This morning I raced in the Cairns Cycling Club criterium.
Thankfully the weather gods kept the rain away for the race, which was
extremely lucky because it rained on the way into town. Just like usual there
weren’t many riders in A grade, only five, compared to the fifteen or so that
raced in B grade. There were two men that fronted up to race, Adam Cobain and
Paul Mashford and well I knew that they were going to battle it to end and it
was going to be a very quick race.
We took it relatively easy from the start, in saying that we
averaged about 40km/h for the whole race. In the early stages of the race, my
cornering was horrendous and this caused me to expel large amounts of energy
trying to re-join the group every time we came to a corner. As the race progressed
I was able to find the right line to through each turn and this meant I was
able to come out of each corner still intact with the other riders. Mashford
tried extensively to attack and escape off the front, but he wasn't able to do
so today. On one occasion when he accelerated I was left to chase him down and when
I was chasing I hit speeds of 54km/h. I somewhat struggled at the beginning of
the race but as it progressed I felt stronger and more capable of holding those
speeds. We came around the corner onto the home straight after 45 minutes of
racing and received three laps to go, from here the paced stayed the same, I
told myself that if I have held on this whole way I would be in with a chance
to contest the sprint.
We came in with one lap to go and I found myself in a
dangerous position of second wheel. By this time there were only three riders
left including myself. Mashford was on the front and I knew that by being in
second wheel, if he pulled off I would be left to lead out the sprint which I
didn't want to do, so I pulled out to let Cobain roll through. I was now
sitting in a comfortable third position and this gave me the opportunity to
have more of a lead out, which played to my advantage. Mashford slowed the pace
right down to about 30km/h, so it was here that I clicked down a couple of
gears, knowing that it was going to come down to a sprint between the three of
us. As we came into the home straight the pace started to rise and as the
sprint began I found that the gear I had chosen was too big. I knew I had to
dig extremely deep if I wanted to pull this off and well I was just strong
enough to nudge myself into second place behind Mashford with Cobain in third. I
was stoked with what I had achieved as this was my best result in an A grade
race. I still have some learning to go, especially with gear selection, but I
am getting better and I hope next time I can come out even stronger.
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| Sitting in with the bunch, but still working hard |
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