peter clark memorial support race
race report by peter

so after tackling the tour de perth last week i thought that i really needed more practice in the hills and was going to skip this race. after a bit of e-mail banter, chris and bruce said that they were in as chris claimed that it was a flat circuit. i had a think about it and decided that i needed race km’s in my legs rather than just hills, so even though i really enjoy the sunday hills ride, i needed to play boy racer instead. there were a lot of excuses flying around team p0rn0 and i finally had enough and said that this will be an event that we will be doing, so make sure your excuses are good. from that we had five starters out a possible eleven. perhaps i should explain team p0rn0.

there are quite a few teams that race in perth and quite a few bike shops that have people riding for them. we have been happy riding with the guys that we ride with and therefore decided to form our own team and race together. an initial discussion on team kit and sponsors, threw up the potential to be sponsored by a company such as adultshop.com and therefore we nick-named ourselves “team p0rn0”. most of the regulars from saturday and sunday have been involved and the new jersey design is what we will be racing under once we get it made.

so come race day, bruce, chris, ryan, stu and i were all registered and ready to play. jerry potentially was going to turn up on the day after talking to the race organisers, but an early morning text from him claiming a late night involving wine paid heed to that. other excuses ranged from being in france to no excuse what so ever, just a big blouse.

so the race was being held out in gnangara which was well to the north and unknown territory for this southerner. i checked google maps and found the start line and course. i printed out a map and headed up the freeway for an early morning cruise. unfortunately, google maps was not exactly accurate and tried to make me take a road that doesn’t exist yet. luckily i had the backup ubd on hand to guide my path. i have no idea of anywhere that far north so i could have been driving around for hours otherwise.

anyway, i collected my race number and noticed that our field had 62 riders. pretty big pack for not so big roads. i thought that it would make positioning interesting if you wanted to make a move. ryan, chris, bruce and myself took a quick lap around the course, for three main reasons. 1. chris said that there was a hill in it so we wanted to see how big. 2. there was an hour till our start time so we needed to kill some time. 3. we all needed to find a secluded part of the course to take a pee as the portable toilet had not turned up yet. so after chris claiming that it was a flat course, and the main reason that he was doing it, it turns out that there were a number of hills that would cause some concern when tackled at pace. as chris said, i did get the bike trainer out to do some warm-up. after watching all the open divisions do it last week at the tour de perth, i guessed that ther must be something in it. also it takes about 35km for my hamstrings to even attempt to feel normal, so if there was a surge before then, there was a good chance i would be left behind.

there were nine divisions racing today and we took off after the open men with a lot of juniors already on the circuit. with quite a big pack you received a good draft at the back but at the expense of the yo-yo effect that the constant speed changes cause down the line. the first half of the circuit doesn’t really have any flat ground and there were little accelerations on the small climbs and out of the corners that made you keep alert. we had eight laps to complete to make up our 70kms while the open men did ten.

the main hill came after turn two and you started climbing straight out of the corner. it wasn’t long, or steep, but just enough to break people’s rhythm and make them sit after half the climb. this meant that each lap, we were up and sprinting to keep together, then sat down once we caught up halfway up the hill.

so, i took up my usual position at the back of the field with the other boys not to far away. i was surprised that ryan spent so long towards the back with us as he usually likes to be in the thick of things. the thin roads and sections of double white lines made positioning hard as you really needed to sprint around a lot of people to make it near the front. i wasn’t too worried as i was only there for experience not to make an impact.

we yo-yoed around for a couple of laps with the occasional one or two making a break but not getting very far. not sure when, but a group of around six or seven broke clear and scooted up the road. it was hard to gauge if they were support men or what as there were so many others on the road already. we were constantly overtaking single riders and small groups that had been dropped from other divisions. it seemed that each time we went over the hill we would lose a few off the back and a couple would scamper up the road. the strange thing was, that after the hill the road really flattened out and the pace was turned off and became almost pedestrian. this then allowed those dropped off the back to get back on with relative ease and those that escaped, a free run at catching the break.

on the fourth lap i was up out of the saddle as usual on the hill, but this time stayed standing and kept the power on over the top. when the rest of the pack sat to finish the hill, i basically sprinted around them and got myself a nice gap. unfortunately there was no-one else around me as i had gone from the back of the field and the next couple of guys were quite a bit up the road. the nice flat section also had the bonus of a slight head wind as well which made the chase a little bit too hard. by the time i caught them i was pretty much spent and could only manage one turn at the front. i thought about it and decided that i probably didn’t have another four laps at this pace so let the other three guys go. i looked back and saw how far the field was behind, so knew i didn’t have to wait long. i really only went off the front to see what was inside of me. should i have saved it for the end??? maybe, but i also wanted to know if i could escape during a race.

i past the open women’s section just before the finish line and continued to rol down the other side of the hill. a guy past by and i thought that he pack was about to swallow me up. next thing i know there is a hand on my back and another guy is trying to push me in front of himself so i can work for him. i sat up and said that i was waiting. giving him the benefit of the doubt that he probably could hear me in the wind, he pushed me again. i gave him the flick of the elbow and looked back at him saying that he can do it himself, i was waiting. so off he went. the pack was so close by then, that by the time i exited the first corner, they were all over me. luckily, as i had rested sufficiently, i could easily pace back up and not just be spat out the back.

the last few laps saw ryan and a few others doing a lot of time on the front trying to pull back the break. by about lap six, i was around mid pack with chris and we were discussing ryan’s tactics for expending all his energy before the finish. we thought that he would be the great hope for us especially with an uphill finish, but were concerned that he was going to be out of gas by the end. if we were smarter, we could have used him to pull back the break, and then one of us positioned ourselves for the sprint. it was not to be and we basically did the race as a bunch of individuals.

the last couple of laps and the pace and distance were starting to take there toll. a guy two bikes in front of me connected with someone when the shoulder disappeared on the edge of the road. he was so close to coming off that i