report by peter.

as i previously mentioned steve hedley was fronting up to the national road race today.  it was good as it gave me someone to look out for rather than just go euro-star spotting.  i turned up early and caught up with chevaun as she was looking for the support van for steve’s spare wheels.  turns out that he had not ridden the hill yet but had driven it twice the previous night.  sure, that will do.  chevaun and her family were setting up in the feedzone to support steve as the 160+ kms meant that he was going to need some food and the close to 40 degree day meant he would need lots of bottles.

i hung around the sign in area and did some star spotting with a older couple also from perth.  pam used to race in victoria about 35 years ago but now lived in mandurah.  i told her about the club and said she should look us up as she mentioned that she wanted to start riding and racing again.  they were off to the tour down under after this and knew all the pro riders.  steve was almost last to sign in but made it to the line on time.  pretty soon they were off on 16 laps of the 10.2km circuit.

i wandered up the first hill to the feedzone and hung out with chevaun, her parents and sister for a while, before making the trek to the top of the king of the mountain climb.  i sat with some guys from the sunbury club for a few laps and watched the peloton swing past.  there was a breakaway from lap 2 and it was increasing each lap till it got to about a 7 min advantage.  with each lap only taking 15 min, it was hanging out there for quite a while.  the main peloton didn’t seem to want to chase down at all as i think they thought it wouldn’t last with the conditions the way they were. 

steve was sitting pretty in the main peloton along with all the euro-stars (rodgers, davis a, davis s, goss, meyer c, bobridge, cooke, wilson, lowe) and looked very comfortable on the climbs.  for the majority he was sitting at the front quarter of the the pack staying out of trouble. 

it was a long way from the top of the mountain to the finishline and i didn’t want to miss the finish so i left with about 5 laps to go.  on the way down, i watched the peloton go past again and didn’t see steve.  not to worry, it is easy to miss someone when there are that many riders in a group.  as the support cars went past, i saw him just off the back of the main pack and chasing to get on.  i didn’t know what had happened so made my way back to the feed zone.  there i found out that he had a mishap with a bottle and feedbag which caused him to crash on the previous lap.  it was pretty low speed so not much damage, but enough to knock the wind out of him and make it hard to catch back on to the pack.

chevaun was pretty upset about it as she thought that she caused the crash, but i think it was just one of those things.  steve came past another couple of times and managed to get aboard with a few other guys, but the peleton started to make stronger accelerations.  they were getting desperate as the break had not been pulled back in and it looked like the winner would be coming from the original 8 man which was now whittled down to 4. 

steve lasted till about 3 laps to go before deciding to call it a day.  he was riding strong but was not sure if he could have stayed with the likes of rodgers etc when the move went.  a sub-group had formed with the davis boys in and he thought that he may have been able to stick with them till the end.  however, it was not to be but it showed a very promising start to 2010 especially after his back surgery last year.

we made our way down to the finishline where steve got his injuries tended to at the medical tent.  the loudspeaker announced that the breakaway had indeed stayed away and the younger of the meyer boys, travis, had attacked the others and was now clear of the field.  with steve patched up we made our way to the line to see travis cross as the new australian road champion, to match his brothers tt championship on wednesday.