7 Peaks Domestique Series ride #9: Lake Mountain

Looking out over the group it was pretty hard to tell how many riders had turned up. Facebook had said we might have had 130 along, and when I added in RSVPs via email the number was closer to 150. But not everyone that says ‘I’m going’ does, and many that don’t tell us they’re coming, do.

I guessed somewhere in the vicinity of 110 but there was no way to really tell — we’d just have to wait until we got to the top.

The group had assembled at around 9am and a short time later Andy and I gave a pre-ride briefing. It was the usual stuff — what to expect from the climb, who to look out for if you needed support — but we also had a special guest: 3 Peaks Pro Team rider Alison McCormack.

We’d asked Ali to come along for a couple of reasons: to give the riders a bit of a heads-up about the 3 Peaks Challenge in March and to give our strong female contingent some information about the opportunities that exist for women that are looking to get into (or do more) cycling.

One of our biggest goals with Saturday’s ride up Lake Mountain was to see if we could attract 50 or more women to the ride. Why? Because women’s cycling is seriously under-represented at every level and if we could do even a tiny amount to provide a safe and welcoming environment for female riders, then we’d love to do that.

With the briefing completed and a few photos taken, the first riders started the climb. Hells 500 rider John van Seters had kindly volunteered to take lanterne rouge duties which left Andy and I free to fly once again. Some of my favourite rides in the series have been spent at the back of the field, but there’s something particularly enjoyable about starting near the back of the field and working your way up as you work through the climb.

Andy and I set off with the last riders and started group-hopping as soon as we hit the first steep ramp. The process goes something like this: ride at close to threshold until you catch a group on the road, chat to them for a little while, then head off in search of the next group. Rinse and repeat.

If you ever want to make a climb go fast, I can highly recommend group-hopping. For best results, make sure your group is at least 100 strong.

After passing a few groups on the initial steep kilometres Andy turned to me and said something along the lines of: ‘You go on, I’m just going to sit up and take it easy. I’m not feeling too flash.’ It was the first time he’d said it that day, but it wouldn’t be the last.

No sooner had we slowed to chat with the next group than Andy was eyeing off the next group up the road. I went with him as he pushed on, thinking to myself ‘I’m glad he’s not at 100% — I’d be off the back straight away.’ And then we’d get to the next bunch, have a chat and, before I knew it, we’d be off again.

It never felt like we were pushing particularly hard — we had plenty of opportunities to slow down and take it easy before our next effort — but we made our way quickly through the field, passing plenty of familiar faces as we went.

The sheer number of people there on Saturday means I’ll forget someone as soon as I start naming those we rode with. But it was great to see so many people that had come along  for their second or third climb (or more) in the series — particularly those that had already done Lake Mountain with us a few months earlier.

It’s a question I get asked a bit: ‘Do you get the same riders turning up to each of the rides?’ The answer is that there seems to be a small group that turn up to most (if not all) of the rides, there are more than a few that have done a handful of rides with us and there are those that are coming along for the first time.

We’re obviously more than happy to have riders from each group coming along, but it’s particularly cool to chat to the first-timers and see how they heard about the series, what motivated them to come along and how much climbing they’ve done in the past.

One of the fondest memories I have of riding with the Hells 500 crew was during the Donna Done Dirty ride in August in which Andy’s wife Tammy and his father Tony set up a mobile soup kitchen in the middle of nowhere, in the freezing cold. We got a taste of the same van Bergen hospitality at Lake Mountain on Saturday when, a little over halfway through the climb, we came across Andy’s parents Tony and Judy standing by the side of the road.

They were holding silver platters covered with muesli slice and as we approached, they jogged alongside us so we could grab the delicious treats without stopping. It was one of those unforgettable little touches that makes the Hells 500 group such a great bunch to ride with. Who goes to the trouble of baking well over 100 pieces of muesli slice for people they’ve never met?! Incredible.

As Andy and I climbed through the easy second half of the climb, we continued to pass more and more riders. After a little while we rounded the final right-hand bend and the Lake Mountain resort came into view ahead of us.

Despite having spent most of the climb coughing up a lung and talking with a squeaky voice that made him sound like a pubescent boy, Andy decided to chuck it in the big dog and wind it up for a sprint. I tried to follow but it was all over within a couple of metres and I just decided to cruise over the line, trying to smile for Nigel Welch’s waiting camera as I entered the car park.

Andy and I had never discussed pushing hard up the mountain and we certainly didn’t discuss the possibility of a PB on the climb. In fact, the thought didn’t even cross my mind — we’d spent much of the climb sitting in with other riders and taking it easy.

But when I got to Lake Mountain and checked my Garmin, I realised we’d done the climb 4 minutes faster than my previous best: a time of 1 hour 8 minutes. What a pleasant surprise! Now I’m keen to head out there again and give it a real crack.

As happy as Andy and I were with our time, we were comprehensively outshone by a handful of individuals in the group.

In the opening kilometres of the climb Andy and I cheered as Brendan Canty, Joel Nicholson and Evan Henley flew by us in that order. They’d started the climb at the same time and there seemed to be a race of sorts going on. In the hours after the ride we’d discover that all three riders had ridden fast enough to shake up the top 10 of the Lake Mountain Strava segment (Joel’s not on Strava).

Not only that, but Brendan’s scorching time of 51 minutes 33 seconds was enough to smash the KOM by an amazing four minutes, putting him well ahead of A-grade riders and even a handful of National Road Series riders. What an incredible effort!

But it wasn’t just the blokes that were kicking goals. Of the top 10 places in the QOM standings, six were set with us on Saturday. (Well done to Carolyn, Jennifer, Tracey, Kath, Meg and Leah!) It gets better. Look a little further down the list and you’ll see that 14 of the top 20 times were set during our ride. Truly awesome.

But of course, the 7 Peaks Domestique Series is about far more than setting cracking times on the climbs. It’s about getting people into the hills, encouraging people to give climbing a shot, and to see them improve over time.

One of the coolest comments of the weekend came from Matt McCullough — the bloke who directed and produced this cracking video from our first ride up Mt. Baw Baw — who couldn’t believe how much easier the Lake Mountain climb was compared to the last time he did it. So great to hear.

At the top of the mountain I stood around and chatted with a whole bunch of satisfied-looking riders and enjoyed a sausage and drink courtesy of the Marysville Lions Club. It was so good to have the Lions Club up there putting on a sausage sizzle — for one, it allowed the riders to give a bit of money to the Marysville community (which is still rebuilding, slowly and surely, after Black Saturday).

But it was also just great having some food at the top, given resort management had told us they couldn’t open the bistro due to staffing issues. It would have been worth their while, that’s for sure.

And while I’m on the subject of people helping us out, there are a few thank-yous I need to say. Thanks, as ever, to Winners Nutrition for providing the bars, gels and chews that have been so popular throughout the series. Thanks to Emma & Tom’s for providing the juice that was so quickly snaffled up at the top of the climb. Thanks to Cycling Express for providing the major prize for the series (a Mavic Cosmic Elite wheelset) and a handful of vouchers for every ride.

Thanks to the incredible Kirsten Simpson and Nigel Welch who have dazzled us once again with their magnificent photos (many of which you see in this post).  Having professionals along to take photos really has taken the series to the next level and we’re very grateful to Kirsten and Nigel for donating their time.

Thanks to John van Seters for so generously offering to ride lanterne rouge for us — I know the riders you rode with were extremely grateful too!

And of course, thanks to our ever-incredible support team that do so much to help make the day run smoothly, from taking names, to handing out nutrition, to directing traffic … it’s all much appreciated. Thanks Tammy, Maria, Sharon, Judy and Tony! As it turned out, it was the biggest support crew we’ve had so far in the series … and probably just as well.

It’s only when you check the list of names on the clipboard that you get a real sense of just how many people have come along to one of these rides. So when Andy and I checked the list after the last riders had made it to the top, it was a great surprise and a real thrill to see 161 162 names there.

We’d been aiming for 100+ (our previous assault on Lake Mountain attracted 98 riders!) and we’d smashed that goal by a considerable margin.

As mentioned earlier, we’d had another goal for the day — to attract 50+ women to the ride. A quick look at the list of names below suggests we fell about 10 short of that goal, but I think it’s still an effort we can all be very proud of.

As mentioned, women’s cycling is frustratingly under-represented and under-supported in this country (and around the world I suspect) and it’s important that we make the sport as inclusive as possible for everyone, regardless of gender (or age, or race, or sexual preference, or anything else!)

And so to the $20 Cycling Express vouchers we have the pleasure of giving away. We’d like to award the vouchers to the following individuals:

• Kath Taylor and Julie Jackson, who were seen doing a second ascent of the brutal opening kilometres ‘just for fun’!
• Jayde Ho, for an inspiring feat of perseverance in getting to the top, slowly, but surely!
• Leah MacGibbon, who normally rides by herself but came along to help boost the number of women on the ride
• Wendy Gee, who’s been a part of the Domestique Series since the start and has helped us encourage other women along.

Well done to the five voucher recipients!

And so, with the first month of 2013 nearly halfway through already (scary, huh?) there are just two trips remaining in the 7 Peaks Domestique Series. On February 9 and 10 we’ll be up at Mt. Buller again, taking on one of the most beautiful climbs in the state. I’ll have my fingers crossed for better weather than last time but then again, that was one of the most memorable weekends I’ve ever had on the bike …

And then, in the final supported ride of the series*, we’re heading back out to face the hardest climb of the lot: Mt. Baw Baw. We’ve got a clear target in mind for that one — 100 riders — and with 87 already confirmed on Facebook more than a month before the event, things are looking good.

Until next time, thanks very much for reading and I hope to see you out in the mountains soon!

The Strava file from my ride can be found here.

Honour roll

The order of these names doesn’t necessarily reflect the order in which riders finished the climb. If we haven’t got you on the list, let us know! If we’ve spelled your name wrong, you should have written it more clearly in the notebook … but let us know and we’ll fix it up! If you’d like your climb time listed, email us with the details (and a Strava link or similar to prove it!)

1. Stephen Chan
2. Thomas Price
3. Brendan Canty (51 minutes 30 seconds!!!)
4. Chris Stephens
5. David Franjic
6. Kip Gabriel
7. Matt Peterson
8. Philip Millar
9. Joel Nicholson (~57 minutes)
10. David Abzatz
11. Neil Smithies
12. Andrew Brown
13. Evan Henley
14. Ben Cotter
15. Brendan Edwards
16. Peter Hyett
17. Tony Lane
18. Don Sirikhant
19. James Hu
20. Glenn Hocking
21. William Tao
22. Andrew McPherson
23. Jamie Hunter
24. Gordon Oakley
25. Greg Pruitt
26. Tim Pittaway
27. David Weiss
28. Nikolas Krzyzkowski
29. Carl Cubitt
30. Josh Goodall
31. Gary Beazley
32. Warren Hartfield
33. Aidan Kent
34. David Weeks
35. Jon Eaves (1 hour 10 minutes)
36. Neil Osbourne (1 hour 10 minutes)
37. Nicole van Bergen
38. Henry Harte
39. Simon Payne (1 hour 7 minutes)
40. Gary Lucas
41. Jennifer Brown
42. Colin Morris
43. Matt McCullough
44. Darren Allan
45. John Gogis
46. Megan Brown
47. Jed Bowtell
48. Kath Taylor
49. Nick Flynn
50. Paul Wilson
51. Chris Burton
52. Blair Calvert
53. Tracey Morey
54. Matt Wakefield
55. Geoff Foreman
56. Raj Wilson
57. Matt Parker
58. Dave Murray
59. Scott Turner
60. Renee Nutbean
61. Jeremy Taylor
62. Paul Russell
63. Bruce Baehmsoh
64. Kris Dieber
65. Kieren Prowse
66. Julie Jackson
67. David Leong
68. Gregory Pratt
69. Matt McLennan (1 hour 9 minutes & 1 hour 18 minutes)
70. Daniel Robertson (1 hour 18 minutes)
71. George Voros
72. Reid Bates
73. Peter Kinden
74. Antony Makin
75. James Williams
76. Shari Aubrey
77. Danny Cohen
78. Karen Kennedy
79. Alison McCormack
80. Alec Jeffery
81. Brad Lyell
82. Bec Farmer
83. Karen Hanna
84. Robert Rozycki
85. Jurien Dekter
86. Andrew Moodie
87. Damian Lanogun
88. Leanne Tong
89. Lawson Lam
90. Peter Anderson
91. William Lai
92. Willy Gunawan
93. Ross Moultrie
94. Rohan Wills
95. Brad Clark
96. Dave Burns
97. Lou Ciapannolo
98. Tim Ling
99. Phil Faure
100. Pip Grinblat
101. Robert Rusev
102. Olivia Eckel
103. Lee ‘Hollywood’ Turner
104. Mike Edgar
105. Greg Scudds
106. Matt de Neef (1 hour 8 minutes)
107. Andy van Bergen (1 hour 8 minutes)
108. Sasha Stevanovic
109. Libby Williams
110. Bernie Peeler
111. Peter Munn
112. Dom Cryan
113. Wendy Garrett
114. Alex Faure
115. Meredith Clark
116. Tim Clark
117. Zeinab Fakih
118. Chris Wade
119. Ron Peel
120. Ric Falconer
121. Andrew Sypkens
122. Michael Koumanidis
123. Tracey Miller
124. Scott McFarlane
125. Jamie Green
126. Paul Bradley
127. Leah Macgibbon
128. Nic Newby
129. Dan Burton
130. Brian Beardon
131. Linda Hobday
132. Steven Payne
133. Ben Hellena
134. Josh Aitken
135. Calan Page
136. Allan Hill
137. Chris O’Donnell
138. Lisa Dell’Oro
139. Andrew Harpur
140. Sue Madden
141. Sue Bourke
142. Sonia Hutton
143. Liz Jeans
144. Maria Pearce
145. Scott Fynmore
146. Les Voros
147. Joe Egan
148. Paul D’Andrea
149. Irene Ungo Caro
150. K. Breen
151. Michelle Mumford
152. Peter Kennedy
153. Carrie Lim
154. Cheryl Tan
155. Rachael Harfield
156. Bronwyn Skowronski
157. Karin-Camille King
158. Jayde Ho
159. Eugene Lee
160. David Tran
161. Wil Kong
162. John van Seters

Previous rides in the series:

• Ride #1: Lake Mountain
• Ride #2: Mt. Baw Baw
• Rides #3&4: Mt. Buller
• Ride #5: Falls Creek
• Ride #6: Mt. Hotham
• Ride #7: Mt. Buffalo
• Ride #8: Dinner Plain

* There are a number of other, unsupported rides that can count towards the 7 Peaks Domestique Series. Check out this page for all the details.