By JARROD POTTER
PRECEDE:
THE hills and flat highways of Australia are proving good training for cyclist Sam de Riter, who is achieving fantastic results in her first season on the Women’s Subaru National Road Series. From Berwick’s highest peak… Old Coach Road, de Riter talked to Jarrod Potter about cycling and what it means to work hard towards her European riding dreams.
PULL QUOTE:
“I was pretty knackered when I got to the top – I didn’t even get to do a good salute or anything! I was spent – I just fell in a gutter after it.”
BERWICK to Jindivick – 57 kilometres. Jindivick to Yarra Junction – through the state forest – 59 kilometres. Yarra Junction back to Berwick – via Macclesfield – 50 kilometres.
Total distance 166 kilometres.
An arduous journey by road, but give a thought to a cyclist doing that same voyage – up the hills, down the valleys and going from point to point thinking about a bigger goal than just completing the trip.
For Berwick cyclist Sam de Riter that’s her favourite ride – a regular on her training schedule that can take up to seven-and-a-half hours to complete, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Anything less would not help her achieve her goals.
After switching from triathlon and ironman to just focusing on the pedals in 2009, de Riter has already achieved a lot in cycling, with hopefully more to come.
In January she put pen to paper on a deal to ride for the Holden Women’s Cycling Team – one of the biggest in the country – and gave a strong showing in her first season of the Women’s Subaru National Road Series (NRS).
She wore the yellow jersey for the final stage of the 2013 Mersey Valley Tour after a hilltop victory at Bridle Track – staying ahead of the field in a breakaway to claim her first NRS stage win.
Her triumph in the Sheffield Road Race, the second stage of the Mersey Valley Tour, earned her the polka-dot jersey and title of Queen of the Mountains – awarded to the rider who accumulated the most points on the hills of the tour.
On top of wearing the dots, she finished the three-stage-race in third, seven seconds behind Katrina Garfoot and beaten by two seconds by Ruth Corset.
After the Santos North-West Tour, de Riter ranks eighth in the NRS on 13 points – an impressive effort for her first tilt at the series.
To come so far in a few short years has amazed de Riter and she hopes to achieve even more.
“I started racing triathlon in 2009 and I switched over in probably September in 2011 just to cycling – and my main focus was cycling then,” de Riter said.
“I guess it went from there – did a bit of testing at the Victorian Institute of Sport, thought that I would be a good track endurance cyclist, but I got on the road and I was really enjoying it and was getting some good results, so I thought I’d just focus on riding road.”
Her triathlon background served her well for long days in the saddle – with her biggest achievement finishing the 3.8km swim, 180km ride and 42km run of the Busselton Ironman.
It helped her grit her teeth and force away from the breakaway group in the Sheffield Road Race and aim for the summit by herself – crossing the line in first in 2.23.31 hours.
“It was my first win at a national level – I ride for Holden WCT and it wasn’t actually the goal for me to win the race,” de Riter said.
“I was just doing my job, like I usually do, and I managed to get in a break with some strong girls and I kind of just held in there them the whole time.
“I thought we could stay away (from the main field) and they were tiring so I saved myself a little bit, then I went for it on the hill, I just attacked them towards the end and managed to get away and got the win.”
I was pretty knackered when I got to the top – I didn’t even get to do a good salute or anything!
“I was spent – I just fell in a gutter after it.”
First year on the tour and first win under her belt, de Riter couldn’t believe she claimed the stage victory after her objectives were to just work for team goals, not her own achievements.
“I just couldn’t believe it – you go into it – I always go into a race to do what I can for the team, but I didn’t realise until the last 20kms that I could win,” she said.
“It’s pretty crazy – it’s really exciting and the team was rapt for me.”
Despite outside perceptions of cycling being a solo sport – wherein a single rider wins a Tour – it is most definitely a team sport and de Riter is one of the hard workers who go into races with the team in mind, not the overall victory.
So for her to be in first position heading into the final stage, wearing the yellow jersey, getting the team to work for her goals, to help her win, it was extremely special.
“Because of that, because I was first overall, it meant the team had to work for me then – which is pretty hard, when I’m not a pure climber,” de Riter said.
“The last stage was a pure climbing stage – it had a really big hill we had to go up – a mountain called The Hill.
“They (the leaders) had a minute-20 on us (over the top) and we rode them back to 30 seconds, but lost the tour by about seven seconds.
“It was a bit disappointing as we rode so hard – I couldn’t remember the last hour of the race, I was just blacked out.
“But it was fun.”
With a ninth place finish in the Battle of the Border, finishing 25th in the Adelaide Tour and finishing the Melbourne-to-Ballarat last weekend in 3.10.24 hours, de Riter is on track for a big finish to the season, but just like the next mountain to summit on the road, Sam has her bigger dreams in mind throughout all the hard work.
“If you want to make cycling your career, like most of us do in my team – want to race in Europe or America professionally for a team – then you put more pressure on yourself than the team does,” de Riter said.
“I’m not sure when I will make a pro-team – it might be a little while away – I’m still young and I’ve still got a lot of development.
“So many other things that happen, but I’d love to race all the tours, especially to race the Giro (Giro d’Italia).
In the meantime de Riter is itching for longer races domestically – hoping the girls series can start catching up to the boys and get towards the 500km races the lads get, as opposed to the 200km-350km race-length for women.
“They’ve (Cycling Australia) just brought a few more tours in for the girls that the guys do as well – I think they underestimate what we can do,” de Riter said.
“I know we are different, but they have 500km tours and then we have 200km tours, it would be nice to have some bigger and longer races – so I think they’re trying to bring that in and see how it goes.
“I want to have big stage races – 150km back-to-back… coming from racing Ironman – the longer the better for me, so I’d like to have some big races.”
It all comes back to work rate for Sam – she sees cycling as a sport where natural ability doesn’t compare to hard work on all those long training roads.
“The thing I love about cycling is that it’s a sport that you don’t have to be naturally talented at,” she said.
“At 30 years old you’re pretty much hitting your peak, so there’s a really long time in the sport so the harder you work and the more you want it, the better the results you’re going to achieve.
“It’s not about who has the natural physiology it’s about who has the biggest heart.”
“Sometimes it’s disappointing that you have to give up a lot of social commitments to do it, but it’s something that’s more important to me in the long run.”
Grateful to her extended support crew throughout her journey so far, de Riter wanted to thank her mum Tracy – the unquestioned number one Sam de Riter fan in the country – her brothers, Ben and Toby, coach Stuart McKenzie and the Holden Women’s Cycling team.
