

Shane Archbold is heading for the toilet at the same time as I am, so I stop him for a chat. It seems like all of my interviews are going to be held either in the men’s room or on the way there. He’s heading home after only a couple of laps, “just a taste of the track, to see if I can get the legs moving again.” He ask me what channel the champs are on, and looks relieved to be heading home. The New Zealand team are fairly dominating the cool stakes this year, as evidenced by this bike.

Fully sick fixie seen in the New Zealand Pits.

 

Would you look at these...

The team sprint qualifiers are up first, and no one seems to be paying much attention to them either. I’m sure this will change when Meares and McCulloch are up, however. The arena is filling quickly, the post-work, post-dinner crowd swarming in, loosening their ties as they step over each other on the way to their seats.

 

Hisense Crowd Mk II

In the midst of the quiet hubbub, the German team shaves a couple of hundredths off the world record. Minutes earlier I’d taken a photo of Miriam Welte when she was on the rollers, daring her to ride with no hands. She wobbled a bit, then straightened up. Imagine if she had binned it! No Guinness Book for her!

 

Miriam Welte, minutes after nearly falling off the rollers, minutes before setting one world record, then an hour or so before setting yet another.

Meares and McCulloch come out and there’s a huge cheer. Not so much for the Brits in the back straight. It seems a fast heat, and the naked eye can’t tell who has got up. In the end the scoreboard tells us that Australia has gone through to the final, but team GB will be relegated to bronze at best. France could do no better than fifth. So much for my dark horse.

Men’s TP finals are up next, first Russia V New Zealand. They come out of the gates evenly matched, but Russia quickly gains ascendency. The pace seems to much for them though, and they lose a rider early on. Perhaps smelling the blood in the water, the New Zealanders step it up, and the crowd loves it. When Team NZ final gets up, with three laps to go, the crowd loses its collective shit. Bronze to New Zealand, but the main event is up next.

I’ve really tried to avoid getting sucked into all this Ashes bullshit between Team GB and Team Australia (who I refuse to call the Cyclones, due to crimes against punnery), but the fact remains that these are the two best pursuit teams in the world. And they live up to their reputations. The lead swaps lap for lap, first GB are up by 0.3, then Australia are up by 0.2. One split even reveals the difference is 0.002 seconds. That’s tight. But early on Australia loses Edmondson (later revealed to be O'Shea), and from there Team GB’s lead blows out. Eventually there’s only a second in it, and Team GB have taken back the world record. I literally have goosebumps, and am shaking while I type. I couldn’t have been more excited if Jack Bobridge had been wearing an Essendon jumper.

Every Harry, Dick and Mike Tomolaris has swarmed the Australian team, but Team GB are left to cool down on their rollers. I walk over to Geraint Thomas and congratulate him, leaving the Dictaphone (aka My Phone) in my pocket. This, plus a few four-letter-words early in the chat seems to relax him, and he’s surprisingly candid. He reveals their strategy – that Steven Burke perhaps wasn’t as strong as the rest of them, so when it came to the end he would only do a half lap, then drop out of the race. But he also revealed what went wrong – that when Burkey came to do that last half lap, he booted it so hard that the other three struggled to stay on. I tell him that I thought they looked a little shaggy, and I just compared their form to their hair on twitter. It gets a laugh, and so I ask him about the media, who are still thronged around Bobridge and Dennis. It’s all good, he tells me. “We don’t do it for the glory. We do it for the ladies.” I tell him he should’ve taken up soccer.

Men’s Team Sprint qualifiers are up next, and despite the appearance of Chris Hoy, I’m not paying much attention. On the speakers someone is blasting Empire State of Mind, and it’s kind of fitting. The French team, including recently returned drug test avoider Gregory Bauge, sets a fast time and wins a prize for looking totally hot. The New Zealanders give them a run for their money, however – apparently their all black kit looks a lot like the Hell Krew kit – Gene keeps getting waved into the athlete areas. It seems to work for them, and they set a hot time. The Australian team also manage to sneak into the top two, but their position seems precarious with Team GB on the start line. Sir Chris looks the goods, but they’re up against the Germans, famous for their gigantically disproportionate calves. The Germans bring it home and qualify second and will be riding against France for gold, with the Australians and the Brits battling it out for the minor placings.

Women’s team sprint finals next, and first it’s GB v China – the loser’s race. Sorry. Vicky Pendleton is in this with Jess Varnish, and it seems the crowd is favouring them over the Chinese. Racism? Probably. But the Chinese don’t care, and they take it out by 0.3 of a second. It’s not the main game, though, and the announcer starts to hype up the crowd for the Meares and McCulloch show. Up against the new world record holders, they’ll have their work cut out for them. One of the German journalists tells me the women were a bit of a surprise. And they continue to surprise all comers – despite looking as rough as guts on the bike, they set a new world record, and blast Australia out of the water. Anna Meares and Kristina Vogel are later seen hugging. I am once again happy I didn’t mock Miriam Welte into falling off the rollers.

 

Victoria Pendleton Pin-Up!

The medal presentations start up, which gives me time to be annoying. I grab Gene and head over to the German pit area. They don’t seem happy. Forstemann says that he’ll take the aforementioned calf picture later, and their PR guy insistently asks us to leave their box. We do so, and make fun of his Teutonic sense of humour. Later we discover the German men have been relegated. Which sucks for them, but is kinda good, because when their national anthem plays for the women it’s an affront to the ears.

The scratch race final is up next. I’d spoken to Nath about this race earlier in the evening, and he’d suggested that all the teams were a bit Meh about the scratch race. Which is weird, you know? A rainbow jersey is a rainbow jersey. But Australia seem to have followed the rule, using the race to further blood young guy Alex Edmondson, who perhaps wasn’t in the men’s pursuit team earlier after all. He looks pretty fresh. Swiss charmer Franco Marvulli is also there. Of course he is. He’s been in every track race happening in Melbourne since he arrived here in November. It’s a good race, with lots of attacks, but not much sticks, and the racing is pretty tight and a little messy. Some guy from Austria hits it, and team Italy does the chasing, but GB’s Ben Swift is in the mix, and eventually takes it out. That’ll ease the pain of being left out of the world record setting pursuit team earlier this evening.

 

You would've started the sprint too if you'd had this bloke yelling at you.

The Men’s Team Sprint finals are up next, and once again it’s the loser’s race first. I mean no disrespect  by that – I’d kill to be in one of these races. There has been some serious controversy here, however – both the German team and I believe the GB team have been relegated in qualifying. Which leaves NZ to take on Japan for the bronze, and against the coolest team here Japan never had a chance. I even hear the NZ team getting wolfwhistled afterwards. People, these are cyclists! The relegation also leaves Australia to battle the dominant French team. They’re definitely outsiders here, but I’m sure the glory of God will help Matthew Glaetzer bring it home. 

 

Gregory Bauge, who I still think is a mad-dog.

Some knob in the crowd tries to start up the moronic Aussie Aussie Aussie chant, but no one is having a bar of it. Perko leads off and within half a lap the French are in front. One lap and the French are still up. Sunderland takes over and the French are still in front, the gap not narrowing. Glaetzer takes over and the margin immediately begins to fall. He’s all of 19, he’s some mad Christian who probably believes in creationism and that women have no right to choose, he’s obviously a massive dork, but right now I’m cheering for him like mad. At half a lap to go the French are still up, but only by 0.023. One inch off the black line, one tiny deviation from the shortest possible route could mean the difference here.

And it does. Glaetzer steps it up and throws his bike to the line. There’s a pause, but when the times hit the scoreboard Hisense Arena erupts. No, seriously. The noise is like an explosion.They've got it.

Shane Perkins, the former rough nut, hit by a car earlier this week, is the first of the Australians to veer up into the crowd. A couple of seconds later he emerges with his youngest child. They’re both helmetless, but show little concern for the opinions of Herald-Sun readers. And nor does the crowd, who give him the biggest cheer of the night.

It’s all of 9.30, and I’m due here again at one o’clock tomorrow arvo. So I’m packing up a little early, trying to avoid having to stand for Advance Australia Fair.

You Want Action, Satisfaction?

Day 1 – Afternoon Session.

Romance be damned. It took me about three hours to get home on the tram last night, so this afternoon I drive down to Clifton Hill and take the train into the city. Sitting on the platform is my friend Lidia. She’s a naturopath, heading into her clinic in the city. I resist the temptation to ask her advice about getting to sleep.

Melbourne has turned on another pearler of a day, and I’m almost annoyed that I’ll be spending the whole day inside. As I walk down the Flinders St steps I pick my way over emos, goths, ravers. The more things change…

I’ve caught the number 70 tram down to the sports precinct when the footy is on, and there’s always a good sense of solidarity with other passengers – anyone with a matching scarf is your best friend. I look around for similar markers today – dudes with shaved legs, or cycling logos on their shirts, or that slightly gaunt look, but I see nothing, and consequently don’t strike up conversations with anyone.

They’ve already given me my pass, and seen me around yesterday, so I don’t have to spruce myself up and pretend to be reputable today. No one even looks at me twice as I walk in. I know the way, flash my pass at security, and also Kathy Watt, who I didn’t recognize until a considerable time afterwards. She’s here taking photos, and possibly has more gear now than she did in her cycling days.

Gene "GZA" Mills.

I wander around and get some more photos for Hurley. Gene is volunteering today, mostly as a holder, and he wanders around with me. I tell him that today he may play a part in a world record. He seems nonchalant about the opportunity, but that’s pretty much par for the course. Hurley wants shots of pedals, for some reason, and I’m happy to oblige. Today’s hottest bike, however, is the stealthy looking BMC, customized for the Swiss team. It’s a track version of Cadel’s TT bike – all they seem to have done is changed the dropouts – but they look ridiculously good. 

The Swiss Team's BMCs.

And their cranks.

There’s considerably more media here today too. The SBS folks are squirrelled away in their own little corner, Matty Keenan frantically taking notes, hopefully on pronunciation. Tomolaris is also here, and I make a silent pledge to myself to take a photo of the erection I know he gets when he interviews Jack Bobridge.

For the first time this weekend the commissaire’s whistle blows and the track is cleared in anticipation of competition starting in earnest. An impressive line starts to form at the Tech Regs area, where bikes are checked for their saddle angles and riders are checked to ensure their forearms are parallel to the ground. I talk briefly to Karen O’Callahan, who tells me they are being pretty strict on it, unless there are exceptions for morphological reasons, like if they’re tall. Morphological is a good word. I write it down. 

I believe this is known as The Commissaire's Pout of Disapproval. That's Karen on the left.

The line for approval.

The venue is filling slowly – there are still a lot of tickets available to this session, as it starts late and only involves the Team Pursuit qualifying. That didn’t sound like the most interesting of propositions, and I wasn’t going to come down here either, but midway through doing the dishes I remembered that last year at the Nationals it was in qualifying that Jack Bobridge set his Individual Pursuit world record. While the fancied teams may well be racing again tonight, the opportunity to see that time get lowered again is too tempting to resist. 

Totally some seats vacant.

In the press pack there were vouchers for free coffee, so I cash mine in as the pursuits start. I figure it’s not really my job to keep track of results – for that see Cycling News – so I just hang out and watch the coaches walk the line. The theatrics involved would put the campest mime to shame, but as well as gesticulating wildly these old men, who are generally unkempt and usually overweight, yell at their riders, and beg them to go just that little bit faster. Some of them plead, some of them yell, some of them issue orders.

I have a quick chat to Geraint Thomas, mostly about crank length. Apparently he runs 172.5s on the track and 175s on the road, mostly because the longer cranks on the track feel a bit funny. It’s my first real interview, unless you count talking to Nath, and it goes ok. He’s on his way to the toilet, and looks like it’s a little urgent, but it still counts. I resolve to do more as the weekend goes by.

The New Zealand team are out on the track and the crowd gives them a huge reaction – they’ve obviously brought their first and second cousins with them. The cheering comes in waves – when they go past the front straight there’s a cheer, then a pause, then another cheer when they hit the back straight. It’s a little strange. There’s some big raps on this team – almost as big as their gears – and they’re holding up to the pressure well. They set the fastest time of the day so far, and are the first team to break four minutes.

Great Britain are up next and the crowd is strangely silent. You can hear the sounds of them riding across the boards, tires a smooth rumbling. I think I can hear Pete Kennaugh panting. Halfway through they’re already a second up on New Zealand. These blokes don’t even seem to be trying, but they’re still one second off the world record.

The Australian team finally step up and even their appearance gets a cheer. Halfway through their pursuit they’re a second up on the Brits, and the crowd starts to get worked up. The excitement is palpable. They’re a bit slower in the last three laps, but a bit of yelling from the crowd and they step it up. It’s all down to hundredths of a second, but they haven’t stepped it up enough. In the end they’re .2 of a second slower than the British team. Much as I’m annoyed by the constant “Us vs Them”, Australia vs England false dichotomy that has been raging in the media, it seems like this will be the case this evening. It’ll be damn fine watching, as will New Zealand and Russia battling for third.

Things start to wind down a little bit, and Monique brings me some kind of pumpkin roll thing for dinner. She’s here working for the Canadian team, doing their press for them. Seems like if you know someone in cycling, you got a pass. It’s good to have her here – that’s one more person to stop me from doing something stupid. The crowd trickles out and the cleaning crew trickles in.

 

And I thought my stem was slammed. Team China.

 

Stop. Hammertime.

 

The New Zealand team were rocking these huge, custom made chainrings.

 

Team Belgium warms up. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was disappointed they weren't riding Merckx'.

 

The German team had regular Dura Ace drive side cranks, but these on the non-drive side. Crazy.

 

Pendleton's Pedals.

 

A big Look. Their website says they don't make them this big. I believe this one is Gregory Bauge's.

It took all of my elementary French to discover that their team was running FMBs, and that they were 22mm. A bunch of teams were running 22mm tyres, actually. This means, as much as I hate to admit it, that Blakey was right. 

Being Real Or Being Mean.

Day Zero.

Melbourne is at its best in the Autumn. In order to get the full Melbourne experience I’m taking the tram all weekend, and today the slow rollicking of the number 86 takes me past café after café, outdoor tables packed with hipsters soaking in the last few warm days of the year. Melbourne in a nutshell – where no one seems to work nine to five.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and the emotional pendulum is swinging hard. Right now it’s up the positive end; I’m listening to a new Latterman record, the tram is full of pretty girls in their 90s inspired summer dresses, and I’m heading into the city to pick up my media pass for the 2012 UCI Track World Championships.

Nice out, eh?

Three trams and two records later I make my way into Hisense Arena. The accreditation centre isn’t open for another ten minutes, so I wander around a bit. In that time four separate people ask me what I’m doing there. “Media,” I mumble. They take a barely-concealed, skeptical look at my tattoos and leave me alone.

Some toy that came in the press pack.

The Australian team seem to have just finished, and are leaving in dribs and drabs. I’m no fanboy, but as the pursuit team rolls by they catch me off-guard, and I don’t manage to say anything. A couple of them are wearing rainbow stripes. Rainbow stripes they’ve earned.

The bowels of Hisense Arena

I eventually sign in and make my way inside. There are folks from the army in full dress uniforms toting flagpoles, here to rehearse the medal presentations. Member of the workforce get to stand on the podium as the presentation horns blare and the announcers refer to them as Shane Perkins or Anna Meares.

I’m not allowed to take photos, but I have, of course, brought in my phone, which takes pictures in two different formats – blurry and out of focus. I try to take a few shots of bikes for Hurley, but I can’t get close enough without seeming conspicuous, so I give up and skulk back to the media area. On the track the Japanese pursuit team are training, but there are also a heap of other teams on the track. It’s a bit chaotic, but I’m never concerned that any of them are going to crash. The banks of the track seem a little shallower than DISC, and the track itself a little wider. The riders never seem pressed for space, even when another team practices their starts.

I wander around taking photos. Hurley sends orders over the phone. No one seems to care that I’m there with my camera – it’s the first day, and folks seem pretty relaxed. I even get my photo taken with some guy who was world sprint champ ten years in a row.

I now have a bunch of photos of tech, in particular of Geraint Thomas’ bike. Hurley wanted to know what crank length he was running, but Thomas himself showed up, and I got a little shy. The GB mechanic was already looking at me kinda weird. “Have you done anything different to the bikes?” I asked him. “They’re just track bikes, mate,” he answered. “There’s not much you can do to them.”

Stealthy looking New Zealand bikes.

Fancy handmade FMB tubulars on a Chinese bike.

Holy shit, some people are still using the Look Ergostem. This from Team China.

The Ukrainian Team showed up with this sweet Kalavinka. Totally my 2nd favourite bike down here. I wrote to Kalavinka a while back to see if they'd make one of these in a 57cm top tube for me. They said no, but complemented me on my impressive height.

Geraint Thomas' pursuit bike. Hurley wanted a lot of pics of this baby, much to the nonplussitude of the GB mechanic.

Thomas' cranks. Again, nothing special about these guys. In fact, I'm pretty sure he and I run the same chain.

For some reason Hurley wanted me to take this photo. I'm not sure why.

Pete Kennaugh's rad looking dropouts.

The German bikes. Apparently the Australian team were heard admitting that these were the hottest looking bikes at the meet.

Germans rocking basic Dura Ace cranks.

Wasn't nothing basic about their aerobars though.

The Italians seemed to have the hottest selection of bikes though. Mixed up in there is a customized Cannondale Slice. Hot. But still not as hot as those Cipollinis.

Me and Japan's Koichi Nakano. Ten World Sprint Championships between the two of us.

I start to get a little tired around dinner time, and figure I should probably make my way home. I'm kinda keen to show off my Press Pass at DISC tonight, and ask if people think the picture could be Hurley. We'll see. Racing starts tomorrow, with team pursuits. Should be rad.

A Spectre's Haunting Albert Street.

Do you know where Apeldoorn is? Know anything about it? Nope, me either. Well, that's not entirely true. I do know that it was the location of the 2011 Track World Championships - last year's equivalent to what is happening in Melbourne this weekend. I know that Perko won the Keirin, Howard and Meyer won the Madison again and Anna Meares won pretty much everything. I know a whole lot about a bunch of foreign athletes who landed on a town, went around in circles really fast, then went home. I have no idea about how they interacted with the town, how the town was different that day, or how they were a little bit different after being there.

So I took it upon myself to make the international competition feel a little more local. I asked on a variety of messageboards and other internet-based social networking devices for people to let me know the locations that they had sighted any of the national teams here for the Track World Championships. And they did. In droves. And I put them up on Twitter, with the hashtag #trackworlds. That means anyone who searches that hashtag on Twitter, perhaps looking for Chris Hoy's flying 200 time, will also discover 'facts' like this:


I took some advice from Tom Waits ("Every song needs a city, a street name, and weather") and applied it to Twitter, throwing in some local knowledge for the fun of it. Sometimes people told me what the teams were up to, but mostly they just gave me the location of the sighting, and I paired it with a nearby landmark.



Eventually, because I'm on school holidays, and am not sleeping particularly well, I put it all together in a map. Well, only after a thirty minute tutorial from Blakey and Nick J.


View 2012 Track Worlds Spotto in a larger map

You may, of course, suggest that this is all a little stalker-ish, and you'd have a fair point, but I never really meant it that way. As such, I didn't ever post where teams were staying, where they were training, or anything legitimately important. And besides, a majority of those facts are made up for comedic purposes. So it's ok, right?

Anyways. I hope that someone goes looking for details on how to spell Simona Krupeckaite and finds out that the New Zealand team are alleged to have been making race car noises around the Grand Prix track. Then, as well as a little bit of a LOL, they'll know something else about this city. That I somehow love so much I can barely leave.

For more tweets, check out here. I'm pretty much done with the game though. The real racing starts tomorrow. And I'm getting excited.

Dead Angels.

You know that bit from the Simpsons, where Homer finally infiltrates the top-secret Stone Cutters group? Homer goes up to Lenny and Carl, where Lenny reveals the Stone Cutters ranking system (Lenny is number 12, and Mr Burns is 29) which has no reflection on the conventional every day hierarchies. This leads to a hilarious sequence where Lenny calls Mr Burns over and kicks him in the ass, only for Mr Burns to say: "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

Trust me, I tried to avoid the laboured nature of the above paragraph, and simply find the clip, but yet again I failed to do so. What that whole sequence does remind me of, though, is how similar the cycling, and more specifically the racing world, is to the stonecutters world.

There's a running joke in bike racing that you have to be prepared to be beaten by people half and twice your age, which is pretty much bang on the truth. But it's not just that they are faster than you, it's the fact that they thus garner more respect: they are higher up in the cycling hierarchy.

If I had met the kid who won B grade at Coburg the other week on the street, I would have dismissed him as some pimply 17 year old, perhaps with a penchant for Linkin Park. But ever since he obliterated me in a sprint, I kind of feel I should at least say hello, and maybe congratulate him on his win.

It goes the other way too. Last year at the Northern Combine some old dude, with an expensive car came up to me, asking lots of questions and advice. I played it cool, despite having no idea myself. But there it was again: you can bet this bloke wouldn't have been asking for tips from some clueless twenty something muppet, if it were in relation to anything but cycling. Not his investment portfolio anyhow.

They (who?) say cycling is a great leveller, that whatever your income or view of life, you can bond over the shared experience of riding a bike. This is, of course, bullshit, and simply code for: you too can be shelled from the bunch by a small boy who still hasn't grasped the difference between 'they're' and 'their'. Don't blame him though, he's not stupid...they just haven't covered it in school yet.

It's not that cycling dismisses hierarchies, as some claim it does, it simply re-jigs them. Investment bankers grovel for young men doing apprenticeships, those young men give real thought to just how the hell they are going to beat the old fox who's been hatching break way plans since 1983. And that's not to mention our collective admiration for the pros, some of whom only seem capable of stringing together such gems as "I had lactic acid coming out of my ears." Well done Fabian.

If any of this has any real repercussions, it's the hilarity of watching said investment banker, rolling along in C grade, stoked on his recent dominating victory in D grade, be torn to shreds by aforementioned plumbers apprentice who, while ripping along in A grade, has the time to yell: "Hold your line fuckwit, A grade coming through!"

Consider yourself levelled.