Saturday 31st July PDCC road race at Parklands
Well as per usual I was running late and didn’t really have time for a proper warm up. Just a few zips up and down the road would have to do.
Saw Pickle and fellow SPR riders Josh and Matt at rego. Josh was egging me on to have a crack at A grade but as mentioned previously, I think B grade is where I belong for now. Unfortunately for me this also meant that I’d have no team mates in B grade.
Both A and B grades were up for twelve laps of the four kilometre course. A moved off and the roll call for B grade was executed. Twelve punters on this sunny day. A few riders muttered about the inclusion of an A grade rider in our midst (some quite loudly!) and to rub it in the rider in question attacked from the gun and wasn’t to be seen until more than halfway through the race!
For the rest of us the first half of the race was fairly uneventful. I was sticking to the wheel of one of the stronger B grade regulars for most of the time, taking my turns but not doing anything more than I had to. Heading off on the seventh lap it was clear that we were pulling back the escapee and the call went out to leave him out there for a bit longer. It was going over the sharp pinch on lap nine that the group accelerated and went on with it over the top. They didn’t ride off into the distance but had a good gap. I popped off the back along with two other guys. I had to sit in for a bit at this point as I was stuffed and did the bare minimum work. I came good after a lap and proceeded to do my bit. The front group was five strong but one of those guys dropped off and we sped by him. One of my helpers popped around this time too and so our chase group was down to two with four in front.
We were catching them and going over the hill was within twenty metres or so – but then the elastic snapped and they powered down the back slope. My chasing friend (who won the handicap last week) also gapped me over the hill. I tried to catch him again but fell short by about five metres on the line. 6th for me. The front group stayed away by about 150m I’d estimate. The guy who had attacked at the start won the four-up sprint easily by all accounts.
Lessons learned and noted. Need to recognize when to dig deep and hang tough. If I can do that then I think I can be there at the end.
Time :- 1hr 17min
Distance :- 48km
Average :- 37.2kph
Further details here or here.
Serpentine next week – hopefully I’ll put in a better show than last time there!
Cheers,
PS – Don’t forget to use the SPR Events Calendar to find out what racing and other events are going on. A few of us try to keep it as up to date and as accurate as possible. So check it out!