So I fronted up to Whyalla CC’s race on Saturday, the course was from Stirling North to Quorn and return. Probably none of those names mean anything to anyone apart from Quorn being a funny name for a town. I knew absolutely nothing about the course apart from one guy at work saying “it’s a bit hilly” – now for those of you that know: I don’t do hills. I do banking, but I don’t do hills.
Expectations were low but hopes were high as I hadn't done a road race with Whyalla so thought I might get a sweet handicap. Turned out to be moderately sweet but one of the guys in my bunch was a local and new the course well – so well in fact I believe he was determined for our bunch to ride it without breaking a sweat and would insist that we back it off before “the big climb”. I got kinda bored with this and believed it was only a matter of time before we got swamped so up the next climb I gave it a bit of “see you cunce later” and rode away for the next 15km.
However I then got bored with being alone, no one likes to be alone, and decided I’d probably bitten of more than I could chew and would like some mates for the return headwind. I backed off a little and my original group caught back on. I said sorry - all was forgiven. We spun around and headed back, at this point there was one solo dude in front that we never seemed to make any gain on but for a similar unknown reason, no one made ground on us.
In the last 10km me and an old guy dropped out 2 remaining companions and with that set up a showdown for the sprint. In the last km he sat on my wheel like he had done all race as I pondered the chances of getting out foxed by a dude twice my age. Perhaps it wasn’t his best foxing day because as soon as he came off my wheel the headwind blew him backward and I sailed in for 2nd.
The best bit of the day (apart from winning $14, well $6 if you take away the $8 entry) was all the pies, cakes and coke I could stuff down my throat – gotta love country races! Oh and for those of you that might think I was racing against a bunch of farmers on paddock bashers, think again. Of notable mention were a Venge with Di2, Cannondale Saeco Six13 with DA9000 and a new Ridley Noah with the intergrated brake thingys and 80mm carbons!
Here’s a photo of me about to do the world’s worst turn-around, some cakes and a big fucking parrot.
