The long road home.

The Melbourne to Warrnambool, the longest UCI race in the southern hemisphere and the 2nd oldest UCI race in the world. A race that I'd been working towards for the better part of the year.

To say I was nervous is a fair understatement. Despite having barely looked at my hardtail, let alone ridden it in the last few months, I felt out of my depth, a mountain biker in a roadies world. A few pros had stuck around after the Herald Sun tour, including Kristian House and Darren Lapthorne, their presence only added to my nerves.



The race started pretty easy for me, rolling along in a massive bunch is really simple, sit in, pedal occasionally and take in the gorgeous scenery. A couple of breaks got away and no one wanted to chase. I accidently broke away with a couple of other riders for a short bit. It freaked me out and was more than happy to be swallowed back up shortly after. :)

Around the second feed zone, a hard attack came from a group of domestic and international pros. I worked with a group to try and chase them, but it was to no avail, they had the pedal flat to the floor and we couldn't close the gap.

Once it was clear that we weren't going to close the gap to the group in front, let alone the early break, all impetus went out from my bunch. From then on it was a matter of getting to the line, I rolled turns to get us there, but some poor hydration early in the race left me cramping with only 15km to go. I dropped out of the bunch and rolled home solo, managing to stop the clock with a mono in just over 7 hours.

When I signed up for the Warny it seemed like a stupid idea, then I noticed there was a race (Shipwreck Coast Classic) the day after, so to make the Warny seem less stupid I signed up for the second race as well. Sometime between signing up and Sunday morning, it became the Victorian Road Championships, ensuring a top rate field.

So I woke up and on Sunday and Could. Not. Be. Fucked. Who would have thought that the day after the longest race in the southern hemisphere I wouldn't want to ride again, let alone race? Crazy, I know!

The race start wasn't until 11:30, which gave me time for two breakfasts and a bit of thinking. Finally I kitted up, the skinsuit was out due to a lack of pockets, but the medal for finishing the Warny was in! It kept hitting me in the chest during the race, reminding me that I was a freaking retard. :)

I had no idea how my legs would fare, but my pride by far and away outstrips my idiocy. The race started straight into a hill buffeted by strong cross winds. Almost instantly riders were strung out in the gutter, gaps formed and breaks appeared.

I did my best to help a mate (Tim) out, including giving him a push to a wheel he was chasing. After that I got together with a rider I knew, he hammered his turns, pulling back riders in ones and twos, soon giving us a healthy group of 6.



We lost a couple of riders at Allansford (where the finish would be), but collected a few others who'd been shelled from the front two bunches. We worked well as a group, forming echelons across the road into to the wind, everyone doing their bit. At some stage another small group caught us, yet seemed unable to join in to pull turns. In hindsight we would have been better off to attack them and had them off our wheels.

By the time we turned to head home with the tailwind, I was feeling good about the race. I felt I was the strongest rider in our bunch and started to plan how to shell everyone else (bar Tim who had incriminating photos of me applying chamois cream).

We had everyone stretched out at 60km/h when something happened up front. I think someone rubbed a wheel and swerved. Tim swerved. My front wheel and Tim's derailleur met and my front wheel came off second best. The two guys behind me came off even worse and they hit the deck in a loud clatter of bodies and carbon.

Tim and I stopped and helped out the injured. Once they were ok I grabbed a spare front wheel and we rode to the finish. I crossed the line just on 3 hours with a bunny hop, 381km done.

So a weekend of racing where a lack of clear goals means it's hard to evaluate the results, but without doubt, I had the best socks.

Now it's time to get reacquainted with riding on dirt, it's been too long and I'm afraid there's going to have to be numerous 'cuddles' before we get along again.

This Weekend's Racing - Saturday

It was a big Saturday. We had Ryan Moody racing solo singlespeed a the Surf Coast Six Hour at Anglesea and Daniel Loy (our Singaporean distributor) and Neil Robinson (Baum Team member, regular blogger, helper at events and all around great guy) racing the Melbourne to Warrnambool.

Ryan won his single speed category, placed 6th in Solo and came 12th overall, teams included! Nice work Ryan. Oh, did I say he is a little crazy? No? Well he is.

Results can be found here http://www.surfcoast6hour.com.au/results-2009.php

Next up for Ryan is a solo run at the Gravity 12 hour and then the Kona 24 hour. He is training up for some HPV (human powered vehicle) record attempts.

Out at the 94th running of the Warny, one of Australia's iconic races, Daniel and Neil were preparing for the 7:30am start in the chill of early morning. Daniel flew in on Friday with Juliana. David (from Baum) and Juliana were doing support for the two riders.

Juliana and Daniel

Neil telling it how it is

Neil finished the 260km race in 125th place after some hard riding especially between Lismore and Camperdown. Daniel pulled out after around 170km. Hopefully we will see them both lining up again next year.

Results can be found here:

http://www.vic.cycling.org.au/site/cycling/vic/downloads/Results/2009/M2W09.pdf

More photos can be found on our flickr.com photostream

Neil after finishing

We had a busy weekend this weekend. Jason worked late all last week to prepare for the Expo at the final stage of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour on Saturday. It was a criterium stage through the streets of little Italy - Lygon St. Darren, Jason and Neil were available to answer people's questions about the 4 bikes on display - 2 mountain and 2 road.

Sunday was the Around the Bay in a Day. David did the 210km clockwise journey and spotted many familiar faces along the way. Justin Reidy of Bike Beyond and several Geelong Mountain Bike Club members were spotted. At the finish area a Baum with "Ambrosini" written on its top tube was also spotted.

There were plenty of Baum owners and about to be Baum owners doing the ride and I hope you all had a great day.

Darren lecturing at the University of Melbourne

Darren was recently invited by Jennie Day, a Baum owner, to lecture at the University of Melbourne. Jennie kindly sent us a summary of how the day went:

Thanks to Darren, for giving an insightful, interactive guest lecture today in my class at Melbourne Uni. The subject is called Planning the Productive City, and is taught to 3^rd-year undergraduates and masters-degree students. It introduces urban economic processes and their interaction with the political system. The point of the class is to prepare students to work as urban economic-development planners, and to critically question the economic decisions made by government.

Most of us who have been to the Baum shop know Darren as the talkative bike designer who serves up Chris King coffee from the shop espresso machine while showing you pictures of his kids. But hang around a bit longer and you will realize that he knows more than just bikes – and that he is just a *teensy* bit opinionated on issues of the economy and industry. I once went down to Geelong on a Saturday for some minor bike adjustments, and we ended up in a two-hour debate about higher education, and protectionism in the bike and car industries.

It was after one such discussion that I realized Darren would be a great invited lecturer in my subject. I wasn’t disappointed today. Most of my students know next to nothing about bikes or cycling – no matter. He was able to take theoretical economic concepts I’ve been talking about all semester and ground them in his real-life experience in founding and running Baum Cycles – all with his characteristic smarts and ease: the globalization of manufacturing, the special needs of small business enterprise, global supply chains, the importance of regional clustering, government facilitation of clustering and R&D, and the production of experience.

I could tell from the lively Q&A session that the students were interested, and were realizing that the textbook concepts we’ve been discussing for the past 6 weeks actually happen in real businesses. Already, there is a buzz around our Faculty about the talk – and it’s only been a few hours.

On behalf of all the 3^rd year bachelors and masters students in Planning the Productive City, thanks again Darren. We hope to see you back to give the same talk next year!

Jennie Day

(Proud Baum Owner since July 2009)

Lecturer in Urban Planning

Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning

The University of Melbourne

Upcoming racing

We have recently played host to two Singaporean National team members and friends of our Singaporean distributor - Lemuel and Calvin. They headed back to Singapore just in time for their national championships. Lemuel came 2nd in Junior by 0.75s!

We have a busy couple of months with races and shows on the calendar. 17th October will see us at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour Expo with some of our road and mountain bikes on display. Come along, join the festivities and say hi.

Next on the race calendar is the Melbourne to Warrnambool on 24th October. Daniel Loy, our Singaporean distributor is flying out here for that race, and Neil Robinson of Baum mountain bike team fame will be riding. Neil is also riding the Shipwreck Coast 100km road race the next day - what a nutter!

Daniel leading the bunch

Next on the calendar is the Gravity 12 hour - 7th November. Neil, David and Ryan look like they will be racing in a pair and a solo.

Then there is the UCI World Cup meet at HiSense Arena on November 19th - we are a sponsor, so we will have bikes on display again.

The final big race for the year is the Kona 24 hr. We will have a 4 man team (David, Neil, Steve and Monkey) and Ryan is planning to do solo.

Feel free to come along to any of these events and say hi - it would be great to see you there.

Email problems

Over the last 2-3 days our email system has been down. So if you sent us an email, we might not have received it. If you don't get a response by midday today (Thursday 1 Oct), please resend your email.