Sunday 21st September saw a fresh, almost frosty, morning over Mt Torrens on the Eastern slopes of the Adelaide Hills. It also saw a reasonable turnout of Elite category riders contesting the PACC club champs. I was one them, as was Adam, Ben and Daniel. Ben has been riding quite well lately and smelling quite bad. I expected big things from him, and I don’t mean that I thought he was going to shit his dacks, although that was a possibility.
Our event entailed 8 laps of a 9.5km course which included a decent amount of climbing. I don’t like climbing.
Adam pleaded with race favourite, Damion Hadcroft, before the race, to keep it all together for the first couple of laps so that everyone could ride at least a part of the race in the pack. I thought they agreed to do so. The race started. We immediately turned left to head up the first (certainly not the most difficult) hill of the course and promptly dropped 2 riders. They rode with the pack for a grand total of about 300 metres.
Over the other side of the hill, I found myself on the front and apparently began to pull away from the bunch sitting on a speed slightly over 50kph. Adam came with me and was laughing. The bunch was strung out in a long line as we turned yet another left hand corner to begin climbing yet another hill. Somewhere up this ascent, Daimo must have decided it was time to turn on the hurt. From my perspective, the pack splintered into three distinct divisions: In the lead group was Daimo, Adam, Ben, Daniel and Nigel. Then it was me, alone, about equidistant between the lead bunch and the trailing bunch. As the lap continued, I continued to make as much ground on the guys chasing me as I lost to the lead group ahead. Sometime on the 2nd lap, I could no longer see riders ahead or behind me.
The officials pulled me off with one lap to go, just in time for me to see Daimo cross the line for the win, followed a few minutes later by Ben, followed by Daniel in third position and Nige in 4th – well done to all of you. Adam pulled out after 3 laps as he wasn’t feeling too well, and figured there’s no prize for pushing yourself so far that you get ill – hopefully a rest day will sorts you out mate. I would have mopped up 5th place if allowed to continue, but I was happy with my ride. I rode about 60km solo, effectively at time trial effort levels, so it was quite a workout.
The sun warmed things up during the progression of the race which almost negated the blustery winds that we were exposed to on some sections of the course.
LESSON OF THE DAY: riding with others severely reduces your risk of being swooped by magpies. I had an ongoing battle with one pesky maggie that would swoop me several times each and every time I went by, bar the two occasions when there were other riders nearby (first lap and one of the later laps when I was passing a rider from another category). Talking to the other guys after the race revealed that they suffer no such attacks. Bastards J
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