That was not the only challenges for the day. There were a number of road works and new seal parts on the road as well as lots of gravel on the descents. This certainly made for an interesting day!
It started with a ride over gravel that had just been sprayed with water, making every one's bikes very dirty - then straight into the first climb of the day - of about 4km!
I tried to keep a low profile up front as the body was not feeling the greatest from the TTT yesterday! Having said that there were plenty of people willing to keep the pace high...
I did not enjoy some of the loose stones on the new seal which turned out to be on some of the long descents... I got dropped a couple of times - not a good look.
The last hill on the outward leg, Chris G put a bit of pace on. I sat on his wheel for about a km and then went 'round upping the pace. Dropped a few there... over the top and down the other side there was four of us including me Chris, Ron C and one other... There was then about 8km of flat to the bridge turn around. We saw the fun ride going the other way...
At the turn around the bridge was indeed collapsed! A whole section has fallen!
First climb back I took it very quietly and sat on the back... felt ok but did not want to overdo it. Kept cadence at about 90rpm in the 27... (as a master I have to make some concessions :)
On the next descent it was Ron that had trouble and lost quite a bit of ground... I was a bit off the back too but got on easily and then slowed it up to let Ron get back on more easily...
Onto the next climb, quite a tough steep one. Ron again led and I followed. He was riding really strongly. About 3/4 the way up I took the lead and put in a few surges to mix things up... Ron was right there beside me not letting up. Everyone else dropped off... I eased up and Ron came right passed again. Chris slowly caught up.
The remainder of the ride was very undulating and mostly up. Ron was doing most of the work with me taking some turns and Chris taking the odd turn. by now I was feeling very tired.
The finish was mostly downhill with a few sharp turns and then a short uphill - which we found out as we went. With 1km to go Chris was on the front, me just on his wheel and Ron a few metres back. Ron then attacked I tried to go with him but it would have meant going around a blind corner on the wrong side so thought better of that! Instead strayed on Chris' wheel, but Ron had a good gap and as I went around Chris up to the finish but I could not catch Ron... 2nd not too bad.
Just call me Mr Second Man! two from two... I think I'll go for a second next week to make it 3 from 3!
The elite race started 15 minutes behind us and they did not catch us ! We were all quite stoked over that.
No comments:
Post a Comment