2nd Yamba ‘Training’ criterium Mens division A solid bunch of about 20 male riders rolled across the starting line for a 15min plus 3 lap criterium. The decision was made to have an all in scratch race with A, B and C grade riders all together. Rules were put in place to ensure fairness, B graders could sit out 1 lap, C graders 2, at any time in the 15 minute time frame. No sit out laps could be taken in the final 3 laps. The pace started to build up on the first lap with riders assuming their positions. Chief Wiggum (aka Greg Levey) somehow found himself up near the front with the elite A grade riders. Now for those of u who don’t know the chief, his body was carved out of a solid piece of granite, with the sole purpose of going fast down hill and with a tail wind. So sitting in a flat race with a solid headwind section was not going to work in his favour. When the Chief is starting to struggle he has a tell that can be seen from miles away…….. the big mans head drops so low that when viewed from behind he looks like the headless horseman…… at 2 laps in his head was well and truly gone. Now the next incident is very hard to explain…… the chief either saw someone he knew, had to make an emergency toilet dash, or he misheard the instructions and thought the race was over. At the 3 lap mark as the peloton turned left into the finish straight, the Chief went straight and just disappeared……………….. never to be seen again. Hope u r ok big boy. At this point my legs decided to detach from my body and fly off into the bush…. I was getting dropped at 40km/h…….. At the front of the group semi-pro bike acrobat Azza was making his first in a series of attacks. This caused some severe pain to those who were just hanging on. Professional 24hr Mountain bike rider Morgan Pilley, who was riding his mountain bike in this race, was promptly dropped. Being the nice guy that I am, and because my legs were missing, I went into super domestique mode and gave morgan my services as a wind break for a couple of laps. I gave what was left of my pitiful legs to Morgan and then promptly rolled to the side of the road and died a quiet death. Big jorgo, despite having the smallest calf muscles on a human, bridged the gap to azza, and brought a few riders across with him. But after a brief hiatus, azza went again….. a move which would prove to be the winning moment. At this point Jorgo formed an alliance with Dion Wilkes and proceeded to drop the remaining chasers. After recovering from my brief sojourn with death, and with my vision and breathing now returning to normal, I could actually get a good look at the race and how it was proceeding…… and all I saw was carnage……. The pace had splintered groups all over the road. A grade riders were declaring themselves B graders just to be able to sit out a lap, C graders were looking for a D grade, but alas it did not exist. There were now only 3 groups in contention. The 3rd group being the largest with at least 6 or 7 riders swapping turns. Into the final 3 laps they went, azza was now a few hundred meters off the front and looking comfortable. Jorgo dug deep into his calf muscles and actually broke away from Dion, who by now was starting to fade from our early 70km warm up (I am blaming the warm up on my legs failing). Bets were being taken on who would win the bunch sprint, as 1st, 2nd and 3rd were all sown up……. Azza crossed the line with a double handed salute, as did Jorgo……. It was noted by the commisaire that this is an illegal move. There must be at least one hand on the bars as the rider crosses the finish line. Both boys were fined ¾ of their appearance fee and prize money………. I put my money of part time aussie, full time Kiwi, Tristan ‘Duck’ Allard to win the bunch sprint…. Russel leary, chief time keeper, was putting it all on President Rick…… not a wise move considering he had been with Dion and I on the 70km warm up ride (a fact I did not tell Russel). The bunch roared up to the line, and despite the attention of some noted sprinters from the Grafton Cycle Club, and the fact that Duck has arms like a T-Rex, he threw to the line to take the bunch sprint and 4th overall. Greg Coombs was somewhere in the mix, but on inspecting the race video we could not determine how many laps he had actually done. After last weeks’ event, the increase in numbers was noted…. I hope to see more people out there for our final event next wed evening. We would like to thank all those who participated or gave their support from the sideline. It was also good to see Grafton Cycle Club President John Harrison and his fellow Graftonian Paul O’Connor (POC) make the trip down river for this event. POC was very close to taking out 4th overall. I have another post coming shortly about tomorrows ride and what is on offer this weekend Cheers Fordy
Posted on: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:24:10 +0000
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