My Sub-3 Argus - Part 1 - Assembling the pieces of the puzzle

Its March and time for the BIG one - The Argus Cycle Tour. Since going for an Argus victory is the exclusive domain of the pro-cyclists, most casual cyclists target a specific time, a Sub-5, a Sub-4, Sub 3h30 etc. Cycling magazines devote pages of advice on how to obtain that elusive "Sub-x" time. The big target for amateur cyclists however is the "Sub-3", it's the amateur cyclist equivalent of running the 4-minute mile, not quite impossible but very hard to pull off and instant "street-cred" in cycling conversations to those who manage it. To put it in perspective, in 2013 & 2014 the winning times was about 2h40, meaning that you had to finish within 20 minutes of the leading riders and within the first 500 positions out of the 35,000 entrants.

The deciding factor in achieving a Sub-3 Argus is your seeding, in 2013 only a  B seeding or better would do, in 2012 & 2014 a few riders in group C also made it but virtually nobody below those groups. In the 2013 event I was seeded in C and missed the Sub-3 by 10 minutes, although it might have well been 30 minutes given herculean effort it was going to take to cut 10 minutes of my finishing time. Being at a loss as how I was going to achieve that, my goal shifted from the Argus to doing the Grape Escape, a 3-day mtb stage race in the week leading up to the Argus. I didn't realise it at the time, but a few months later the pieces of the sub-3 puzzle were slowly starting to fall in place, many of it quite by accident.

First Piece of the Puzzle - The PPA One Tonner

This piece of the puzzle happened purely by co-incidence, this 160km race in October never appealed to me and the only reason I did it was because it doubled as a training ride for the SIM team's Double Century attempt. I started a few groups behind my normal starting group together with my DC-team mates. On the day the weather was terrible with gale force winds and extremely hot temperatures, however, despite the conditions I felt strong and rode at the front of our group into the wind for long stages, helping to catch some groups in front of us including the leading ladies. I fizzled out near the end but finished with a decent time not too far behind the winners.

Passing the leading ladies to do some work upfront.

My good time in this race improved my PPA seeding from E to B, and bumped me up to the % starting group together with the leading ladies for the Burger Cycle Tour, which turned out to be next big step to going from 3h10 to a Sub-3 Argus.

Second Piece - Grape Escape Cancelled!

I was very disappointed when this happened as it was one of the events on my bucket list, however this shifted my attention back to the Argus, and I decided to focus all my energy of the first part of 2014 on road cycling to prepare properly for the Argus. So for the first 2 months in 2014 the mtb was gathering dust in the garage.

The Third Piece of the Puzzle - Die Burger Cycle Tour

The Burger Cycle Tour was an official seeding race for the Argus, and again, despite difficult weather conditions I had a good day in the saddle. Stuck with the % group up the Helshoogte climb and kept up with the leading riders for about 2/3's of the race. My finishing time meant that I now qualified for a B seeding for the Argus. So now I was in a good enough group to target that Sub-3 and suddenly a Sub-3 was a goal and not just a dream.

The Third Piece of the Puzzle - Killarney Night Series

On wednesday nights the racing cars make way for cyclists doing criterium racing on the Killarney race track. There are only 2 starting groups, the fast group and the ridiculously fast group. The riders in the "slower" group (where I slotted in) can expect to do about 40km's in the hour the race lasts. There is simply no better interval training & learning to ride in race groups for a cyclist than to do these type of races. It's also a great way to measure your improvement as a cyclists, when I started out in October I rarely lasted more than 3 laps before getting dropped, by the end February I was keeping up for the whole hour, even dishing out pain at the front of the group at times.

Leading out a small group - not sure who's hurting the most!

Fourth Piece of the Puzzle - The PPA Summer league 

In hindsight this is the one thing I would do differently (or rather not at all), after the high of a good Burger Cycle Tour I joined the PPA Summer league running in January & February. This choice revealed my lack of appreciation of my own limitations as a cyclist! I probably would have been better off sticking with the normal PPA funride groups riding with people of my own ability. Trying to keep up with the machines masquerading as league cyclists was an impossible task, and almost crushed my belief in my own abilities as cyclist. At most of races I was dropped within the first 10km of the race, but still, racing almost every weekend of January & February made me a stronger cyclist.

Look who just finished the Tour de Philly!

Fifth  - A new wheelset - a real accidental piece 

Don't ask, but a mishap in our garage in the middle of February lead to a ladder falling on my bike, completely bending the front wheel of my bike. A replacement had to be found quickly, and I ended up upgrading my existing wheels. With a new wheelset my otherwise-entry-level-bike suddenly rode like a proper racing machine!

The last piece of the puzzle - the confidence booster - The Bay City Cycle Tour

After being cut down to size in the league races I opted out of the last league event (a criterium race) to participate in the last pre-Argus funride - the Bay City Cycle Tour. I chose not to upgrade my PPA seeding number (not worth the effort & money for one race) and started in group E, which was my PPA seeding at the start of the season.

During the race I quickly realised I was stronger than most of the other riders in the group, and at about 55km into the race on a long climb I pulled away from the rest of the group, doing my best to stay ahead of the pack for the last 30km with a long solo effort. About 10km from the end I started tiring and a quick glance over my shoulder revealed that dreaded sight of the rest of the group slowly catching up to me. I decided to ride in denial, not glance backwards again and dug deep to stay ahead. Somehow I managed to fend of the chasing pack, finishing about 30 seconds ahead of the group. Winning Group E in a funride is no special achievement but it went a long way to rebuild some confidence and showed how much I have improved over the season.

The pieces of the puzzle was now all there -but was it going to happen on the day?

So I went into the Argus Cycle Tour on 9 March 2014 knowing I had the right seeding and knowing I improved significantly as a cyclist since the 2013 attempt, but I had no idea whether my improvement was enough. Would the rest of the stars would align for me on race day?  Ie. no punctures, no crashes and decent enough weather conditions?