PDCC DogHill E grade report
I like to sit at the back of the group at first and watch what is happening, after about 3km and not many people taking turns up front, I rolled past the group to take my turn on the front, misjudge my speed downhill and rolled past the front. So I slowed down and waited for the group to catch, after a couple of kms of them leaving me out there. I decided to make the group work to catch me and settle down to a fast pace I can sustain for the remaining 27kms of the race, even though I fully expect the group to catch me.
After 10kms on the front, I was beginning to think I was going to ride solo to the finish, when I Phil bridged across. I met Phil last week at Wandi, he was dropped early by D grade and rode with E grade encouraging his daughter Lara, the young triathlete who beat me by 0.02 of a second. I knew Phil was going to drop down to E grade and was worried about being tag teamed by him and Lara, who had to work today.
We kept a decent pace, nobody else bridged across.With 1.5km to go, I attacked on final short sharp climb, knowing this was Phil's weakness, I put Phil into difficulty but had trouble pressing homing the advantage and in the end, Phil sprinted past me in the final 200m to win and I had nothing in the legs to counter. We finish more than 90 seconds clear of the group.
In hindsight, I needed to of really committed to the attack on the final climb, charged at it like a final sprint and pressed home any advantage on the short downhill.
The bad news is Phil has a 2nd daughter who will start racing shortly and Lara should be back week. The good news is, I probably get promoted to D grade after my recent performances and get a few weeks break from the Devenish clan.
Notable performances today: Our own wizzfizz winning D grade, Mark Roberts soloing away from A grade, for at least 4 laps (I was racing for the 1st 3 laps) and winning by almost 3 minutes. The B grade sprint finish was an absolute mess, but Anthony Wishart produced a massive save, blowing a tube in the sprint (ie 55kmh) avoiding another rider and escaping up a side road, keeping the bike upright with his tyre half off the rim and remains of the tube hanging out. You can give Anthony cudos on Strava here:
http://app.strava.com/rides/11504517