It was overcast and a coolish 11km/h southerly breeze. Well when I say coolish, it was 20.7C according to the Bureau but it felt cooler.
The course had been changed again (I've never ridden the same criterium circuit yet!). This time it was my least favourite 'L' circuit, about 250m on one length and 400m on the other. One turn around was a round about and the other was a witches hat on the centre line. I've found 'L' courses tend to give slower times, especially with the very tight witches hat turn around.
The turn out :
Mothers' day so it was a smaller turn out. Much to my delight the woman who has won the last few races was a no show. We ended up with 7 in our race, 4 adults and 3 teenagers, including a father/son and father/daughter combination.
The officals approached me just before the start and said they've made some changes and they'd like me to go in C grade. I told them straight out I'd rather not, especially this week as I just rode 200km in the week. It was actually closer to 280km if I counted the Saturday and Sunday last weekend - I start my counting on a Monday. The other reason I didn't tell them is I don't want to be stuffed around going up and down grades plus Megan enjoys riding in the same race as me and on a selfish point, the championship points are so close. We were stuffed around with grade changes many, many years ago in basketball so we dropped out in protest. Didn't worry us, we played in two leagues any way.
Turns out everyone from the previous race who finished 6 minutes ahead of the rest of the field was put up or asked to go up to C grade.
The riders :
Here we are. This was mid race and into the breeze. See how organised we were? One young guy had dropped off by this stage. The winner was the guy in the white top, Megan is hiding behind the guy in orange. I was easily the tallest rider (far right) but not the widest so I did get some drafting. The club's mobile toilet is in the top right.
The race :
20 minutes + 2.
1.3km circuit.
Finish was a 400m straight, into the wind.
We headed off and it was the slowest start to a race I've ever been in. It was like we were heading off down the street to get the paper. The officials even yelled out to pick up the pace! I jumped to the lead telling one guy I'll take the lead, at least the breeze is behind us. It continued like a ride to the shop all race with general chat throughout the race. It was also the most unorganised race in history. There was only 7 of us but we still insisted on riding in two columns even into the breeze. There were a few of us testing out the others. We'd do little sprints to see the reaction by the others. Every lap there was a sprint down wind to the first corner and I'd let them go because I knew I'd catch up rounding the corner.
Since the woman who has been winning the last few races wasn't there I knew it would be a totally different race to what I expected so I decided on a new plan. Overall she is only 2 points behind me but since she did show I'd get a points break on her whether I won or not so I'd use the race as a test ride. I wanted to sprint out early to see how long I could sprint for because I had a plan for the next race. We got the bell lap and I was leading into the first corner and Megan was behind me so I thought I'd take off from there and she could draft me. That left about 900m of sprinting including a U turn around a round about and right angle turn around a round about.
Everything was going fine until the last corner and into the head wind. I came out of the corner and went up a gear too soon or forgot to change down before the corner and hit the head wind. I looked behind and a guy was closing fast so I pushed harder. The lactic acid hit me half way down the straight and it was like someone dropped a bag of concrete across my legs. It was too late to draft him and change down a gear or two because my legs wouldn't work. I looked behind and third was way, way back so I sat up and cruised in for second place.
Megan came in fourth only half a wheel behind third. This is near the finish - she caught up a bit after the photo was taken.
It was a slow race due to the sharp witches hat turn around and there was always at least 6 of us rounding it at the same time. I think if the riders who went into C grade today and the missing ones had of been in the race then it would have been dead serious, a lot faster and spread out into a couple of groups by the end.
The official results aren't up on the web site yet but it was about 27ish minutes and about 13 km. My average was only 27.2 km/h with a max of 44 km/h.
If you could call a race fun then I'd have to say this was fun. It was almost like a training ride with a sprint at the end.
So once again I learnt something from a race. Check the gears before entering the corner and not where the rider behind is. It's the first time I've never had to come out of a round about and into the final straight before. The other criteriums we came out of a normal corner and we could use all the road (closed road) so is was a fast corner.
I also found my distance limit on a final sprint and to beware of this races winner in the next race. I've always out sprinted him in our training rides.
I had a chat to the winner after the race and apparently he started riding in 1995 and is getting back into it this year. He's also army so he's quite fit. He also raced with flash new wheels. Not sure of the technical term but they are those deep V I think they're called.
Overall I was happy with the result although I didn't get number 2 or 8 off my to do list. I thought about number 8 (throwing out bottle like the pro's do) but the on lookers were too close. I did mark off number 4.
One good thing is I proved to the officials I'm not ready for C grade. Take that officials.
). Still, your bike colour does have the honour of being the forum's first icon 
