Race Report by Jarrad

After having foregone Saturday’s regular group ride for a nice, light, practice session, we were confident. The team of Myself, Daniel, Joseph and Steve were wanting to put it to the A Team. A reasonably decent warm-up under the very welcomed SPR tent got the spirits up and provided a good opportunity to show the latest in technology. Steve’s Polycarbonate-Silicon composite Vibration-dampening aero-bars ensuring that we were at the forefront of bike-technology (bike frames must be next off the production line).

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At exactly (give or take a few minutes) 0911 hours, we were off.

Once up to speed, we began rolling in formation at approximate 20 second intervals. I say ‘we’, but in reality, it should read, “everyone but me”, for I subconsciously felt that I needed to save my energy for sometime later in the race, and decided that I liked holding Steve’s wheel

so much that I’ll give it a little love tap while taking one arm off the bars to change gears.

 

The next part happened rather quickly, but a combination of the wet road, one arm off the aero bars and a clash of wheels culminated in a Denis-Menchov-Rome-TT@Giro-2009-esque spectacular (this may be a little exaggerated), skidding along the ground at somewhere North of 45 kph. The sounds of scraping carbon-fibre-along-pavement filled the air, and a few seconds later I came to a stop. Very graciously Steve, Jo and Dan stopped and waited to for me to set my gear, chase down my bidon, and get going.

Back up to speed and we were getting back into the rhythm, and within 20 or so seconds of resuming our race we had completed………..1000 metres. It was about another 500-1000 metres that the Elite Racing cycles team made their way past us, which from my calculations (completely forgetting the events of the previous 90 seconds) meant that they were FLYING!!! We gave them space however, it appeared shortly after that we were going catch them (how did we just catch a team which had made up a minute in 2kms – I was asking myself?) and we moved out to pass.

It was at this stage that one must note the similarities between the SPR and the Elite Racing colours. Once past Elite, our team was strung out and a little confusion ensued. It became evident after the (metaphorical) dust had settled that from the two teams of 4 riders, Elite, whom had again re-passed us, were down to just three, and ourselves were also down to three riders having dropped Daniel.

The next ten kilometres went by relatively quickly with Steve, Jo and myself rolling over, and (thankfully) without (further) incident. I began to notice a few things out of the ordinary though, things which perhaps can be attributed to the earlier incident. My once-white bar tape had now turned a nice hue of reddish-pink (fuschia?), along with a rather searing pain in my elbow and my legs, which I was hoping would pick up a bit of a tan, had some lovely new designs on them. I also became aware that approximately 60 percent of my left bum cheek was exposed (that’s not aero), and much of it also without skin (that IS aero), on the plus side, we’d kept a pretty consistent 20-odd second gap to the Elite team, which at times looked to even be closing.

Steve and Joseph were going strong at the 15 km mark, and I was becoming aware that I was operating solely on adrenaline and with somewhat compromised equipment (not to mention modesty).

At the turn-around, after a little confusion, adrenaline had worn off and my body packed it in and the pain kicked it up a notch (actually about 11 notches). Through the gallant efforts of team mates Steve and Joseph, we were back up to speed. A short while after the turn we saw the A-Team coming up (yes by this stage we were hallucinating throw-backs to 80s TV action-series) rather quickly and also saw Daniel in the new SPR/Elite hybrid team.

Both Steve and Joseph then rotated the lead while dragging my failing (and exposed) behind along for a ride and with what must have been around 5 kms to go B-A, Face-man, Murdock and Hannibal (yes that’s the A-Team) came flying past us with a somewhat relevant “howdy-doody” from Nico (although “I love it when a plan comes together” may have been more relevant, or maybe – “I pity tha fool!”).

With a final dig we pressed on to the finish and in a fashion similar to a 1980s Delorean with Michael J Fox at the helm, we managed to bend the laws of quantum physics and space-time to finish faster than than Mr T and the crew (what the???). Steve and Jo must be given all the credit for dragging me along through much of the return leg and I do hope that in future I’ll be able to return the favour (although without the incidents). Apologies to Steve and Jo, as I’m sure I somewhat ruined your morning and to Daniel as I’m sure you would’ve given a better return showing than I did.

Special thanks to Siobhan (apologies for the spelling) and Lorraine for patching me up, particularly given the location requiring patching, and massive credit to all the SPR guys Pete, Chris, Melvyn and anyone else I forgot for the tent, the help, the photography and the food. I look forward to the next event and promise to stay on two wheels!!

Also apologies for the dodgy A-Team references.