Race report by brendan

Well after deciding to do this race instead of a SPR hills jaunt featuring the infamous F_ckenberg I felt stangely bad as I like that hill 🙂 call me sick haha. anyway after enjoying a cruisy ride out to pickeringbrook and using Welshpool road to ‘warm’ the legs up, Thanks to Paul who slowed down with his window down and heater on in his car to say gday… didnt even motor pace me there… how rude 🙂 (just kidding).
I signed on and was loking through the A grade list not really knowing half of them…
So caught up with Paul who eneterded B grade with Bruce and Mike B and I were in with A.
B and C grade went off first while we all hovered around any scrap of sunshine we could. We were off and straight away a bloke smashed it off the front, gee this might hurt I was thinking and remember the climb on the way up would haunt me later in the race.

After numerous attacks none of which really serious 2 got away with a reasonable lead and with the bunch not realy doing much I had a fleeting though of my program from Andrew and remember he wanted me to do attacks today in the hills so I hit the bunch with everything and got to within 50 meters of the 2 leaders but the bunch was chasing me so though I would save some energy but they then seemed to slow and another dude jumped to me so off we took in chase. We caught the 2 leaders and the 4 of us were swapping good steady turns for about 2 laps when the bunch bridged up (or what was left of it).
Next few laps was at moderate pace when with 3 laps to go another break of 5 got away including Mike B so I was hapy not to chase which was just as well as hammys were starting to hurt and with onset of cramps inevitable (stupid running and kicking the footy at work thursday night with the boys to blame). I sat in with the 5 staying away for the win and I finished just behind the bunch as I finally cramped on the last hill with a couple of kms to go so happy with having a hit out on tired legs (110km the day before). Mike B ended in 5th place and in the money and Paul managed top ten in B grade and Bruce finishing just behind the grade main bunch like me.

All in all a great set up and an awesome bunch of guys and gals who were very friendly and I felt funny being one of the youngest racing (at 35) amongest every age over, there are some quality and very strong riders and great to see and be part of, I can highly recommend giving it a go as they race down to D grade, you can nominate on the day and first 2 races for non members are only $10 each race then you have to join up which is only approx $130.
As they race every sunday at various places I will be going back for sure.

After watching presentation and saying bye to Paul Bruce, Mike Band myself headed off around the observatory climb and up into Kalamunda to get some extra kms, bruce headed off home at Kalamunda and Mike headed back to Pickeringbrook to pick his car up and I motored down Welshpool with allready having 140km up I begin thinking of My major goal for thsi season of Grafton to Inverell on Sept 12th and knew I needed more so I headed down to Freo and back around the river and finally got home after 7hrs of riding and some 200km with 80km of it racing and several decent climbs later. Shattered would be the best term 🙂 But as I had no injury niggle in my back and thigh I know my injury and training is finally on track (thanks to Coach Andrew Ivey and Ian Wee with the Huber machine) for the onslaught of 225km at Grafton 🙂 with approx 120km of that climbing and a 18km climb the main deciding factor I am hoping with some big weeks of training coming up I can be competitive there.
The only bad thought is after all these kms I have to try and race Pinjara and Collie Donnybrook on tired legs… nothing like a challenge 🙂

Hope everyone enjoyed the weekends riding and now the tour is over we can all get some early nights 🙂
Note sure how many of us are heading to Pinjarra and Collie 2 weeks after but they more the better, awesome fun 🙂 as Collie to Donnybrook and return is a handicap we all have a chance of winning some of the thousands of dollars on offer 🙂

See you on the on next weekend on sat or at Pinjarra.

Nico