I'm back baby!

Wow! I really suprised myself this weekend with my riding. After a fucking shitful week at work of working from 8am till well after midnight, I hardly got any cycling in at all (1.5 commutes). So I headed into the weekends riding worrying I had bugger all in me. I needen't have worried after all.

It all started with the monthly Franger Fang BBC ride. The BBC (Belgian Beer Cafe in St Kilda) has a "cycling club" which is basically a chance to pay $30 per year which gives you some vouchers and a free monthly breakfast.

The BV forum does a ride that ends at the BBC at 9am with 3 groups riding different distances/speeds- Black Rock (30km @ mid 20's kph average speed), Mordi (50km @ high 20's kph average) and Frankston (80km @ 30+ kph average).

Anyway, PDL and i meet up with 2 others (Blybo and Weeeee) at the start point- back of Luna Park @ 6am and set off south.

We started off sitting mid 30's and as we gobbled up riders ahead of us, we developped a mini peleton beind us of assorted wheel suckers! After Black Rock we upped the pace a bit with everyone doing some work on the front, dropping our followers, hill by hill. Turning into the long straight drag towards Mordi. I put on my Jen Voight (check out the link and watch from 1:28 on if you don't get the in joke) persona and started pounding out the k's on the front in the mid 40's. Ohh... that hurt a little.

No stopping at Mordi so straight on towards Franger with a run straight down the Nepean and once again we had another mini peleton of riders sitting in behind us as we kept up in the mid 30's, with us 4 all taking turns on the front.

At Frankston turn around point (the servo), PDL, Blybo and I waited for Weee to go do his nerdy geo-cashing thing. While waiting, two guys turned up at the servo, one all decked out in Liquigas kit and on a VERY nice looking Time bicycle. Uber bling! He asked us if we could give him a tow back and we all laughed. I took one look at him and figured he could prob blow us away. LOL

The 2 bling guys left before us so us 4 took off for the Mordi return leg and started doing track turns, sitting mid to high 30's. Ahead we could see the 2 bling guys and as I went past them I yelled out for them to "jump on". We kept doing track turns just the 4 of us till the 2 new guys started joining in the turns but I'll be dammed- they couldn't match our pace once then got to the front. So in the end Mr Liquigas dropped off after one turn on the front, while his mate kept trying to do turns with us as I "encouraged" the group to try pick it up and stick to 40kph. Hey- it ain't called a "fang" fer nufin!

As Mordi started to come into sight I let PDL know I was gonna take off and as my moment came, I clicking it up 2 gears, jumped out of the saddle and pull the trigger to hit 57kph in the final 1km run into Mordi. Woohoo! That was fuuuuuun!

After the Mordi stop we started off a bit slow as our legs had cooled off. It wasn't until we hit the Mentone Hotel that we started to get back into the groove and with Weeee not having the legs to go on with it, it was just Blybo and I doing turns on the front till we past the 2 Richmond Cyclery guys.

Then it was myself and the 2 RC guys swapping turns all the way back to St Kilda with PDL putting a few turns in as well. I have no idea what was going on behind me as the pace was well into the 40's now and with only the 3 of us doing 90% of the work, it was a solid workout indeed.

Turned the bend into the final straight towards St Kilda and I went off the front to hammer the last bit out of my legs towards the BP servo, hitting mid 50's till my legs said no more. I was surprised that PDL was not far behind me as the pace had really been on. Top effort!

PDL and I kept up a solid pace the rest of the way to BBC and arrived at 8:45am (and then proceeded to ride up and down the BBC paths, practising some skills) with an average for the ride of over 35kph for about 80-ish km's. Pretty happy with that.

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The following day was SKCC crit racing at Port Melb. I was a bit tired from the previous day and didnt really feel that great pre race but figured it was my last crit for the season so I may as well give it a go.

I started out sitting in the bunch in the high 30's and into the low 40's and was surprised to be feeling ok. Then 4 gys made a minor break so I jumped onto the back of them, and looking back I saw we had a bit of a break on the peleton, so I yelled to the group "we have a break, there is 5 of us, lets work together and go for it".

So we went to work, but unfortunatly only 3 of us were doing (or able to) do the work and we were gobbled up surprisingly quick bythe peleton. :( So I sat back in the bunch for a while to recover a bit after putting in a bit of hard work.

After a bit of sitting in with the bunch doing high 30's/low 40's I looked up to see that 2 guys had jumped off the front by a good 100mts. I looked around the bunch and no one was showing any signs of wanting to chase so I leaped out of the saddle and set sail to chase down the breakaway.

Thankfully no one seemed to be going with me and after about 3 laps with me gritting my teeth and making a pure pain face, I caught up to the 2 man break away. Unfotunatly, just about at the same time, the bunch caught up to me also so my lone chase was for nothing. Argh!

So I settled in for a bit of rest and recovery after the previous efforts. About this time I looked down to my computer to see how long we had to go and saw that my #+!@#$#ing computer wasnt reading a thing! A quick look over at the rider next to me and I saw he had a nice looking Polar computer so I asked him what our time was and I was suprised to hear we only had about 10-15 mins to go.

A quick fiddle with my computer got it working again and either the rider told me the wrong info, or the race organisers got it wrong becase we races for a good while longer.

Along the way there was a few hairy moments with a young guy on a Specialized almost running me and Derek into the wall around the back and him changing lines out of the first corner too. He was in front of me so I yelled out "hey young feller on the Specialized, hold your line mate" and to which her drifted over on me which saw me hitting one of the traffic cones with my foot. Grrr..

Anyway, we finally got the bell lap and I was positioned about 10th as we started the last lap. Around the tight bumpy corners, Derek was just ahead of me so I said to him jokingly, "give me a leadout Derek" to which he replied- "nah I've got nothing" LOL. So I clicked up 2 gears and set off around the outside, passing the whole pack and catching up to the two on the front. Up past the roadworks, I went straight past 2nd place and was pulling in 1st at a great rate of knots to my total amazement!!

Around the last corner I was carrying more corner speed than the guy in first so I went around him but he drifted wide, wider and even wider till I was almost in the gutter. We were so wide I had to ride throught a cut up gravely bit of road normally way off the racing line and around the 1st place rider. However I had gone so wide, a rider cut inside of us and up the inside. I gave it my all to try and; 1. catch the rider a bike length ahead of me and; 2. keep the dogs behind me at bay! I put my head down and just pounded the pedals as hard as I could, totally stuffed since I had already been sprinting for 500mts! The line was ahead of me and I was praying for it to arrive before I ran out of legs. 10 mts to go and I could see riders either side of me in my peripheral vision so I threw the bike forward at the line and was thrilled and amazed to have taken 2nd in C-grade for my first C-grade podium and with 1st only a bike length ahead of me. WOOHOO!

Had a bit of a chat to the guy who finished 4th and the guy who won after the race and it was good to meet more of my competitors. I love racing hard but fair and being able laugh about it afterwards with my fellow competitors.

Next week for the club champs I will be marshalling and then it's into the road season. I'm looking forward to the suffering after my recent long fast paced road rides. To start with, if I can finish with the C-grade bunch in a road race I will be thrilled. My aim is to finish at the pointy end by the end of the RR season, with the aim to make it into B-grade during next crit season. I think (hope) its achiveable. Lets wait and see. :D

I'm back baby!