Having been away from cycle races for nearly a year, I finally got back into the swing of things in the last couple of weeks. First up was an Individual Time Trial for Northern Combine at Balliang. Having only done one competitive TT before (Tour of Bright '08), I was keen to see how I'd go. Having been a fairly solid C-grade rider before my overseas escapades, I dropped myself back to D to ease myself back into (and the fact I have added 7 or 8 kegs since then). Needless to say, 4th in D (by only 2 secs to 3rd!) and 4th in the secret handicap, I was reasonably happy with my effort considering the ridiculously windy conditions.
My re-introduction to mass-start racing began this weekend at the St Kilda Cycling Club Trophy Race at Woodend. I was very much looking forward to it but a poor night's sleep the night before did hinder my preparation somewhat. D-grade would be 2 laps of the 25km circuit which meandered through the rolling hills behind Woodend, near the Macedon Ranges.
The peloton of 30 was fairly edgy to begin with, the pace slowing and quickening at the drop of a hat but all riders managed to stay together for the first 20km. I briefly jumped off the front up a hill to catch a rider trying a breakaway but it was to no avail and we were brought back quickly. I was feeling pretty good though and thought I'd try an attack. 3 or 4 guys quickly jumped on my wheel but after pulling for 2-3km, no-one else wanted to do any work and 10 more joined our group to make a bunch of 15. We rolled turns for a while and quickly built up an advantage on the rest of the bunch (despite the fact we had to stop at a level crossing when the boom-gates went down). A few riders tried attacks from this advance group but no-one was able to build up an advantage of more than 40-50m and it was then we knew that a bunch sprint was inevitable.
However, drama unfolded with about 3km to go. A fairly impressive crash in the group which caught up 4 riders, hit the deck quite hard. We neutralised the race quickly and only attacked in the last 500m (300m of which was uphill). Given the uphill finish, I was pretty pleased with 5th and had it been flat, I would've backed myself to go better. Overall, a solid performance in my return to racing.
Looking forward to the criterium season (begins October) and Tour of Bright in December.
**Quick Note**
Congratulations to Jesse Fergie who came in 3rd in B-grade despite much whingeing about the cold, being in B-grade rather than C, being hungover and generally softness.
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