Dingus Dave:
C Grade Masters Race Report.
No idea what happened, cause I missed the start. Too busy waiting for fellow Saint Clouders to drink their Ethiopian coffee in Beechworth. I fkn told you we’d miss the start! Good see HCC Crit regular Mark Bailey get up for a place.
C Grade Elite Race Report
So anyways, I rolled out a few minutes after the C Grade Masters bunch on my own. No chance in hell I was starting a 100km road race by chasing down a 4 minute gap on my own, so I dawdled along for half an hour waiting for the C Grade bunch behind me, with Duggan and Mitch in there, to catch up. A couple of magpie swoops got the heart rate going. Nothing like sprinting seated whilst trying to look up/behind you, whilst screaming like a bitch.
After 15km, Duggan came smashing past me, solo off the front of the bunch. I put the hammer down to catch up, had a quick chat, then dropped back to the C Grade bunch. Given this wasn’t my race, I couldn’t really stay out there with him to help.
With Duggan out front sweeping up all the sprint and KOM points, Mitch knew the deal and went after remaining sprint points going head-to-head with Coburg’s Ben Pascall. Coming up to the second sprint, about 1km out, I could see Pascall at mid pack. I looked round for Mitch, and there he was, a hundred metres off the front on his own. Great tactic, I thought, hitting them early to discourage anyone to chase. Turns out he thought the 500m to go sign was the finish. Fkn. But he’s a mad dog, so he held on for the points.
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| Mitch rode like a boss. |
After 40km out front solo, Duggan was brought back to the group not far before the little KOM (before the dirt climb). As we hit the climb, someone touched wheels mid-pack, right in front of Duggan and down he went. He was alright, and I waited at the top of the climb for him. I wasn’t going to help him when he was solo off the front, but if some muppet is gonna bring him down in the bunch you can be damn sure I’m gonna help my mate get back into the race. Of course, me (65kg whippet) helping Duggan (99% choc Big M) on a descent is kinda ridiculous.
At the bottom of the descent was a sharp right-hand corner. A dude 50m ahead of us took the corner too hot and went straight into the ditch. “Easy! Easy!” I slowed down and took the corner carefully, looking across to see the guy crawling out of the ditch a little dazed. Duggan had no idea, and had ripped up the inside and put 30m into me in a flash. Fuck, I’m trying to help you here mate! I gassed it back to him, got on the front, and drilled it as hard as I could for the next few kms till we hit the bottom of the dirt climb.
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| Look at that boo boo. Luckily avoided amputation. |
Duggan then went about making up ground on the leaders. At this stage, Pascall, Slingsby and Cotterell got a gap off the front and were never seen again. I had Duggan pegged on the climb about 30m ahead of me. Then we hit the descent and he disappeared, bombing down like a madman.
Duggan:
Not. Fucking. Happy. Jan.
Nothing like getting up the road, scoring some points, feeling good when caught, then having someone shove a Giant TCR through your front spokes.
Bombing down the hill I could think of one thing - catching those fkn skinny climbers. I started descending my way through the bigger blokes who'd been shelled on the climb, politely informing them that this was a "race" and we weren't out of it yet. CARN. FULL FKN GAS, CUNCE.
Ended up with a reasonably strong group of 6 or so working well together. Bit slower than I'd like, but the group was working smoothly. We eventually rounded up Mitch and two partners in crime. As we passed the group the following exhange occurred and lols were had.
"YEOOOOOW - HEY MITCH! I'M FKN BACK CAAAAAAAARRRNNNTT!"
"FUCK YEAH!"
*air punching*
Our group of about 10 worked solidly to the very finish with Mitch sending some hang-ers on packing with some polite words at the back of the bunch. More lols at Mitch's persuasiveness were had.
With what we figured must be less than 10 up the road, we knew we had a shot to bring 'em back. We caught 5 riders with about 3 km to go, and to the tune of "OH MAAAN, WHAT THE FUCK!?" in response to Mitch's "FUCKING SMACK IT!" as we made the catch, the attacks started flying.
Mitch and I stayed out of trouble and even managed to have a squirt to finish 7th and 9th respectively about a minute behind Pascall, Slingsby and Cottrell who managed to stay away for a well deserved podium. I had managed to sew up the sprint jersey through my early breakaway shenanigans, so it was a pretty fun day out*.
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| Fuck it. Have a squirt. |
*sans the TCR in the front spokes
Back next year.
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| The lack of sympathy during treatment was astounding. |
