Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club Glenvale Crescent C Grade 30th Jan 2010 Race Report by James McArdle

Like the A grade riders we started the day of hot but not really by the speed of the race but rather the weather. With 30 degrees plus at the start line, that makes you re think your race strategy but my whole goal for the day was to try and win today to back up a win on Thursday night and get the placing’s to be moved up to B grade.

Thanks to the weather we had a reduced race time down to 45min which suited me just nicely.

From the start there were small attacks but nothing that really stuck, that was until Greg Aidone (Cycling Inform) went of the front stretching his legs and to see if he could get some other to follow him and tire out the sprinters in the group.

Greg did well and stayed out by himself for a long time with a nice head wind for half of the lap, while I sat back in the peloton waiting for my time. Unfortunately the peloton decided that Greg had been out to long and it decided to bring him in.

Not long after that, going up to the first corner there was a crash and three riders came down hard.  Five of us up the front that heard the smash decided to jump off hoping that the spill had split the peloton, which it did but unfortunately as we came up the home straight we saw that the race had gone neutral until St Johns had checked and made sure that the riders are ok.

For a few laps after the race started again, there were no real attacks until Fergus Sullivan (Blackburn) and David McGrath (ACT) and myself decided to attack into the head wind. This proved to be very successful and we slowly increased it into a nice little lead. With about 3 laps to go Stephen Camilleri (Blackburn) broke of the front of the peloton and chased us down. This allowed us to role turns and conserve some energy for the sprint finish because we knew the peloton wouldn’t catch us now. I was second wheel coming into the last corner and sat behind Stephen until I felt David come up on my left hand side. I immediately went to jump of Stephens wheel only to find he was extremely fatigued and exhausted and he drifted towards me and I bounced of his shoulder which through me of my sprint. I still had a second kick but not enough to get up for first. Final result David 1^st, myself 2^nd, Stephen 3^rd and Fergus 4^th.

I was happy with the decision to make the attack at the right time and also with the riders that went with it.

After reading the CCCC report they’ve mentioned that it looks like we’ve proven ourselves for a B grade start next week. That’s what I was after but I’ll wait and see what they say when I register.

Thanks to all the Cycling-Inform coaches; David Sturt, David Heatley, Barney and Brendan for your support and ideas over the last few weeks. I’m starting to feel it all coming together now.