3 amigos racing today, Mark Leedham, Carole Heritage and myself. Carole was here for her first cross race and was dueling with Mark all race but got to the line first.
Good weather with no rain greeted us on a straight forward circuit with not too much technical stuff to worry about. Just one unridable hill and considering the recent conditions rather alot of grip to be found under the rubber.
PVT was the Commissionaire and called us up to the line for the off," In a minute I'm gonna start the race NOW
" I knew he would do that and got off to a good start in the small ring to aid acceleration.Got into 2nd position towards the end of the first lap when I encountered a bit of chain suck but managed to get the chain back on after losing only a couple of places.
A couple of laps later on the same bumpy decent just after lapping Mark and Carole my chain got stuck between the cassette and the rear wheel almost pulling the jockey wheels into the rear wheel, with a nice bit of Teamwork and help from Mark who pulled over to help me, I got underway again albeit 10 places down.
Made sure it didn't happen again by sticking with the big rings from then on, I knew my bike isn't used to the small chainring
Wasn't feeling very strong or good today, managed not really to suffer too much with the redlining though.
Was fighting back my places one by one where I then had a 4 lap duel with Jacob, a big strong Polish rider from Citibikes in Victoria, he really had some megga power going on up the big hill, but by spinning a staedy cadence I always caught him back up at the top.
I could sense he was weakening and he was a little concerned when he kept frantically calling "Peche Peche" WATER to his brother
2 laps to go I attacked him by the end of the lap had pulled out a good gap which I increased to the finish.
Managed to finish 3rd position in the end so a good day at the office even with a little mechanical gremlins
Thanks to my friend Olimpiu who handed me up the odd drink which was very welcome indeed.Carole was very cream crackered at the finish but did a sterling ride with Mark following close behing.
