Well, after a bout of the squirts on Wednesday and Thursday, I was not sure how much fuel I had managed to put back into the body on Friday.  The refuelling started with fluids in the morning and ended with pizza in the evening, I was hoping I would be good to go.

I decided to stop being lazy (new years resolution) and ride to the start.  As usual I ended up leaving a few mins later than I had wanted to but I was on the road with 30 mins to go which meant an ave speed with lights and all had to be a smidge over 30km/hr.  I was not happy with the head wind which seemed ever present but I arrived at the carpark almost dead on 7am, good work.

Julian gave his spiel and we were off.  I did my usual job of hanging at the back of the pack to help get group get back together when it was split by lights etc.  Once the group split, into main and fast, the fast group turned up Murdoch drive.  The pace went up rapidly at the front, which I was quite happy with and I waited for a roll through to start.  The roll through was going well, then on one of my roll throughs, Jarard came through after me and in typical Jarard style, he put the hammer down a little, head down and bum up.  I was fine with this and went to roll through him as we approached the lights at South Street in the hope we would get through as we had a gap over the rest of the group.  It would have made for a long ride with just the two of us but it would have been good.

Luckily for the others, we were stopped at the lights 😉  Once on our way again along South Street, the pace went up and a few of us were working pace up front.  I enjoy the undulations as they manage to work the hangers ons harder and increases the chance of a break getting away.  All along South Street, Jarard, Michael Bonner, Chris, Tugga and myself were attacking the little rises but the lights were doing a good job of ensuring any little gaps we got were closed down.

I was unsure of the route and rolled through Hampton street, Jarard and a couple others came with me but a quick U-turn and we joined up on the back of the group which made a nice change.  Things eased up a fair bit so I moved to the front again before we were on Port Beach road.  Once on Port beach road, the pace went up nicely and more people were joining in on the roll through.  Brother Dan made an appearance up front and then Julian (not Brother Jules but Hills Jules) was coming to roll through but decided that two bikes back from the front he was not wanting to put in any more effort and he put the call out for Brother Dan to ease up so he could give him a hand..  Hmmm, it was the first time I had heard the call to ‘ease up’ in the fast group on a Saturday ride.  I swiftly added my thoughts on the matter and said there was no ‘easing up’ in the fast group but Dan had already obliged and slowed things a little to allow Julian to finish his roll through.

I decided this was a good time to up the pace a little more and swiftly rolled through to get the pace back up as we turned left onto Marine Parade.  Jarard made an appearance once we were on Marine Parade (he had been quiet since we slipped onto the back of the pack) and Chris, Jarad, Michael B and I managed to get a gap along here.  Unfortunately we were rolling the wrong way into the wind but I decided it would be too hard to switch things around and I alerted the others we were down to 4 and to keep the pace up. Unfortunately we were stopped at the lights onto West Coast Hwy and I looked back to see Jerrard leading a little pack back to us.  Good to see Jerrard’s Thai massage injury was not affecting him too much when the pace was on.

Things were civil again until we were rolling through Dalkeith and the man in blue and white, sorry don’t remember his name but I believe he is a friend of Jason’s ?  He too was on a Bianchi, came shooting past us who had been rolling.  A little cheeky I thought as we had not seen him the whole ride and now he was going for Dalkieth points..  Hmm, so I said to Jarrard, lets hit it when we go past him (as I was sure he had spent a few of his matches in his little sprint).  Unfortunately it seemed a few others had also spent their matches through Dalkeith as I was heading down The Avenue by myself, I decided to ease up and let the others catch up quickly.

Jarard was up front when we turned onto Hacket drive, with me second wheel.  He rolled through so I thought road was clear, unfortunately there was a dark blue commodore coming the other way but fortunately it was going slow and proceeded to stop.  Apologies and thanks to the lady who was driving.

The next thing on the agenda was the sprint, hmm, ‘time to have troubles clicking into my pedals’ I was thinking as we took off at the lights onto Mounts Bay road.  I would have to watch blue and white bianchi man as he may have a good sprint.  I took off really slow from the lights but it appeared most people were happy to go really slow and sit behind me, thankfully Jarrard went off up the road and a few people followed him which seemed to release the bottle neck of people behind me.  I rolled onto Bianchi man’s wheel which was about 5 wheels back from the front.  I considered chasing down Chris and Jarard who were now up the road but felt better of it as Michael Bonner had moved to the front, Mike B would real them in slowly.

Jarard eased up up ahead as he had started to cramp which left Chris up the road solo running like a scared rabbit…  We were approaching the bend coming towards the brewery so I eased back a little from the wheel in front of me, changed gears, pulled out and put the hammer down to chase Chris who was 20 or so metres in front of me (sorry Chris for stealing your thunder, good work on the break away ;-).  I felt pretty good, even into the headwind.  The ride had been sufficiently hard to kill most peoples’ legs which would mean not many chasers in my wake.  Thankfully, I managed to hold off the chasers (by about 20m 😉 and I could shake my fist in the air as I passed the 60km sign (hopefully there were some spectators behind me to witness the shaking)  Jerard came in his customary spot (2nd, the Poulidor spot) and was very happy with the way his massage torn body had held up…

All in all a good hit out and it seemed the gastro had not taken much out of me (well not enough that I could not put back in on Friday)..  Now the question remained would I be man enough to race the crit on Sunday in A grade??  Hmm… Not as much fun as the race to the coffee shop me thinks..