Guest post: Australia can have climbers' races

Robert Merkel is a cycling tragic who dreams of one day repeating his glorious summit victory in the local D-grade club criterium. In his spare time, he is a lecturer at an Australian university. In this follow up to a previous article on developing Australian climbing talent, he explains how and where this can be done.

In one of the many thoughtful responses to my previous article on Australian cycling's "flatland fixation", a Cycling Central reader wondered whether Australia's lack of "long cols" is somehow responsible for Australian cycling's focus on sprinters, and races that suit them.

Australia does indeed lack the sheer number and geographical density of long climbs that characterise the Alps. The only region offering very long climbs within easy reach of each other is north-eastern Victoria, far from Australia's major cities (but then again, the Alps and Pyrenees are a long, long way from Paris and Lyon) and nowhere near any existing race on the national calendar.

However, this lack does not - contrary to popular belief - represent an impediment to Australia's cycling calendar offering a better balance of challenges to riders of all types.

You don't need to replicate a Grand Tour queen stage to construct race routes that offer a stern climbing test. The key climb of Fleche Wallonne - a one-day race won by Cadel Evans and Alberto Contador - is only 1300 metres long! What makes the Mur de Huy decisive is that it is very steep, it is preceded by numerous other climbs, and its summit represents the race finish.

Every state capital in Australia has similarly hilly roads nearby. You don't even need multiple different climbs - one or two are enough, if they can be put together in a circuit that can be repeated multiple times. If it's good enough for the World and National championships, it's good enough for a junior or National Road Series race!

But both for participants and spectators (particularly TV viewers) alike, there is something special about long, tough summit finishes. And, conveniently, there are some steep, long enough, and ultimately selective enough climbs that could be incorporated into the existing NRS calendar without too much difficulty.

The Tour of Gippsland has two hellishly difficult climbs, Mount Baw Baw and the Dargo hillclimb, in the vicinity of its present route. As things stand, however, it can't use them because of its midwinter scheduling.

The springtime Tour of Tasmania, by contrast, already features the long, tough climb of Mount Wellington, but nullifies its potential as a test of Australia's best individual climbers by riding it as a team time trial. Instead of that, why not allow a young rider to emulate the feat of a certain Cadel Evans in 1998 - winning solo on a road stage finishing on Mount Wellington?

If a conventional road stage to Mount Wellington is not possible due to the impracticality of extended road closures, there are other options for tough summit finishes close to existing Tour of Tasmania stages.

The Poitana climb, roughly as steep and two-thirds as long as Alpe d'Huez, could presumably be used. Heck, there could be a second summit finish on the shorter but very steep Cethana to Moina climb, which is presently used in the Mersey Valley Tour.

Such changes would not be cost free. The NRS would not exist without race promoters - notably John Craven of Caribou Publications, who organizes many of them. These enterprising and dedicated individuals have kept the sport alive for a long, long time on the smell of an oily rag, scrounging scarce sponsorship money from all over the place.

The sponsors they find want races to have as many spectators as possible, and summit finishes on out-of-the-way climbs will attract fewer of them. So some lateral thinking - and perhaps some long-term investment in the national series by the governing body or their associated backers - will be required to ensure that any course changes are financially viable.

But if there's a will, there should be a way. For the long-term health of Australian cycling, incorporating a feature climber's race or two within Australia's national road calendar would be a relatively cheap investment.

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