🙂 VERY WELL DONE Roadster & Ouzo! VO2 - don't worry, the beauty of this sport is that what you don't achieve in one race, you can do so in the next! This is just the first of the season, there are lots more!...
(and your time was excellent)
Old Timer, you wanted a blow by blow report from us, here goes: 😉
The weather was perfect. I didn't have any rain, although I believe some of the earlier groups had a bit of it. There was some wind, but not as bad as some previous races.
The start was fast and furious, but it soon evened out, when those first hills appeared. I must say, even having expected them, I still found the one hill in particular quite steep. Everyone went quiet and it was heads down and pedal pedal pedal.
Soon we were over the hills, and happily, what goes up, MUST COME DOWN! ;D yahoooooo I achieved my fastest ever going down, with 85k/h.
After the excitement of the hills and the downhills, it was time to get serious. I tried to find a bunch or a couple of people to work with, but everyone seems to look around for other riders to slipstream, and nobody seems to want to work. The result was every 10km or so, I would ride behind an individual or two, and swop, and climb on my own, etc.
At 30km to go, I was behind a guy from Midas, who was riding really well, but later on when our speed started dropping, and I realised there was only 20km to go, I told him I was going to go for it. At this point, I started reeling in quite a lot of stragglers, who seemed to have given up.
I eventually caught up to the first fast bunch of the day, and with only 10km to go, I thought this was it, the easy way to get to the finish. No sooner did I think I was on easy street, I heard a "clank" sound behind me. :o
Asking the guy on my right if it was a flat tyre, he said no, he thinks it's one of my spokes. The guy on my left said, "keep going". I did, but slowly but surely, started losing ground. The bunch disappeared, and there I was, mad as hell, because my goal of 3 hours slipped by. Then I decided, if nothing else, I'd make sure I beat my own time from last year!
Pushed the last couple of km on my OWN, hearing my brake acting like a hand-brake on the back wheel, where the spoke had broken, however, believe it or not, I was lucky, because only as I crossed the FINISH line at a sprint, did my bike give in. I got off, and it refused to budge, as the brake started locking on the wheel.
Suffice it to say, I had been prepared to run / jog / walk / hike those last 10km, because I was determined to finish!!!
In retrospect, some people are saying the course was 2km more than last year, others are saying it was 4km more, and two people have told me it was 10km more than last year. Whatever the extra length was, my time was 2 min off last year, and I'm more than pleased with that! 🙂
The best feeling though is, having done the distance, having enjoyed the ride, and now talking about it! ;D
