 that you see there, it isn't me. It's a legend of the local criterium scene here in Melbourne, Tommy Nankers. But that footage there, I think I'm gonna watch it a few thousand times between now and the start of the local criterium season because I have a new goal and it's all about positive energy here. I wanna win an A grade criterium before the end of 2018. And I'm gonna start a video series. This is the first video. And essentially, if you wanna see me throw myself under the bus trying to achieve this goal, consider subscribing below. But let me just back up the bus a little bit to explain how this goal came about. So in late 2014, I finally achieved a goal that I'd set out to achieve many years prior and that is winning a B grade criterium after coming second, third, fourth and everything else. I finally won one and I earned the promotion from B grade and the local crits into A grade. Then a week later, I got a massive shock recognizing that B grade to A grade is a massive jump and if I'm to perform in A grade, I really needed to lift my game. Now at Inform, our primary focus was more on the major tours. So tour of the Southwest, tour of Bright, for example. So I never really targeted the crits and it's been a number of years that have passed and all of a sudden I've just got a burning desire to give the crits a massive crack. So today's video is not me riding a bike, although I'm about to go for a bike ride. I've got my motivation levels up and I'm about to go out for a ride with my favorite side-by-side riding part of Brian Scott. But in this video, I'm gonna share with you a discussion I had with my cycling coach, David Sturt, who's gonna be supporting me and coaching me over the next three to four months. Now if you don't know much about David, he's got 10 plus years of cycling coaching experience. He's also coached some absolute superstars. Some of those include Thomas Jones, who won the men's under 19 national TT last year and now rides for the AG2R development team. Carter Turnbull's another great example, so he won the under 19 Oceana road cycling championship early this year and also came second in the under 19 road nationals in January. And masters wise, he's coached some absolute weapons as well at the local scene. Some of those include Darren Lever and Brett Kingston. So the guy knows what he's talking about. In this discussion, we're just keeping at pretty high level. When I understand from David, does he think I can actually win an A-grade criterion? Because he knows the scene well here. We talk about what I need to start thinking about and doing in order to achieve this goal. And thirdly, we sort of run over the different criterion courses. Which one should I target, if any? And we speak about Senkilda, we speak about Glenvale, we speak about Sandown and also the Teardrop. The first question is because I could be delusional here. You know the Melbourne criterion seem very well. You know my strengths as a rider. Do I have a chance of winning an A-grade criterion if I train hard? That's my very first question. This could be a very quick discussion if you say no. Yeah. Number one, as a rider, are you motivated to do that? Yeah, you've set the goal. 100%. Yeah, so if you're 100% motivated to win an A-grade criterion, you know, hopefully that everyone in the start line, if they had that mindset, they'd have some great racing, wouldn't you? If everyone had that same mindset, that's what you've got now. You've got to have the champions. You've got to have the champions. Well, you've got, yeah, physiology. You're talking about club level, criterion, I know that, yeah, it's Glenvale or Senkilda or Q, or whatever that is. Does Senkilda count if I win an A-grade at Senkilda? Does that count? Because I'm not a football, I can't knee crew. They might say it's only Sandown and Glenvale that counts. Well, maybe. What do you think? Look, you look at them all. They're all different races. Like, you look at Senkilda, it's percentages, you look at, you know, Hammy Sprint finishes are there. Senkilda's easier to sit in the group. Well, it's almost like a track. You know, you look at that. I think the only corner, you can almost go through each, there's only probably one corner that you can take it only one line, where Glenvale, you pretty much, there's only value two lines, where Senkilda, there's a few different lines you can ride through each corner. The rest of it's just on the wheel. It's faster, you've got to create more wattage. If you're going to win from a break, you're not potentially going to win from a sprint finish. So you've got to, you've either got to get into a smaller group or solo breakaway and the solo breakaway, doesn't happen very often. So it's going to be from a smaller group. So Senkilda, the stats would be, yeah, it'll be tough, it's doable. Like, I've seen, yeah, RAF, a few riders can pull the moves there, but you've got to create some big numbers to ride. You've got to have full commitment. You've got to have full commitment. So if there's a group of four or six, they're fully committed to riding and they're big numbers at the back end, yeah, so. So you're more likely to win from a break away at Sand Down or Glenvale? Yeah, Glenvale's more environmental. Yeah, wind, yeah, wind plays a bigger factor. And it's, Sand Down's always windy though, isn't it? Yeah, Sand Down, it's almost, yeah, it's almost, Sand End's either, you've got the hill at the back. It's either head, head tail, head tail. It's great there when you get a crosswind. It's just like in the gutter. Yeah, both sides, it's really good, but it's normally uphill crosswind is really good. Actually, the best, when they run the circuit backwards, yeah, really good. If you get the right crosswind, that's really good. The whole dynamics of that race changes when they run it backwards. Yeah, so I think they should alternate week to week there. So you're saying we've got the right mindset up in win-win basically, do we say? Try and win. You can try and win. Yeah, as long as the mindset's there, you can try and win. Even though the mindset's like you go there week in, week out, like you're treading water. You ride the first few crits and everyone hasn't just done it for so long unless they've been racing overseas or... Does that make it a better opportunity though, if you're going into those first few races, aren't you raring to go? Yeah, yeah, I'm raring to go in terms of fitness but getting the eye in. Yeah, in the corners. You just notice, yeah, first crit, yeah, first 10 minutes is like, just takes a bit to get the eye in because where else are they doing? Corners every 15 seconds or whatever. So it just takes a bit to get the eye in, yeah. Bit of movement. So what am I? Am I going to be, if I'm going to win one, if I've got the right mindset, what am I going to be working on my strengths or am I going to be working on my weaknesses because my weaknesses isn't a sprint, as you know. Yeah, but I think you've got a little bit of potential in the sprint. So I think it's something you probably haven't trained. You could train that. But certainly your strengths, always focus on, you know, people say, oh, you work on your weaknesses. Spend a lot more time working. You could work on your sprint, but also work on your strengths as well. We know that you've got a big motor. Yeah, so work on that. Yeah, get a bit of a base going first. And then the old ride that starts out here on a Saturday, that's always good to get your eye in. Just get the group dynamics. You want to simulate a race. Nothing better than that, Saturday ride. Speed, movement, wind, position. Just get you that feel. So get me excited. Let's just say we train my strengths. What does a win look like for me, hypothetically? Like what can I visualize? Is it going off the front? Should it go? Yeah, a small group. Small group. Look, it's just, it's all timing. You watch Sargon win that stage. I don't know whether you watched stage two. It's all timing. You want it up slightly uphill, 2%. You just stepped out at the right time. And it's just about where, you know, probably the scenario for you would be winning out of a small group. And it depends on how deep you've gone in that small group as well. They might tear the legs off. So I remember a few years ago, you were on a decent break with a few good guys. You weren't as well, that one, or? Oh, I don't know. No, I don't want to, I'm just, yeah. I was in one with you when I was winning my, but I remember not being like I was reasonably fit, I'm usually fit. And I just didn't have the, so that's the question I have. It's like, if that is the case, and you're really going to train yourself to be able to go deep after an hour of already going deep. So like, what? Yeah, but everyone, you've got to understand that everyone else is at that level. Yeah, exposing yourself to that work. And I think back then, you're exposed to that work and then you got to that position and it's just like, well, yeah, how do you manage that and understand that? So that's what we'd work on that. But I can assume maybe, look it's, that's the beauty of racing. Crits and, you know, every race is different. The finish, not always. A lot of them do come down to the sprint finish. And, you know, Tommy's great at those sprint finishes, but also, Tiggs is leading him out. He's unbelievable at it, you know? Like you just, you know, he's going full flight. You know, you just talk about the speeds in the last corner and, you know, no one's getting around them. Like they're hitting them at 60k an hour into the last corner, with Tiggs pulling him through the last corner. Who's going to get around him? So, yeah, so you could follow that wheel. I don't think you're going to get around it, but you could try. It's not saying you can't. So you could be at feet just to follow the wheel. Yeah, so you follow the wheel. I look at, in all the scenarios of Crits, Q, in terms of small groups coming to the finish, Q's the one. Right. Up hill. So you could actually train yourself to, you know, to go while at Q. Right. Yeah. Doesn't have the big fanfare of Glenvale or St Gildo, but it's a bloody good race. Yeah, OK. Not too heavy enough to really be in there. I've seen your lean. OK, right, OK, yeah. Are you going back there or not? Yeah, I'm going back there. Hopefully lean up. Shit. Everyone's working. Yeah. No one. No, there's no free ride there. St Gildo, they're handing out tickets. Yeah, exactly. It's like finished A-grade. Yeah, it's not bagging St Gildo. Yeah. Great, great, great Criterium circuit. But just different. That's the beauty of it all. They're all different. Does one suit me better out of all those? Like, if you look at my skills, is it better to target one or just do them all? Well, your target, well, you're saying that you want a Glenvale? Is there a bit more Q-DOS at Glenvale? Well, I feel like there might be years or a sand down, you know, the traditional Corvo kind of secrets. Yeah. I feel like there is. But I don't know, I mean, I'm going to, I'm meeting Tommy. I'm going to ask him this question. Well, I think I know what answer I'm going to get. Well, actually, they're all hard. It's hard to win St Gildo, because how are you going to win St Gildo when it's going to be, you know, 90% of them, a bunch of kicks. So it's like, that's hard. And it's hard to get in a breakaway, because the workload is massive. It's bigger. You've got full commitment. Not that you've got full commitment at Glenvale as well. Everyone, you've got full commitment. But yeah, it's just, you've got to run, yeah. It's just, it's just so fast. I suppose they can pull it back quicker. It's, you know, they can start smoking, you know, at St Gildo and pull you back in two laps. If they decide we're going to pull this thing back together, if it's not, if it hasn't blown out, they can pull it back pretty quick. Yeah, so, and then you can have, I suppose the legs are fresher in the group. You can get fresh legs in the group. The first four weeks, you just look at what your volume you're doing at the moment and just, you'd start to build the volume up. And then you might throw in the occasional, you know, Helldog, yeah. So, for the first four weeks, you do that and we'll just see where you're at. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you're going to put some decent, hard-core ties on as well. So why do I need to do that? Well, create a bit of resistance. Yeah, okay. You're a big believer in that. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. Why is that? Well, every minute, we're all time poor. Yeah. You know, you've got kids, wife and, you know, every, I don't know, so how many hours are you going to contribute to this? Well, how many do you think I need to? Oh, I'll look at least. 10? Yeah, 10 or 12. Yeah, 10 or 12. You want to do the 10 or 12. That's what it creates. And actually, if you get used to every pedal straight with these heavier wheels and heavier ties on, come race day, you're already up and about. Yeah. You know, you're talking, yeah, it's more than 15, 10, 15 watts. A bit of a mental thing as well. Yeah, it's a percentage. But yeah, yeah, yeah. You can just feel the bike under you. It's actually a bit, moves a bit better and a bit faster. Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah. It does make a difference. But you break it all down. You've either got to win the bunch sprint. You've got to be fit enough to get into a breakaway and ride with them. Once you're in the breakaway, do you have something to step off the front, off the break? And that's the dynamics. It just, it's just something that just happens. One guy goes, one, the next rider decides not to chase. Next year, you know, it's like, they look at each other for five seconds, you're up the road and that's, she's done. You've got to enjoy the process. This whole thing, in your own mind, you think, you're motivated to do this. Let's make this enjoyable as possible. You want to enjoy it, you know. So that was my chat with David. As you saw, we, it's pretty casual. We kept it high level, but it was really just setting a foundation of what I need to be thinking about and doing at this point in time in order to really hit the start of the crit season, raring to go. We're going to go a lot deeper as we go along on this journey, but this is just really setting the foundations. Next up in this series of videos, I'm going to have a chat with a local criterion legend, Tommy Nankervis, to find out from him what he thinks I need to be doing and thinking about if I'm going to achieve this goal. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you in the next video.