During the week prior I had discussed a strategy with some of the climbers. That being that I string out the field from the start and down the hill and then the climbers attack and get over the top and get away in say a bunch of 12.
Warming up Roland (the eventual winner) started chatting to me, he was curious as to why I was wearing a skin suit. I said that I intended to hit it hard early and get to the hill at the front so to give me some more distance for the hill. Turned up that Roland had a similar strategy.
The Attack
So I hit it off the line, but I hadn't been told it was netural and was told to slow up, which I did and then when the bunch was on me, I hit it, bumping my heart rate into ITT zone. Towards the end of the effort Roland and another guy did some of the work. Down the hill we pushed it, there was no using the brakes as some have mentioned.
Then the DHBC climbers were suppose to come past and attack, but I was being overtaken by everyone else except DHBC. The attack had failed. Later I found out that they blocked in the bunch, unable to get to the front.
Climb 1
Went up tempo, I had burnt a lot of energy on the failed attack. Riders steadily went past me. Towards the end of the hill I realised that the bunch was going to form ahead of me and upped the pace, reeled them in, only to be a few metres behind when I crested.
Paceline
I organised the group into a paceline and experienced some of the worse pacelining I've ever seen. Not the DHBC riders but a few of the other riders. Some would roll thru and keep going. I kept barking orders and finally it started to work, we gathered pace.
We picked up other riders as we went, however there too many passengers so I decided to get rid of them by rolling backwards when I was in front of them and power myself back on. But just before I did it they started to work.
We caught the pack in front of us, the officials had moved out of the gap as we arrived. Unfortunately it wasn't the lead pack, turned out we were the 3rd pack and continued to work the paceline.
Climb 2 and attack
After an easy downhill on the front, Andrew Burns, myself, 2 NSCC riders and 2 others attacked on the hill. Part way up we were advised that we were 2 minutes behind the lead group, just what we didn't need to know. We went over the top and tried to break away, but it was short lived as the pack caught us
The ride home
10 or so K we picked up 2 DHBC riders and then the pack just fell apart. At that time for the first time I was feeling it a bit and just sat in. As we got closer my heat rate had dropped quite a bit and my enthusiasm came back. We went past the crash and I started to think about sprinting for victory. At the front most of the work was being done by Andrew, Adrian, the NSCC guys and I did a little bit. But it was time to sprint for glory, I made my move at the 250mtr mark, it turned out to be a little too early, with 2 riders getting me.
Mikes sprint for glory
Afterwards I was told we finished 30 seconds behind the winning pack, which annoyed me that our pack had sat up, but later when the results came out, it was 2 minutes 40 something so even if the pack had worked, we would of probably not caught.
This was my best road race this year and so much easier than Mudgee.
Appologies to AndrewM, if I'd known you were a bit off the pack, I would of gone back and got you.