Glenvale CCCC - 29 Jan 2012 - race report

It was great to see all five Cycling-Inform Team riders at Glenvale today, with the sun out and a slight breeze to make a tough race. The first main attack saw Brendan Rowbotham & Andrew Weightman up the road and driving hard in a bunch of about eight riders.  David Sturt and I are attentive on the front of the main field as the gap gets to around 15 secs, and then the chasers are on the front for a hard & fast two - three laps to reel in the break. This provides a good springboard for the next attack, with David, Harry Hanley and I making a break of 11 committed riders.

The next 15 mins in the break are raced at full speed, in order to establish a good lead, and get enough of a buffer that small groups would find it difficult to bridge across, and bring the main field back in to contention. With still 30 mins left to race the pace was eased back a fraction in the break, with a lead of the length of the main straight.

For Brendan & Andrew in the main field, it’s a case of staying fresh in case the race comes back together, while being attentive near the front to follow any small groups that have the horsepower to get across to the break. Meanwhile in the break it’s a case of keeping the group working well together to maintain the advantage. Due to the slight cross wind the circulation of turns is changing each straight, which makes it difficult to ride smooth turns. But generally everyone is contributing to stay away. I keep drinking regularly as the hot weather is pulling the moisture out of us when working at this rate. So with time ticking down we are keeping our advantage as I look behind every now and then when at the back. Harry is still pulling strong turns and so is David so with three of us in the break we should have a good showing. Looking at the other riders I can tell there are tired legs, some surges leave gaps that take a while to close.

And finally we see the 3 laps to go card come out. OK its going to be GAME-ON now - we have enough of a buffer that we don’t have to keep the pressure on right to the final lap, and there is bound to be attacks to split the break up. Except I feel a bit of a softness in my front tyre. I bounce it on the road a couple of times to see if it is going flat or if my mind is playing tricks on me, but yep sure enough its soft and going down. Dammit!! I raise an arm to let the other guys know to go around me, and sing out to David “#$%^ing  puncture”.  He looks at me in disbelief because it changes the whole game plan, and its too late to change a wheel and get back in.

So I get to watch the last lap from the sidelines, attacks have split the break as expected, there are three in front, then two including David, and a small gap to Harry’s group.

David places 5^th after a hard day in the saddle, Harry 9^th, and a gap to a diminished main field of about 40 seconds.

Final places go to Ray Forbes (Total Rush) winning for the second time in a row, 2^nd Luke Fetch (Search2Retain), 3^rd Sam Rix (CBD Cycles) , 4^th Alex Smyth (Plan B), 5^th to David “Steggles” Sturt (Cycling Inform) and 6^th to Ben Hilleard , with Harry 9^th, and a gap to a diminished main field of about 40 seconds.

Oh well, there’s always next week !!

Average Speed - 44.7km/h

Average Power - 300 watts.

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Results: