Tour De Bintan 2011

Stage One

Semi and full-time pros topped the winners’ podium in the third edition of the Tour of Bintan with Cannondale-Cannasia’s Rob Hensby the best positioned Singapore amateur just missing out on a top three finish and just ten seconds behind the eventual winner Heksa Priya Prasetya from Pico BikeLabz. After a gruelling first stage in which Rob managed to maintain his challenge in a 140km breakaway, he was joined in the top ten by Tim Wilkins who escaped on stage two to gain enough time for a 10th place finish, 37 seconds behind. Pete Bennett was third best Cannasia rider in a group starting in 17th.
The team also secured third spot in the team competition behind Neil Pryde and professional outfit SIR’s A, but well ahead of Pico Bikelabz and the ANZA Mavericks teams.
Rob’s battling performance was just reward for his attacking riding early on stage one when he followed Alan Grant from ANZA Mavericks on an early attack that sneaked away and stayed away for almost the entirety of the stage. Grant was soon dropped by breakaway on the first king of the mountains but was joined by Hong Kong-based Colin Robertson (South Island Road Club) who powered away from the peleton at the KoM amid heavy rain and confusion in the bunch caused by a clash of wheels and a tumble for one of the favourites, Cannasia’s Timmy Wilkins.
The breakaway was soon ten strong and they used the bunch’s hesitation to stretch their lead although that band of brothers ten was soon whittled down to after several attacks on the hills and then punctures. Yet those remaining still managed to expand their lead along the long flat section after the hills to their advantage and eek out a time gap that at one point stretched to almost four minutes.
But with the better part of 100km to go, those who remained agreed to sit up and take toilet breaks which allowed Robertson to bridge the gap which duly inspired the five to continue to ride to the end to win. Robertson attacked time and time again attempting to time trial to the finish but the other four were able to keep him in check, just, with the result being a sprint finish. Then the drama of the day came when the stage winner Vincent Ang was disqualified for riding under an assumed name, a shame given how aggressively he rode from even inside the neutralised zone.
Meanwhile, back in the bunch, the crash that brought down Timmy forced Juergen Doerr, Snowy Thomson and Pete back to help with the chase back on but with adrenalin getting the better of him, only Pete and Timmy made it, along with friend of the team Joel Pennington and Richard Paine from ANZA. John McCann, another Cannasia groupie, also failed amid the pouring rain to make it back rendering all those riders’ race done with just 15km gone.
By the road along the beach, the mood had changed with the hard times and graft of Bintan’s hills, a crash and then a chase taking the sting out of the momentum. After the long stretch along the beach, the rain relented but was replaced by the rough and rolling road through to Kijang in the south of the island. It was puncture alley. First Pete, then Tim flatted with Jez Broome doing his domestique job and stopping with his team leader to swap wheels only to find the service car was still catching up with all the other punctures on the road. Jez’s stage also came to a premature end.
Pete and Tim again made it back on with a couple of other riders, catching a peleton that had over a minute on them at one point, but shortly after in the town of Kijang on the south coast, a bang of a different nature. First, Adam Holler of ANZA Mavs punctured with a crack, fishtailed and knocked Cannasia’s Nic Rosengren front wheel. Into the grass verge he went, and tumbled in slow motion into the storm drain. It looked a horror crash but he got away with it and merely stretched a ligament in his shoulder although a few of his team mates suffered from perforated ear drums later that day when wifey couldn’t find her beloved.
With punctures, wheel changes, chases and the man-with-the-plan in the front breakaway, it only left Timmy, Ryan, Pete, Diesel and Cannasia newboy James Pretty in the main bunch, with the Jurganator, Snowy, Nic and Jez all licking their wounds. But soon after the halfway point, Diesel couldn’t contain himself any longer and surged off the front taking Matt Kinch from ANZA with him.
He got away as the bunch slowed to a crawl and as one or two riders attempted and failed to join him, Diesel began to edge clear. In the closing ks, Pete had a solo effort off the front nipped in the bud then James had a go to catch the middle group and this time made it on.
“I figured that if I went full gas, I could bridge across and join it as I had a gap on the Peloton,” said the Cannasia newbie. “So I went full gas...60kph on the flat, head down and bleeding to the max, made it then tried to recover.”
But once on, fatigue got the better of him and a sudden surge by one of the Hong Kong team saw James spat out the back of the group and he would eventually be caught by the main peleton. Tim again had a pop with five ks to go and managed to catch Diesel who was also suffering from cramp but a well organised Hong Kong team brought them back right on the line just as Timmy complained of needing to use the lavatory again.
The bunch sprint was led out by the Hong Kong team but James found their wheel and led out Pete, who claimed third in the sprint as they caught the dying embers of the middle breakaway, including the unfortunate Dave and Timmy.
So with Rob lying six seconds off the pace in third after stage one behind Heksa Prasetya and Wang Yip Tang, and Timmy, Pete, James, Deisel and Ryan just two minutes back, it was a good’s days teamwork done and all to play for on stage two.

Stage Two

Gone was the rain and gone any hope of a slower start; a shorter stage means a faster pace and with the King of the Mountains just eight kilometres into the stage, this was never going to be a pedestrian start. From the flag drop, Ryan and Jez attacked hard with Ryan making the break that lasted to the KoM, just missing out on some of the points where Zamri Salleh took the 15 points. His KoM win later coming back into the resort area was enough to easily give him the KoM competition.
Back in the bunch, the pace was insane, in a repeat of the previous two years when the speed was furious to the resort guardhouse and then began to ease once out into the island’s interior. Jez was a victim of his earlier attack and just failed to make it back onto the bunch and would eventually come in a few minutes down on the bunch with around 20 other riders but the remainder of the Cannasia team all made it through the tricky hills.
Attacks came, went and got swallowed again. Diesel Dave and James shot off the front with two Hong Kong riders in an attempt to make a break stick but they too failed and dropped back into the pack as the speed jumped again to 55kmph. Along the beach, Timmy Wilkins at last made it into a break that was to stick to the end along with Matt Kinch, Dave Christenson, Mark Cook and eventual stage winner Saiful Anuar Aziz, who would do enough to secure second overall at the end of Sunday, and James from Cannasia who once he had helped get the break established, drifted back into the bunch which began to slow after the relentless pace of the first 30kms.
The break worked well and would finish more than a minute ahead of the bunch, although Timmy set the ground for his award for the world’s smallest bladder by having to relieve himself while in the break and having to chase back on…again. Although Aziz won the stage and a second Malaysia pro took second, Timmy finished third to grab Cannasia’s second podium of the weekend.
Once the break was gone, the Cannasia team then rode to protect Rob who was still in contention for the overall GC. Once over the final KoM, when the bunch lost more riders, including the now ‘cooked’ Ryan, James and Snowy, who had busted lungs and legs to look after Rob and even try a cheeky one off the front of the peleton with a couple of kms to go.
A fast, fast stage won by a pro and with Cannasia’s Timmy third on the stage and Rob now lying just ten seconds off first overall. All to play for, again, on the final stage.

Stage Three

Stage three on the Tour de Bintan has always been about two things – speed and tired legs. Oh, and heat. It was mid-morning on the equator and the temperature gauge read 35C. With just two hours since the end of stage two, Cannasia’s objective was fairly clear. Rob Hensby had to win the stage with a couple of team members soaking up the other time bonuses.
And with the stage being just 40km long, there would be precious few chances of escaping in a break so once round the small hill at the Ria Bintan golf course, the pros from Malaysia hit the front and kept the pace super high. Coming back into Nirwana resort, the bunch was still all together with the Hong Kong team attempting to get Robertson to the front and the Malaysians still trying to keep the pace high.
The bunch sprint round the final corner gave the stage to Zamri Salleh with Samai second. The Cannasia team lead out was swamped, rather disrupted by an ill-timed parked car on the run in which caused more than a few to break hard with just 2km to go. It wasn’t our day.
The final GC gave Heksa Priya Prasetya the win over Saiful Aziz, with Wang Tang third and Cannasia’s Rob Hensby fourth. Given the major tick higher in opposition and the strides the race organisers have made in attracting top quality fields to the Tour de Bintan, we ended proud of what our team had done.

Words by the Team, edited by Peter Bennett.
Photography by Craig Sheppard
http://craigsheppard.photodeck.com/-/galleries/bike