Eastern Cycling Club
B Grade road race, Gembrook, 28th May 2011
The course
Eight riders blasted out of the blocks and down to the start finish line despite the insistent calling from the bunch captain, Ian Smith, “what is it about neutral that you don’t understand?” Eventually it was yours truly who hammered over the gap to urge the recalcitrants to sit up and wait for the full complement of 16 riders. Bewildered they sat up while the stragglers bridged and so the race continued grupetto for all of about 2 kilometres, a point marked by the arrival of the first of the climbs. While only one of the short ‘bumps’, the gradient of 7 – 8% was enough to stress a number of riders. The equally short and steep descent that followed was hardly enough time for recovery, not to mention overcome the cold conditions compounded by the chill factor of a race start with a descent. However it was enough to enable me to scramble back on. Already I had no idea what was happening behind me. Carnage presumably.
Inevitably, the long climb that followed soon afterwards was enough to completely smash the group. A select group of about 5 continued to push away lead by ‘Clembutador’ look alike, Spanish Dave, né David Depedro (eventual winner). The group included all the eventual placegetters, Nick Tapp 2nd, Bret Henderson 3rd and Mark Ramsdale 4th. Tim Ferres pulled out at Lap 1 and I’m not sure what happened to Peter Castillo. Regardless, I was off the back again and really struggling with muscle stiffness, a max’d out HR and shuddering due to the cold damp atmos. I really wasn’t ready for this! It was all I could do to limit my losses along with one or two puffing individuals about me.
Eventually the uphill gave way to negative gradient – relief. But so far, ouch! And only a quarter of lap one completed. Somehow Dale Goodall and I grouped up and, while never believing we had the goods to bridge to the leaders, set up a collaborative effort of rolling turns. We wound our way through the forested section where the density of growth and sharp bends closed down our visual horizon and we seemed to be completely alone. Eventually we were greeted by a fragmented A Grade making its way back to the start/finish. A little while later came our lead group, seemingly quite comfortable in their own company and also with their comfortable gap to us. Psychological blow!
A shape appeared up ahead which turned out to be a rider on a bike who turned out to be Ian Smith. Now we were three. After the turn we were rolling nicely back to the start when brother Quentin casually cruised past seemingly unaffected by what he described as an asthma attack, “and I’ve left my puffer in the car!” The speed and ease of his passing was a contradiction. A rider with asthma can’t ride that briskly – unless they are hammering back to the car to get their puffer in which case they are not breathing well – er, go figure that one. Anyway, what it meant was that we had to let him ride away. As we approached the turn at the end of lap 1 he could be seen riding off the course – back to the car indeed his race over.
Now our race was settling into a nice rhythm however that didn’t translate into making headway on the lead group. As we approached the turn for Lap 2, with the bell ringing in our ears, we could tell that the leaders were well ahead. By the time we had hit the hills again they were out of sight and effectively out of reach. At least that is how we three felt about it. When Thorkild Muurholm loomed up out of nowhere and zoomed past us he murmured something about “catching them”. Ambitious? We found a little extra and worked across to his wheel. Now we were 4.
As we approached the turn around for the second and last time Thorkild was getting pretty edgy and our bunch was under pressure. Sure enough, as we turned for home, we lost one rider – Ian Smith. Dale and I worked pretty well together while Thorkild was nervous and edgy, wanting to push harder in pursuit of what was surely a safe breakaway. However he was not so comfortable on the fast descents and Dale and I slipped away from him with me hitting my race max of over 76kph.
The two of us held the gap until the long final climb to the finish whereby Thorkild attacked and pushed hard onwards and upwards. He was away and continued for the 5km or so to the finish line. Dale and I continued rolling turns until the downhill run to the finish came into view. With about 100m to go I clicked down the gears and dug in for a ‘friendly’ sprint. Dale was too strong and took what was by now 6th place. I seemed to run out of spinning power and settled for 7th only to discover that I was still in the small chainring :-0
Ah! Not to worry. Was a strange and yet fun kind of a race over a testing parcours. Now that we’re all familiar with the profile I suspect future races will go differently especially on a warmer day when the road is completely dry. We shall see.
Stats:
Stats: Neutral -> Lap 1 -> Lap 2
Here’s a comparison between the two laps:
Blue = Lap 1, Red = Lap 2 (Click to zoom : then hit 'back' to return to Blog)