Course: Watopia Hilly Route Reverse
Distance: 4 Laps 37 km
(no stream)
Rain stopped play commuting today so I decided to do a cheeky race as soon as I got in from work
98 riders in the pens. Some guy was posting messages about flagging the UAE riders as they were cheats. He carried on during the race. They were suspect to be fair, getting upto nearly 20kg/w at some points and one of them was supposed to be 45kg! Anyway I took no notice and they were like pacemakers anyway.
The start was pretty fast. The legs felt ok with almost a weeks commuting in them. First time up the hill the lead group split and the selection was made. About 10 of us went clear. I clearly wasn’t as sharp as I can be having ridden a double century a couple of weeks back, my speed was a bit blunted.
The elastic stretched but I stayed in the wheels. Lap 2 started and it was bit more cagey this time. The UAE riders were doing silly watts so I just ignored them. 2nd time up the climb and the elastic was stretched a bit more. I had to make a longer effort to get back in the wheels over the top.
A UAE rider had been away now for over a lap but he was being wound in cheater or not.
Lap 3 was a bit faster and the climb split the group again and I was in no mans land. I caught another rider dropped from the lead group and then we were caught. We stayed together on the last lap. One of the others tried to go clear over the top of the climb but I marked him. We dropped the other rider but he caught us on the descent. The 3-up sprint went with about 400m to go. I thought I had them both on the line but I just got pipped in the last few metres for about 10th.
Not bad with tired legs
Ride on!
