12 hours of Smashing and a Filthy Roadie (The World's Longest Blog Post)

Wild Welly

Photo stolen without permission from Oli Brooke White

I showed up early at the Velodrome about 8am (as being over 35 I was concerned about getting a car park, whereas a few years ago would have parked in a loading zone by a fire hydrant blocking an ambulance.) and got in a nice pre-ride lap to suss out the course it was a bit muddy in places but as about 60% of it had been run over with a plate compactor it was going to be a pretty fast course.
Helped setup the burkes tent (well watched while they did) and got ready for the start as I was out first.
3 2 1 go, and was straight into a tarmac hill climb behind Carl, Gav, Jonty and 1 other, was right behind this bunch until the crossover at the top of the gut buster and then Carl and Gav slowly pulled away, Jonty was on a cross bike and was super quick up hill but I managed to overtake him in 1 section but couldnt hold him off on the last climb and I came in on his tail and like the rest of my cursed season ran over a piece of glass at the bottom of the gut buster, luckily enough I was close enough to the tent section to make it without it going completely flat, so yelled out at Ricky to get ready, unfortunately Ricky was still supping lactose and carb free soy Lattes as he was expecting me to be doing 2 laps, but Ricky the superstar must be used to getting undressed /dressed pretty quick (I can only assume from all the bored housewifes than wander into Burkes) and was ready in a flash for his lap.
My first lap was a 17:02 which I was very pleased with but was 1min 15 seconds behind Carl Patton.. mans a freak..
The rest of the race was reasonablly uneventfull apart from a stack on the tetchy little right hand corner at the bottom after you come out of the Velodrome was carrying way too much speed into the corner escaping from Wacko.
Burkes Mixed team finished in 2nd place, behind the stacked R&R sports team, I didnt wait around for the prize giving as I needed some sleep before the Martinbourgh Fun Ride 115km road race the next day.
Big ups to everyone who competed and congratulations to Pete (Vert) for not killing himself I believe he may have been drunk by about 9am.
Also the fairies deserve a special mention, they guy in the photo is a client of mine and will recieve a dose of mockery when I see him next.

And congratulations to Tony, Gav and co from the Searletech team for taking out the (whimps) 6 hour race.

Now Ricky, wheres my medal?, its going to double the size of my medal tally.

A filthy roadie teaches a nice country boy a lesson in road racing

I wasnt sure how I was going to feel for the 115km Martinbourgh Fun Ride on the Sunday have been a bit under the weather recently with colds and infections and other tasty stuff and having thrashed my legs on an off for the previous 12 hours I was just hoping to complete the race.
Tony rocked up to my place to drive us over to Martinbourgh at 6:45 and we arrived nice and early about 8am ready to roll.
I was trying to avoid being seen by Tony in his SPDs and was gratefull he hadnt worn his trademark Karapoti top I was also tempted to tie his number onto the handlebars of his bike rather than pinning it on his back.
3 2 1 Go.. Race stated out at leisurely pace like most road races and then picked up after about 2 kms and then the podium spots where promptly gone when Craig Lawn and 3 of his buddies attacked from 10km, 2 of them showed up looking a bit broken about 30 km's later but we didnt see Craig again, it looks like he TT'ed the whole race. Settled in for a nice hard road race as there where now 500 people racing for 3rd spot.

Joel was out front a lot trying I think to get a breakaway going I would have joined in if there was any danger of one actually forming but any little breakaways where quickly reigned back in.
Tony was going well circulating around the front of the pack, I had a few goes out to the front and back but I felt there wasnt much urgency to the bunch.
Conner was also out there for his first road race (didnt realise this till the end) and was riding strong despite also having ridden the 12 hour the day before.
As martinbourgh is a mainly flat ride we only really had a few surges in speed to deal with and nothing felt too hard which was great as I thought my legs would have been toast.
So stuck it out till the end and decided to have a sprint for the finish line about 600m out hoping Tony, Conner or Joel would join me, but Joel had attempted the same thing about 500m earlier and I dont think he was keen for another shot, Tony and Conner where sprucing up their hair and putting on makeup for the photo finish behind me somewhere.
Into the last corner the sprinters who had been sitting at the back of the pack all day smashed through along with Tony and Conner, I think Tony thought he had me there as he had a nice lead into the final sprint, but he blew his bolt too early and I caught up to him and waited behind and put a filthy roadie move on him and sprinted past in the last 50 metres for 15th place and a time of 2:58.
Was pleased with my time and performance, legs felt good and the pace of the race wasnt too difficult and yet we were 5 minutes faster than last year.

Well done to Tony and Connors in there first road races and Joel for smashing it out front.

Next big race is the Taupo Classic, going to get my legs ripped off there for sure.