Engine lights glowing

Sometimes you know that you just need to take a few days off the bike... Most times you kid yourself that you should just keep going, but I like to think that I actually learnt my lesson after a few years of being sick. I would be sort of right to think such a thing, as I still find staying off the ike far harder than actually riding it...

Anyway, thursday night down at the dirt crits was another good one, after the mudbath that was the week before!! With the course actaully dusty, and as hard as a rock, we were all flying. I took out the pace off the line, and then Jack took over for the first lap. With it wound out, we hammered the course and blew off everyone we could manage. With a small gap after the first lap, we set about working the gap to make it comfortable by the time we arrived at the traffic. And the tactic worked very well, thanks very much! The plan came unstuck when I decided to test Jack's legs, and found them to lack the spark they need to cover the attack, and with sniff, I laid down the final 3 laps in exactly the same time and picked up the cashmoney! Check the results here if you like.



And after my final day at Southcott, (thanks for the memories) saturday was upon me as was a 80km Road Handicap. This is my first official road race, other than the hell ride (!) and so I guess I was a little excited by it. I think we all like doing new stuff on the bike over time, and this was another chance to do just that. So it all started out well, tucked into the scratch bunch in my first race and giving a 30min headstart to the limit bunch, on the 'hilly' Modella circuit and we were away. Joel and I decided it was more a race of how long it would take before we got told off. Typically it didn't take long, 2nd hill, I guess we were 'going too fast' or something... Whatever...!

Having never done one of these things, the pace was suprising, the intensity and duration was very different to what I'm used to and a fair shock to the system. The hardest thing was being in the same body position and having to deliver serious power the whole time. I've twinged a few things that aren't feeling very flash today, from not beiing able to shift around a great deal. No matter, just experience.

Joel tuning into race radio

One lap around the 40km loop and by the time we rolled back around, I wasn't too fussed on the circuit, finding it far easier than it had been talked up . With a few rolling hills and thats about it, it was hard and fast, and only really 2 places that you could miss the selection on a windless day like we had.

And thats when the engine light lit up like the proverbial fourth of july. The late start, the high tempo, the high temperature all conspired together to turn me 17 shades of shit! Any longer and it would have been called a bonk. I was hurting , unable to roll a turn, HR going ballistic, spat to the back, and then hung on for grim death whilst I battled to open those frigging museli bars, get down my highly inappropriate food (gels next time!!) and wash it down with the last of my endura. Yo-yoing off the back, I finally came good by the bottom of the hill, and lesson learnt, got on with the task.

Lap 2 was obviously where it was all going to go down, and sure enough, the big ex-rower fellah had a crack up the 'biggetst' climb near the end. For most of the race, the scratch bunch was content to roll turns, piss and moan about 'staying togetherup the climb'. Bloody sooks, the noisy ones were the ones going out the hoop I'll bet! So the silly MTB riders took a lunge, only to have it chased back together (*cough*, Joel, *cough*) so we all had to wait for the move to go, and sure enough, big fellah went, Winny covered and countered , I tried but cramped and that was that. I was stuck in 'no mans' watching Winny kick up the hill, my legs spasming each time I tried to bridge

Doing the right thing, I waited until Winny had bridged to the other 4min bunch before joining the chase, and then we ripped down off the hill at over 60km to the finish straight where everything just went to hell and the bunches exploded. Head down, bum up, I just kept going and ended up finishing in the same minute as Winny who got fastest time, so that will do me.
Different, this road racing thing, but it serves a purpose for sure. It is not suprising to me that roadies have so much raw power, its a very different thing to MTB, but its all riding so its all good.

The fastest man on the day

Thanks for talking me into it boys, we'll do it again soon, and I'll learn from my lessons! And when the camera stops with these rubbish error messages, I'll post some pics! 'Till then, check out Winny's post for pics and stories from the fastest man of the day.

I've been talking about this video to a lot of people, so have a look at it, its really clever!

The 'lil dragster coming along slowly, a bit better than the blue mess that it use to be..!!