Today’s race would be interesting. I had tired, lacatey legs and was not feeling confidant about the main hill in the race. After warming up, I was feeling better. At the conclusion of my warm-up, my rear sprang a leak (bah! only 1200km out of that Vittoria). At least my tyre goop sealed the hole and it stayed up for the race.
Thommo was off the front from the start. I figured we would catch him before the hill so let him go. Big Jim eventually chased him down so I had to go with the chase as he, along with Brent Sword were my main threats.
I got some sprint points and gestured wildly at Skinner as he’d crossed the unbroken white line (on our side, dashed for oncoming traffic) to allow him to get the full points. The marshals did not report him and unless I’ve got no chance of getting the sprint king, I’ll not worry about it.
I got gapped going down the hill towards the start of the first big climb of the day. I caught up pretty much as soon as we turned left. Here I expected to be blown out the back, but the pace was not too high and I managed to stay on until I attacked on a slight downhill then killed my legs. I sort of hung on until the 1km to the KOM sign and started to drop off the back. By the next turn, I was about 100m down, but the bunch must have hit the gas as they pulled away. I caught three other riders – a Leongatha guy, rider 35 who I kept trying ro run off the roa (sorry about that) and Samanatha Abbott. We more or less took turns to chase the bunch, but once we passed the finish line, I went into serious chase mode and caught the bunch just before the sprint line.
I then hit the front for the downhill and made sure I did not get dropped on the hill. By the top of the hill, only six of us were left and one of them was not Brent Sword. I only had to watch Big Jim.
Kristy Glover had gotten away on the hill, and chasing by Alan McCulloch, Thommo and myself brought her back. She attached twice more and the final once stuck.
AMcC did a good job of domestique. On the second last KG attack, Big Jim launched a counter move after some minutes and I had to go with him. He then got dropped on the final descent, but caught up by along the highway. Glover attacked into the final corner and got a good gap.
In the run to the line Thommo edged me out so I came third. Based on who came where, I’ll be watching Glover, Thommo, Big Jim and Sword. I’ll need a 4th or better to maintain my first place GC position.
The General Classification after three stages.
Stats for the day
Power Stats
Average pwr: 268W
Normalised Power: 305W
Critical power (CP): 264W (90% FTP).
Intensity Factor: 1.04
TSS: 244.7
TRiMP: 225.0
More detailed stats
Thanks to my sponsor – Yeatman