Race report by John.

so friday we left perth at around 2pm and arrived before dark .  spent saturday looking around the area with the family and in the afternoon it was the crits.

i watched our spr team warm up and go thru their various preparation routines and checked out the course.  bit of a tough course by the looks of it with some steep sections and a very tight corner at the end of a downhill run.  anyway i’ll leave the crit details to those that raced it.

next day it was the road race.  i lined up with brett l and kimbo in cat C along with 30 or so others.  we had one aim- stick with the group.  i knew from my last fiasco at joondalup that once you get dropped it’s pretty much good-night.  ryan’s advice was to not do any chasing.  i thought no danger of me doing that…

the course is a figure 8 with one of the eight’s circles about 3 times as big as the other.  the smaller circle had the steepest climb but nothing compared to a sunday ride in length.  still, in a race, it hurts.

the bigger circle took us on undulating back country roads for half, then a main highway for the rest.  in terms of variety this little 33km figure 8 course had it all.  our race was 2 laps.

ok so what happened?  well i started out in the 1st 3rd of the bunch and stayed there much of the 1st bigger circle.  brett did some generous towing for some part of the fast section.  i’m sure he paid for it come the next steep part.  i then found myself 2nd just prior to the steep little hill.  

quarter way up the climb there was a break. at this point the fit boys took off and left me in about 10 place.  this is one of those moments you play back in your mind thinking ‘why did i not htfu and hold the wheel?’  

well i think lack of some vicky king park specials and no fast hard rides for the last 10 days left me nicely rested, but a bit under cooked.  anyway about 6 or 7 of us were left in a chase group behind the leading group of 6.  

we continued on our merry way and worked together on the faster sections to try and make ground.  to no avail as the 1st 6 guys seemed way too far ahead and not even in sight.

on the second lap we were hit by some heavy showers with lightning.  bit scary but we were on rubber tyres so i guess we were safe enough.  at this point we lost some of our group over the undulating sections with visibility (as well as moral) much reduced.

it cleared by the time we hit the fast section for the last time that although we were not racing for a place,  the three of us that were left wanted to cross the line first.  

the 2 lost me on the steep hill again (dam it) but not by too much (about 400m).  i fought my guts out to get back on and i was encouraged to see i was making ground.  in the meantime i think they had thought they’d lost me.   it was not until they turned to go down the last hill toward the finish that they spotted me and quickly tried to up the pace.

i had about 200 m to catch up before the finish which was now about 1 km away.  this is where all those races down welshpool rd against gerry and mark came in handy.  i felt right at home smashing it down hill and caught them as we reach the last home straight which is a 3 degree climb.

we all looked at each other to see who was going to ‘draw’ first… then the stronger of the other 2 took off but i pounced quickly taking a wide sweep to avoid any hanger-ons, pumped my legs for all they were worth past him to take out 8th place.  

we all shook hands and the it felt great to actually finish an individual race.

in summary joondalup memories are now laid to rest and i think cat ‘c’ is my natural place to be (for now).  

i just need to anticipate/learn some of the likely sections teams will make a break on – and if you can work as a team you have a huge advantage as i witnessed 1st hand.

thanks to all who helped organise the trip.

– John