Tommy Nankervis

Training Down Under!

// December 28th, 2008 // 10 Comments » // A Day Down Under

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you have had a great Christmas, and are getting excited about heading into the New Year! New Year’s Eve will again be a quiet one for the cycling crew here in Melbourne, as the Jayco Bay Criterium Series will begin on the 2nd day of 2009!

Training has been going really well, and I feel that I am riding with some of the best form I have ever had. A couple of weeks back, at the National Criterium Championship, I came 8th, finishing in the breakaway/chase group with a group that ended up being 8 of us, after starting off with about 15. I was very happy with the ride, being in a group of guys that had me as the only guy that has not raced ProTour/Pro Continental.

The following weekend I won the Ike Collings Memorial Sprint Series at Glenvale, round 3, which had me finishing 2nd Overall for the Series, after only racing 2 of the 3 races. The Carnegie Club put on such a great race series, and I hope for the club, and Lorraine Collings, that this race with grow from strength to strength in the years to come. Every rider involved in this series only had great things to say about it (although the same can be said for every criterium, every week, and Glenvale and Sandown)!

Here are a couple of photos to show just how great the training is here in Melbourne. Of course, everyone knows of the Hell Ride (sometimes kown as the “Black Rock Ride”). Some would say “infamous, others “famous”. I think it is great, and the best thing about it, is that it can give race fitness to the legs. Also, it is always nice to have 100km in the legs before 9am!

The Christmas Special, as it is known, usually brings out the big numbers. Last Saturday was no exception:

So many riders!

The craziest thing is, while the Hell Ride bunch is probably the biggest, there are countless other big bunches riding up and down Beach Road every morning! It is just amazing seeing so many people out enjoying this great sport.

Kiwi Greg Henderson was the lucky rider to take out the “Chrstmas Special” for 2008! I should add, that I was the one who took out the “New Year’s Special” on Saturday this week too, after an attack with Jezza with 2km to go. Unluckily for Matty, his solo from 10km to go was reeled in in the last kilometer!

Every Saturday, after the ride finishes in Black Rock, we roll up into St Kilda and enjoy a coffee, and something to eat, before heading out to the Dandenongs.

The Dandenongs may not look too big, but they are the Southern end of the Great Dividing Range. There are some great little climbs there, and offer some great training. You can see the hills just over the back of the 7-11 here, but it really doesn’t look like much.

The most renowned climb in Melbourne would have to be the Mountain Hwy from The Basin to Sassafras, otherwise known as the 1:20 (given that every 20m, it climbs 1m). It is a very steady 7km climb, and great for all kinds of training. It takes just over an hour to get there from St Kilda, so is a great add-on to the Hell Ride, for a great day’s training. Here is the climb:

It is nice and shaded, and this is just nearing the top:

It is one of my favourite training rides, the Saturday “Hell Ride, over the 1:20″. 180km before lunch time is a great way to start any day!

So that is enough of cycling for now. I know it has been a while since the day, but I just realised I forgot to post any photos of out Thanksgiving Dinner. We had a couple of celebrations for the occasion, but here are some pictures of the second celebration.

Sitting down to some great food cooked up by the American guests, Laura and Keally!

At the first Thanksgiving we had, Keally made three Pumkin Pies, and put them in the oven. My only job was to turn the temperature down after however many minutes. I forgot, and all three pies got burnt! Sorry! This time around, Keally didn’t let me anywhere near the food, and it turned out we had the three best Pumpkin Pies ever, home made all the way from scratch!

We were also lucky enough to have a special guest chef, Laura, Jonny’s better(?) half!

A huge thanks to the girls for preparing such a great meal for us. A little bit late for the thanks I know, but that’s ok!

So again, I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and Best Wishes to everyone for the New Year. Bay Crits coming up, so will be hoping for a good result or three there!

I am still team-less too, so will be hoping for the best results possible to ensure I can race my way onto a good team in 2009!

The first sport to have a World Championships was billiards, in 1873!

Racing Down Under

// December 11th, 2008 // 6 Comments » // A Day Down Under

Well that was longer than I wanted to leave it before adding another post! Things have been very hectic here, and I am still searching for a team for next year. It has been published on Velonews.com and on cyclingnews.com that I am going to be racing for DLP Racing again, but I have yet to sign, so times are very stressful indeed. Maybe I will go there, but I am trying to keep my options open and sign for the team that will give me the best opportunities.

If you are interested in having me on your team, please make contact with me asap! Thanks!

This weekend we have the 2009 Australian National Criterium Championships in Cronulla, Sydney. It should be a pretty hard race, because there are still so many guys here in Australia without teams for next year, and with a lot to prove!

I have been training my arse off, and have been able to get out to some of “the best local crits in the world”, those run by my club, the Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club here in Melbourne. I can not speak for Europe because I have never been there, but I have spent a lot of time in the USA, and I can tell you, the Carnegie criteriums are awesome. On Sundays, there is the famous “Glenvale Crescent Criteriums” which are on a rectangle circuit just over 1km long, and on Tuesday nights we have the “Sandown Raceway Criteriums” on the Sandown car racing track.

The reason these are the best club criteriums in the world, is because there is nowhere else you can go for such great racing, with great prize money, and with such a small entry fee. I could be wrong, as I haven’t raced in Europe, but for the $10 entry, and to be able to race against up to 80 A-Grade riders, full gas, for an hour, twice per week, is pretty fantastic if you ask me. There are no promoters trying to make money out of the racing, there is no negative racing, and everyone there is friendly and wanting to race their hearts out for the whole race. It is unbelievable that the club is now getting around 260-280 competitors on Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings, across four grades!

So I was lucky enough to have President Mal Sawford send me a few photo from the racing, so I could spruce up the post a little. A huge thanks go to CJ at VeloPhoto, and also to Harry Hanley for taking the photos here. These guys get some great shots, and makes the racing seem even better when you can get online afterwards and see what the action looked like!

Last Tuesday brought out the big bunches for the Ike Collings Sprint Series, in memory of a legend of the club, Ivan Collings. The bunches were HUGE, and I hadn’t raced in a few months, so it was pretty exciting.

The bunches were huge, and it is quite amazing to look at these photos and see just how many people are there racing on the track at the same time!

A-Grade came down to a big bunch sprint, and here you can see Todd Wilksch, Troy Clarke, and me going at it in the last 100m.

The big man, “Bus” Wilksch beat Troy and I home to take an impressive win. I just want Todd to know that I wont be doing 5 hours in the morning next time, so look out! I had 200km on my speedo when I crossed the line in the sprint! Big Day, but full credit to Wilksch, he was going to win no matter what, he’s just way too fast in a sprint… The best thing about the racing here at Carnegie now, is the depth of talent. The fields are top quality, and I am not just saying that. I was very impressed my the amount of guys having a real go at it in the race. The finish was hectic, with about 6-7 lead out trains thinking they could all control the race. The race was also incredibly fast. It is awesome.

Afterwards, I got some prize money, presented by Lorraine Collings, who is just an amazing help at the club. I thought this photo looked pretty cool.

So that was Tuesday night for the Ike Collings Sprint Series. A great turn out, and some great racing.

Sunday was back to the old favourite, Glenvale Crescent. I ended up in a three man break there, and here are a couple of shots from the action. Another great workout, and this time I wound up second.


So there you have a bit of a look at some of Australia’s best club’s criterium racing!

If you are in Melbourne, be sure to head on down to the Carnegie Caulfield racing for a great work out, and some great racing!

Just by recycling one aluminium can, enough energy would be saved to have a TV run for three hours.