Ok I've been pretty slack on the posting front, so just for you Dave here's a brief summary of my last 2 B-grade rides.
RR Carlsruhe West Sat 3/3/07
First road race of the year, forecast was 38 deg in Melbourne. The good news was an earlier start of 10am instead of the usual 1:30pm kickoff meant conditions weren't too bad, 22deg at the start (31 at the end). I hadn't done that many k's over summer, prob around 200-250 a week, with 2 weeks off the bike start of Jan, so had no idea how I would handle a 75km road race.
The course is essentially flat, with a smallish hill out the back, some gentle rollers, and of course an uphill finish. Each lap was a tad under 25kms, with B-grade completing 3 laps.
9 riders in B-grade, about 10? in A-grade. It was decided at the start that we would ride as a bunch, if a B-grader wanted to go with a A-grade bunch, then they would automatically become an A-grader for that race. It didn't take long for the bunch to split, as they attacked and we were happy to just let them go. There was quite a few attacks over the first couple of laps, with the most dangerous looking (3 riders) brought back towards the end of the 2nd lap. I was struggling at this point, and if the bunch decided to attack the hill leading up to the start I would have been dropped. Much to my relief it was a nice tempo up the hill and for the next few k's...just what I needed to recover.
Just after the first corner on the 3rd lap, 2 riders managed to get a healthy gap over the rollers, and it was left to the 5 of us left in the bunch to get some sort of organisation happening. Rolled through for my stint on the front, looked back and there was a gap...they had sat up and left me in no mans land...do I chase or do I sit up? Decision made, I set about bridging the gap, finally catching the 2 leaders just before the hill out the back. It was now a break of 3, with daylight to 4th. The speed was ridiculousy low with about 8k's to go, getting down to around 25km/hr, with one rider refusing to come through.
Hitting the bottom of the final hill, I was the leadout, so decided to keep ramping up the speed, just keeping my eye on the 2 behind, waiting for a reaction. Hit the gas hard 3/4 up the hill and dropped the both of them rather quickly. Couldn't believe it, I'd actually won my first B-grade race...and left wondering where on earth that sprint came from!
Av speed 34.1
Distance 74km
Time 2:10ish
As you can see the av speed was low, around 4k's lower than A-grade!
RR Kew Crits Wed 7/3/07
35min +3laps 24 riders
My tactic for this crit was to do absolutely no work at all, and back myself in on the last lap. The previous week I had got my highest result of 3rd in B-grade, there was 2 away in a break. The Raleigh chicks had turned up again, which I wasn't planning on...hopefully no breakaways would get away.
Rolled around sitting on the back for the first 30mins, doing nothing, just watching a few attacks get caught as the 20 or so suckers on the front did the work for me (note I'm often that sucker). Started moving up, ensuring I got a decent position with 3 laps to go, chose a poor wheel to follow so decided to sprint to the front up the hill, then soft pedal to control the bunch and do a quick recover. From here my aim was to be 2nd wheel, for the remaining 3 laps, which meant constantly jumping onto the riders that came past me. With 1.5 laps to go a rider kicks...I jump straight onto his wheel, he takes me almost to the hairpin. Someone passes me on the inside of the hairpin, and gets a little jump, but I'm feeling fantastic, and unleash prob the quickest sprint I'd ever done up that hill to take an easy win.
Absolutely over the moon, could not wipe the smile of my face all night.
Not sure what's gotten into me over the the last 2 weeks, and where this sprinting's come from, but my goals have been totally smashed. I was in C-grade last year, and now I've been bumped to A-grade for next week's crit..it's all happened a bit too quick for me to comprehend......now where's that white handlebar tape 🙂