Waihi Midsummer Madness –
130km hilly Individual Time Trial
18th
December 2005
Jason Kelly
This event is advertised as New Zealand’s
toughest individual time trial and with the course being just under 130km of
undulating country that starts in Waihi and passes through Whangamata – Hikuai
– Kopu and Paeroa before finishing back in Waihi it certainly lives up to its
reputation. The stated rewards of entering are good company, with no wimps or
posers, the opportunity to pass through some magnificent scenery and to pit
your strength against some vicious stretches of gravity (also known as hills
and plenty of them.) In the past, this event had been organised and run by
Bevan Jones who unfortunately was killed in Africa earlier in 2005.
Driving to Waihi on the Saturday
afternoon in torrential rain and cold weather made me wonder why I had ever
thought this event was a good idea. However, the weather cleared that evening
and warmed up a little. By start time on Sunday morning, over 80 riders started
at one minute intervals in numerical order in near perfect conditions – fine,
mild and with little wind.
Starting at number 30 at 9am, I quickly
tried to establish a good rhythm and settle into the ride. The course starts on
a slight false flat and has no real flat pieces in it. After a few minutes I
caught and passed rider number 29 and soon after that was suffering up a small
climb. I decided I had better ease back as there was still a long way and
plenty of climbing to go! Carrying on, I was initially passing a rider about
every five minutes and was mentally ticking them off one by one.
The first major descent is quite windy
and tight in places with plenty of speed warning signs – 45km/h was a common
suggested speed and quite rightly so in places. Luckily traffic was fairly
light on this piece of road.
The major climb, which is about 6km in
length, is approximately at the midway point of the ride and I spun up this in
my 39:21 (first gear) and managed to pass a few more riders. These turned out
to be the last riders I would see all day while racing. Crossing the summit,
the elapsed time was just over 2 hours with about 60km left to the finish line.
The next few kilometres were fast and easy as they were downhill. After that,
the false flats and small rises seemed to get bigger and harder!
It seemed to take forever to get back to
Pareoa as I waited in vain for a tail wind kick to help me along. Eventually I
made it to the finish line in Waihi and my brother Patrick, who was my support
crew for the event, gave me good news and bad news – the good news was that I
was the fastest finisher so far (in 3hrs 32m 13s) and the bad news was that I
was fourteen seconds off the official course record! A story floating around
was that the unofficial record is even faster at around 3hrs 26m but the rider
was a late entrant so Bevan Jones refused to recognise the effort! Riders continued to finish over the next
couple of hours but my time remained the fastest of the day.
The event attracts many Masters age group
riders with the oldest riders being in the H grade (70 years old plus). A
Masters Average Standard Time (MAST) is calculated for each rider based on their
age, e.g. mine was 4hrs 15m, with a prize for the rider who beats their MAST by
the largest amount. This favours older riders with the winner of this category
being a G grader (65-69 year old) who recorded 4hrs 05m and beat their MAST by
1hr 23m!
At the prize giving, I collected two gold
medals – one for fastest time overall and one for first place in the Masters A
grade (35-39 year olds) along with the Challenge Trophy and a Waihi Gold
cycling shirt.
The top five finishers in 2005 were:
1st Jason Kelly 3:32:132nd Dave Mann 3:34:52
3rd Paul Westwood 3:41:02
4th Jeff Lyall 3:46:33
5th Wayne Mason 3:47:14
A target time of 3hrs 25m to ensure the
record is beaten sounds like a challenging 2006 target!
