Nundah Race Day - 13 December

HPRW v University in an interclub challenge- and I was interested to see if there would be any team tactics discussed.

I signed on for D Grade (Cardiologist wont let me ride higher for the time being) and went for a 20 minute warm up on the bike path to get me going and to test the new gear shifter fitted yesterday.

All was good.

It was then time to watch the end of the A and B grade races – but the end was some way off. I don’t quite understand why C and D grade race start times continue to be advertised for 45 minutes after A and B grade start times as inevitably we run 15 – 20 minutes late.

Anyway, University won both races and I think took 3 of the other 4 places. On the warm up lap, a few of us tried to hatch some plans. I was to work the front, Geoff was to cover breakaways and Tony was to take it as easy as possible until the end of the race when, I was to give a lead out to Tony who we figured was our best sprint chance. Easy – why bother to race, just put us on the podium.

Everything went according to plan – in a way. We couldn’t quite get the Uni riders to do much work. I tried to break a couple of times to try and get them to lead a chase however it seemed that other HPRW riders did the work – Note to self, share the plan with a few more people next time.

When the 2 lap call was made, I managed to get to Tony – he took my wheel and asked me to go hard coming into the last corner which I did.

The only problem was. He was piped on the post by a hard sprinting under 15 finishing very strongly. Geoff took out 3rd and we also picked up first women past the post.

It was a well controlled race and for us, the average speed of just shy of 34 kph was quite quick.

And HPRW won the overall challenge – due mainly to superior rider numbers. You get a point for each participating cyclist.

A successful and incident free race meeting with over 110 riders taking part.

Off training at Col de Cootha in the morning. TD is at the golf in Sydney and Lachlan has hit the town tonight