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Mon, 30 May 2005

Weekend of Racing in Wagga - 15:12

Neil, Simon and I headed off to Wagga on Saturday morning for the Wagga Motors 120km Handicap Race on Saturday and the Microtech Open Butch Menz Memorial 70km Handicap Race on Sunday.
I was reasonably pleased with my mark as I was in the same bunch as our own Mick Rawlin (who just happens to have a drink or few with the handicapper). I was not pleased with the sub 10 degree temperature on a howling wind which turned out to be the determining factor in the race. My bunch (one back from limit) cruised through the first 15km or so, then, as we turned right and up a slight incline stronger riders put the hammer down, this caused a lot of damage and we lost 6-8 riders. I had to make a mad dash across the gap and I was trying to stuff a muslie bar into my mouth as the hammer went down. We started working quite fluently and picked up lots and lots of small bunches from the limit bunch. The only thing disturbing our rhythm was a horror cyclist on a Klein, he featured a camel back with flowing straps, deep dish rims and very straight locked out arms. Of course in the cross wind conditions he was all over the place and got quite a bit of stick from the 5-6 riders in our hard working bunch. As we peeled off the undulating cross wind road onto a dead flat block headwind road the commissaries car came up and we were informed that only one rider remained in front of us and we still had 5:30 up on the bunch behind. Well, optimism was high, but we were barely half way into our 120kms.
So, we kept working and working. Later on, 20 minutes on another cross wind afflicting uphill dead road akin to Uriarra Road out of the crossing the car came up to us again. Bad news this time, scratch were only two minutes or so back. One very optimistic soul asked if we could possibly hold them off, most smiled to themselves, but one guy had quite a colourful, you've got to be ***** kidding. So, in what seemed like an instant scratch come along at a belting pace, a few made the belated effort to stick with em. I think Mick Rawlin may have stuck with them for a while as I never saw him again. I made the sensible decision to wait for a straggling bunch, which I joined in with them for the ride home. We kept up mopping up and spitting out riders who had been wasted away by the scratch bunch and the block bunch who were just in behind them. Neil and Simon had similar stories, being swept up and spat out by scratch as then pelted by. Simon made a huge attempt to get on, only to break a spoke in his front wheel and then be faced with a lonely ride home, even though he did sit on Graeme Allbon for 60km or so.
Saturday night saw much pizza, wine, garlic bread and desert consumed at La Porchetta in town, then sleep was east to find in our flat at the City Park Motel on Turcutta Street.
We woke on Sunday to a brigh sunny WINDLESS morning, had a large breakfast of crumpets and then headed off to the race. When we signed on we discovered that the handicapper had done a mass re-handicapping. He had shown us his notes from the day before at the pub on Saturday night, an incomprehensible piece of paper with yellow pink and blue highlighter markings and very small handwritten notes. Neil was happy to be moved out from block, Simon was happy to be moved out to 12. I was devastated to be moved into the same bunch as Simon and Andrew Mohr. It was going to be a hard day on the bike for me. Luckily the race was only 70km. It turned out to be mostly undulating, with lots of false flats. I lasted to the end, when my bunch caught the leading bunch right on the line. The placegetters were a combination of the bunch ahead and my bunch. I'm pretty sure Simon rode himself into about 12th place. But it was almost impossible to get through the bunch all over the road. Neil's bunch was bearing down on us at the finish and were only 30 seconds behind. Scratch was only just behind them, despite getting up to speeds of 60-70 on the run in. All in all, Sunday was a very enjoyable race after the hardships of Saturday. I can't say I like some of the aggression (mostly just people shouting in the bunch) but it is quite good fun to rip around at the speed a big bunch of cyclists can go at. Neil reported an average of nearly 45kph for his bunch and we were around 42kph. This was quite understandable as we had 20 riders in the mould of Simon driving the bunch. I could not do any more turns after about 2 thirds of the race. I was very happy to hang on in the company I was in. The next big race is the Coota Classic weekend. I encourage all those with ACF or MTBA licences to give it a go. If they have never heard of you they tend to handicap you in limit or one back from limit. The full NSW racing calendar can be found at Cycling NSW.

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