Wilson HTM Brisbane to the Gold Coast Challenge
Insulin Injected Engines Triumph in Queensland
by Gavin Wright
 |
 |
The third Brisie / Gold Coast Challenge this year attracted 5,500 riders. Although loudly announced as not a race, a small but dedicated team of Hypoactive riders showed the whole 100km trail of cyclists that Insulin Injected Engines were possibly the fastest on the road.
The ride is Bicycle Queensland’s biggest event, sponsored by HTM Wilson and a fund-raiser for Diabetes Australia Queensland and the Heart Foundation.
Although Wilson and Heart Foundation jerseys were to be seen in abundance leading the push towards the starting arch, there was no sign of any DAQ presence on the ride and so Murray, Lars and Gavin pedalled boldly to the front wedge with confidant cries of, ‘Let us through – we’re type 1 diabetics’.
The first 15km of the ride was along Brisbane’s south-bound Busway, an insular, two-lane cement road, clear of buses for the occasion, that hummed loudly with the sound of hundreds of speeding road bike tyres.
Queensland’s new premier, Anna Bligh, led the start of the ride, but was one of the first to be left as if standing once the Hypoactive team cleared the throng and got up to pace.
Once off the Busway, the route made its way down back-roads, through cane plantations and over some long, rolling hills towards the coast. The ride was like a fashion parade for bikes, with some of Queensland’s finest two-wheeled, human-powered vehicles out on show. Cervelo, Pinarello and Teschner powered down towards the beach, but these names were only noted by Hypoactive riders as they sped past in tight formation.
There were rest and food stops at 40km and 76km and here the team paused to check BGLs and take on carbs. At the second stop, the first rider’s reading was 7.6. The second meter showed 5.6 and someone muttered, ‘Why, that’s almost perfect’, in anticipation of the last result.
All of a sudden the final rider’s Optium Exceed started flashing the colours of the team jersey and playing a rousing tune of victory as the number 5.5 appeared on its little screen.
Spurred on by this success, the team hit the road, with only the tiniest quiver of the handlebars as they took off past Dreamworld and headed for the coast.
The official time for the team, as calculated after the event, was just under three hours. Hypoactive riders certainly excelled in showing how their condition comes with no handicap for athletic achievement. It was a strong ride from start to finish, with the team perhaps showing their greatest strength at speed maintenance on hills. Other teams slowed down with an adverse gradient, but there wasn’t the slightest click from a Hypoactive derailleur.
This was an elating event for these three Hypoactive riders, but left them all thinking that if the ride is still raising money for DAQ next year then Hypoactive could well ride with a higher profile. DAQ does have a team, called Team Diabetes, but they are not all diabetics, let alone type 1s, and they may well have been offering a supporting role to the ride rather than participating. We certainly never saw them.
It’s hard to know how much is understood by the general population about diabetes. What is certainly true, however, is that many fast riders on the 2007 HTM Wilson Brisbane to the Gold Coast Challenge would have been contemplating the message – Insulin Injected Engines – as they saw those words disappearing down the road – way ahead of them.