Yesterday was the Central Gauteng Provincials Road Race, also held in the deep South near Daleside (I keep expecting to see guys with white hoods and burning crosses!).The 30km lap circuit (John Boscoe) is a lot harder than it looks, especially when the wind is pumping, which was what we were hoping for.
A short discussion with the officials before the race was held, in which the gutter section was discussed and they agreed to provide a lead car to ensure the safety of the bunch. The team tactics were to hit it hard right from lap one - and that's exactly what we did.
A short section of a couple of km's with a tailwind from the start, then we turned right into a perfect gutter - a 45degree tailwind from the left. Andrew hit the front, leaving space for myself and Issy, and went hard! Within about 2km the bunch was completely shattered. I took a turn at the front, then peeled off and nearly got caught out because I thought there were a few riders behind me and there weren't! Next thing I was fighting to close a 10m gap with Andrew Mclean driving the pace. He saw what had happened and sat up to let me get back on. The start group of probably 50 riders was suddenly down to 6. With 120km of racing left, there was no point in trying to get the group any smaller. So, Andrew, Issy, myself, a Panda rider, Deon Coetzee, and a Boss Logistics rider started working together.
By now we had turned into a long drag section, with a strong crosswind coming from the front. First off the back was the Boss Logistics rider. This was going to be interesting, because now Boss Logistics and Club 100 did not have riders in the break - would they chase?
The gap on the first lap was around 45sec, so the pace was kept up. Unfortunately my powertap CPU shot off my handlebars towards the end of the first lap, so no data for the rest of the race. Up to that point though I was averaging 345w so the going was pretty hard.
The gap slowly grew during the second lap, getting to about 1:10 by the end of the second lap. The conditions meant that there was no point on the circuit that could be used to recover. The uphill drag had a strong crosswind from the front, and the downhill section had a direct tailwind. Pushing the pace on the downhill and flat meant that there was very little shelter.
At the start of the third lap, Andrew an I rode away from the group. Not an attack, but it seemed like a couple of the guys just blew simultaneously. Andrew sat up a bit to see if he could pace Issy back into the break, but Issy wasn't able to get across.
Now it was just Andrew and myself, with a gap of under 2 minutes. Not safe by any means, so Andrew went hard up the drag! Within about 5km the time gap jumped to 2:30 so clearly the fight had gone out of the chase group. Now all that was left was pain and hoping that no punctures or mechanicals would happen. Andrew was pacing the headwind sections, and I did my bit on the flats and downhills. By the last lap the gap was up to 4:30!
Andrew was more than happy to let me take the win - he has plenty medals and gets a lot of pleasure out of team-mates winning, thanks mate!
Official time was 2h52, but looking at Andrew's powertap data, I have it at 2h59, just a shade over 40km/h in tough conditions. 23min faster than the 30+ age group, the slackers!
Thanks to Ali, Carri-Ann, and Den (+ boys) for supporting us. And thanks to Michelle Cound for the pictures!
Edit: I have removed references to a rider that would prefer not to be named, apologies if I caused any offence.
No comments:
Post a Comment