Don’t Forget the first SPR Breakfast for 2009 at Pete’s place. The state famous Lozza Brownies may just be making a guest appearance so if you could let me know if you will be attending that would be great :
lwood@claytonutz.com alternatively if you post a comment letting me know if you want to attend that is also great.
written by Lisa
Well this week’s race was going to have to be better than last week (for those of you who didn’t know Lisa had a bingle with Anna on a warmup lap before last weeks crit and raced on 1 buckled and 1 borrowed wheel!).
A few warm up laps were done and then 8.30am – C grade was off. Bec had a good start and got into the pack well. All I can say is that my start was not one of my best and I was having clipping in issues – instead of then focussing on said clipping in issue my attention was drawn to the little support crew ( Lorraine, Ronny, Ryan + Fleet Girls partners) encouraging/shouting at me to get going!!! So I started the race with a chase down which was not cool but I was with the group again before the first corner – yay!
The race had a real varied pace and there was a lot of spurts followed by a slow pace. Bec called it a day at about 15 mins in as there was a team of Cyclemania guys that were starting to bed in their team tactics and “play” with the group. It actually suited me fine as they would speed up and then slow right down everyone just tucked in behind them and stayed put.
At about 20 mins 3 guys took off on the small incline the group kicked but I was boxed in by a Cyclemania dude (I was not happy) – when I finally got out of being boxed in I was nearing to the front of the group and was assessing to see if I could chase them down and get in the mix. Apparently my undecided thoughts were being telepathically communicated to Ronny who shouted something along the lines of “don’t even think about it” so I stayed put and continued on (looking back if I had chased I would have been followed by everyone else and I would have totally blown out – thanks Ronny!)
The group didn’t kick until the last lap. We came round the final corner to encounter the main field of B grade – being slightly inexperienced in all this my immediate thoughts were OMG what now! The others started to go out round them so I followed. They say payback’s a bitch but previously mentioned Cyclemania dude was on my inside so I put in the little extra effort as I was not going to let him beat me. Anyhow I ended up (not intentionally) boxing him with B grade and finished ahead of him – Woohoo
We all hung around to support Ryan in his A Grade debut – there was a lot of encouraging from a, pretty much all girl support crew (he would have been happy with this I am sure!).
I have to admit I think i am going to like the crit style of racing – it hurts and can be sometimes fast but its well worth it when you come in over the finish line. It was also really encouraging having people there to support you and yell words of wisdom as you go past fighting for oxygen and trying to ignore the burning sensation in your legs.
