Victorian Metro Championships & Cycling Victoria Geelong Time Trial

I'm not sure what the history is around the Metro vs Country Championships, in fact I'd like to see a paragraph per race on the Cycling Victoria site to describe who these races are named after (e.g. Cecil Shore, Fred Icke), maybe a some history about the race and a winners honour roll.

Although the numbers were low in the women's grades, the best part was the racing was still on and still red HOT!

Warming UP with awesome autumn colour

The masters women raced with all age groups together for the 56km. The steady climb out of town whittled the field down to 3 before the first left hand turn to cross the freeway. Nonie Carr, Jo O'Shaughnessy and I were to battle out the rest of the 50km race together.

There was not much to report during the main part of the race except rolling turns, a few leg testers on some hills, comments on the weather being ok, and the thick smoke from a farmer burning off up the climb.

The main climb starts at about 35km along the course and is pretty sedate at the start then kicks and kicks harder again. Every single year I am dropped on this hill. This year I was determined that this would not be the case and steam trained over the top first. I had a small gap but fumbled my gears, dropping my chain as I desperately tried to get into the big ring to spin downhill.

Post by Jo Upton Photography.

I wanted to bring someone with me to the end and it was Nonie that chased back on. We gathered ourselves after the descent and had about 9-10km to the finish. There were a few rolling hills before the final descent, but I couldn't remember how many were to come before the highway.

We were still doing a solid pace but I knew I had to try something on the last hill at 5km to go. So I gave it everything and it was just enough to get away, but as I saw to the top of the hill it was not the highway home and there was still another climb to come - I had a moment of doubt that I could keep the pace on for one more hill.

I just focussed my mind on the rest of the ride being all downhill as I struggled up the last lump to then zoom down the freeway. There was a moment of relief that I had made it over the top first, but Nonie had caught me on the other descent so I needed to keep the pace on hard chasing my own demons downhill to the finish. It wasn't pretty, but it was pretty FAST coming in at 55kmph, I don't know what I was thinking, but I pulled out a sprint to the line and finished first!

Podium shot


This was one of the early road races I had competed in when I first started racing and it was really great to have beaten the hill and taken home the Metro Masters Women Championships win.



I have been resisting for a while now, but finally accepted Shane's help in the last month with preparation for the time trial in Geelong. This was my first TT (outside the tour last month) where I could test out my form and see if I could get a better average speed and good 20min power number in competition. For some reason CV had decided I should be in A-Grade for this Open event.

We had formulated indoor sessions, tweaked the equipment, eaten the right food, slept like royalty... but sometimes on race day - you don't feel like racing :(

I have no idea what the problem was, I could barely string a sentence together and the last thing I felt like doing was a hard interval session. This is where preparation is key, and experience pays off. I slapped myself around and got into automatic mode to get setup for the warmup, got it done and onto the start line.

Warmup Selfies!


Generally I am very poor at judging time gaps and working out if I am making time or losing time in a TT. With this new out & back course in Geelong it took all the estimation and calculation out of it and I just had to judge where on the road I was each lap relative to my opponents while riding as hard as I could.  So on the first lap I took note where I passed the other ladies I saw in A-Grade while struggling to hold power numbers I was comfortably cranking out the week prior.

The next 2 laps I judged if I was up or down the road from that first lap and knew I was in the chance for a podium position. We finished up and I compared times with my mates from B-Grade, if I had have been in my usual grade I would have won the category! Up for this next challenge I knew that I was not near winning time from Lisa Hanley - but I wanted to know how far off. No results were provided except for 1st place in each women's grade.


If my mood was sour before the race - it was darker afterwards not knowing what the result was that I had travelled and put the last month of effort into preparing for. Needless to say I'm pretty results driven person! I left a message with the club to update the online results and in the end I went back to the hotel in Torquay to try and relax.

While pottering on the internet waiting for the Giro to start, I see a message come through on Facebook from the team boss that I had come 3rd! AMAZING! The data wasn't anything to be proud of so I was not confident of any result, but the end result was pretty good. Massive thanks to Shane for his direction over the last few weeks - get low and go aero!

Woo Hoo! Podiums! YAY!


Late night beach walks with my beardy man

2014 Tour of the South West

After an eventful 12 months of roller coaster riding that is cycling, all the ducks had lined up for me to give Tour of the South West a second chance. Last year I had a cracker crit season and ripped up some mega intervals to feel confident to enter Women's A Grade - but was cut short in the first stage.

Signs to do TOSW:
  • Last year I'd won an accommodation voucher to use at Lady Bay that would expire right after the tour this year.
  • I had put behind all of the racing demons - I just had to go back to set things straight with this race.
Due to the new rules for VRS, I couldn't enter A-Grade again as I'm graded as B and I don't have a team to jump up with. That solved some of the nerves about getting hustled by the teams again as a solo rider.
Team Thule Australia Subaru decked out

Here is my detailed report of the weekend from Women's B Grade - it's a bit long winded.
Stage 1 - 51km Road Race

It was raining when I woke up early on Saturday. The bikes were loaded onto the car and out to the start in the dark and drizzly conditions. Shane was buzzing with negativity as he was not starting till later in the morning and I was trying to keep positive and have motivated energising thoughts. At least I was still feeling confident as I wheeled up to the start line in the drizzle and mud while everyone else looked grumpy.

Drizzly Morning

It was windy, but hopefully that meant it would blow the rain band away and dry out the roads quick smart! I was sad to see a few of my mates had not made it to the start line due to illness, but there were 10 women. Plenty of new faces and fresh legs in the bunch that I needed to test out on the road.

We had 1km neutral zone to get out of the gate and settle as a bunch which was better than last year when it was on before we all got out of the gate. I sat on the front so I could feel how the breeze was an adjust the game plan for where the action sections were going to be in the race.

I was relieved the first QOM was un-manned and I passed the first 7km crash point un-scathed! After this I was very happy with a tail wind and took off for a bit pushing the pace. There were a few comments before the last corner where we were held up before the turn into the long headwind straight when C-Grade men passed us. I was asked why I was riding so fast in the neutral lap.  At that point we all had a good chuckle and set off into the headwind racing this time - though it seemed that nobody was interested in doing much into the headwind at all until lap 2 or 3 of the circuit when QOM and sprint points would count. So I guess you could say that the first lap was neutral.

Post by Jo Upton Photography.

In the second lap I worked with Purdie Long into the headwind section, and pushed the pace without all-out attacking up the small kicker climbs to the QOM. Annie Mollison threw everyone off guard and attacked 800m from the line! I kicked and Purdie went with Annie, but I just managed to hold onto 3rd place over the QOM from Sam Abbott. As soon as we got over the top Sam, Purdie and I swapped off turns for the next 3-4km till we were chased down on the next set of rolling kicker hills, then we were all back together for the headwind.

At least at this time the rain had stopped and the roads were drying up. There was a bit more action as we got to 1km to go as there were sprint points up for grabs.

We had the final lap and had not lost any riders, from the bunch. It was time to try something different. Manuella Marasco was driving hard into the headwind to the corner, then Purdie and I were keeping the pace high and punching over the climbs

When the final QOM came in sight Purdie took off and crossed the line first, Annie got past me for second and Sam was hot on my heels. Jo O'Shaughnessy and I worked turns till the headwind and took a breather to regroup before the finish. I had no idea what my sprint legs would be like, but predicted that Purdie and Annie would give it a go to the finish.

There was a headwind slow rise up to the finish. I'd thought that 2km to go was the time to try something on, but must have left it too late. I attacked a few times to get the bunch to speed up and jumped on Purdie's wheel to the final grind.

Purdie ended up leading out the bunch, but I was boxed in as the group swarmed and Sam came around all of us to finish first! I was in a bit of disbelief that it was all over and I still had a little left in the tank, but the first 7 riders had all gotten the same time. Let's do another lap!

1st Sam Abbott 1:40:10
2nd Annie Mollison
3rd Jo O'Shaughnessy
4th Purdie Long
5th Veronica Micich
Stage 2 - 12km Time Trial
I had been doing a bit of work to get more consistent and comfortable on the TT bike. I had bought a few upgrades for the CV TT series and the few tours I was planning on competing in over the year. I managed to get out to test them all out just before the event to see if it would all work together.

Trying to focus before the start

The start was gooooooooood. With a tailwind I felt like superwoman and overtook 2-3 riders before the first turn. When I came to the turn I was coming in fast and that new disc wheel was not moving like I thought it would. There might have been a bit of side skidding and me screaming YeeeHAR! at that moment and I felt my heart jump out of my chest even more than the pace I'd been setting. I focussed on settling back down and punching over the little rollers while keeping aero as there was a real nasty side wind that was blowing me across the road.


Post by Kosdown Performance Cycling.

The right hand turn into the main headwind section up the big climb was a real test, but I'd kept a little energy in reserve and had verified the climb was only a few hundred meters on the test ride the day before. I hit my power target up over the top as I caught another 2 riders and chased another one down toward the final corner. I love having carrots to chase!

The Hill doesn't seem so bad at this angle!

Somewhere along the line I'd developed a stitch and as I was trying to raise the pace up toward the line I was breathing like a steam train and hurting bad. I crossed the line with nothing left in the tank and rolled along the road to almost a standstill in the head wind. I had no idea how I had gone, but I wanted to get top 3 desperately to validate those TT simulations and commutes and efforts had made some kind of difference!

Photo: JXP Photography

Meg Marsh let me know that I'd won the TT when I was cooling down on the wind trainer and I was so relieved and happy! As an added bonus I had also moved into the leaders jersey and had managed to put some time into my fellow competitors.

I had a long wait till shane finished his TT, we packed up the car and prepared for the Crit the next day while waiting for all the A-Grade Men riders to finish to find out that Shane had won his Masters A-Grade TT and had set fastest time of the day 0:15:53! A bit more work to do for me to close that gap!

1st Veronica Micich 0:19:53.92
2nd Sam Abbott 0:20:05.02
3rd Purdie Long 0:20:09.76
4th Jo O'Shaughnessy 0:20:35.46
5th Rebecca Stephens 0:21:23.45

That night we went to the presentations at the Warrnambool Art Gallery and I tried to recruit a few riders that were out of the time cut to assist me in the final stage. They couldn't win it overall unless there was a major split in the field and I lost time, but they COULD win the stage. Everyone was pretty tired after a long day, so I'm not sure there were any takers.
Criterium 30mins +2 laps
The next morning it was sunny beautiful blue sky day and there was a tailwind up the climb of the crit circuit - how good is that!

Warming up in the sun. Might be the last option for tan line top up.

Shane raced earlier than me and I got to watch some epic racing as the grades finished up.  I warmed up on the Lemond with a view of the climb as I waited for my start and picked up a few tips.

I had an 11 sec lead on the group which was going to be tough, but if I could keep with the front runners, I only needed to watch 2 riders in Purdie and Sam. I was first into the corner and pacing myself against the surge of the group up the climb. As we approached the top I pushed over to hit the downhill first and see how fast and wide to take the descent and into the head wind. It was a repeat of the road race where we would just tempo into the wind to roll across the line and hit the climb again and again.

Keeping near the front on the early laps

I felt pretty comfortable on the climb. The only time I was a little worried was the intermediate sprint where I made it over the top on Sam's wheel and we pushed to the line in the head wind and I came 3rd to her first place - so there was now only 5 sec between us. I couldn't quite do the math at max HR trying to follow the wheels, but knew my options were to either win the stage or get 1 place better than Sam.  Jo had gone for a breakaway that had been reeled back in before the 2 lap warning.

Into the final lap I drifted back to about 6th place, not paying attention through the final corner. Sam attacked on the climb, caught at the back I tried not to panic as I saw a gap open up. By the time I'd hit the top of the hill, three riders were away. Nobody to help now - I had to close the time gap as GC was counting on it!

Sam placed in the sprint and with the time bonus' had enough to take the overall lead by 3 seconds! I was both devastated and grateful it was over safely and I'd still hung onto 2nd place and had a pretty good race and tour.

The final sprint - I didn't quite get to close the time gap
Overall General Classification
1st Sam Abbott
2nd Veronica Micich
3rd Purdie Long

At the presentations we lined up on stage for our overall photos and when I went to leave the stage they asked me to stay, presented me a cake and all sung Happy Birthday to me. It was a great way to spend the day, sharing it with so many of my friends and competitors in Warrnambool.

Happy girl with Marty Tobin after the race. Thanks for the cake!

After being quite hesitant to return to the Tour it was well worth the trip.  Marty Tobin from Sam Miranda and Paul Lumsden from Cycling Victoria were so welcoming, great supporters and so encouraging to race. I hope to return next year to go one place better!

The prize haul! Lots of good memories too :)

Criterium Season for 2014

St Kilda Criteriums


My next goal race for 2014 was the Masters Criterium Championships, so I was trying to fit in a few more crits before the big day. I just received a parcel of new Kosdown Performance Cycling kit to wear and in it was an extra sleek speed suit. The guys have been sporting these high end suits for the last few years and finally it was my turn to get the aero fabric, women's specific chamois and design so it fit in the right places.

High collar vest, long socks, fully seam sealed spray jacket and more! YAY!

Unfortunately the first opportunity I got to wear it was on a drizzly day at St Kilda Crits a few weeks back. It was looking pretty greasy out but I needed a good sprint session so I rolled up to the start line with my suit on ready to get moving. There was only one other woman on the line for A-Grade until I started calling out to a small group on the side-lines who were deciding whether or not to race. We were going to get wet riding home anyway - so if they race, we'll play it safe.

Sock Shot - muddy and gritty conditions


In the end there were 6 of us who started in A-Grade and we rolled around for 30mins keeping warm and trying to decide if it was going to get worse and we would pull out or it would ease up and we could turn it up a notch. It turned out that it got worse AND we turned it up a notch. The next 20mins were attack - chase - fox - attack combo from Nicole Whitburn, myself and Amy Bradley (for whom it was her first race back post collarbone break at Tour Down Under Crits).  There was a very vocal agreement that no shenanigans would occur through the corners, but it was racing at every other point.

Dodging Puddles

I was having a great time - it didn't really matter how it all ended up, we were drenched, covered in grit, and laughing. Nicole attacked very early in the final back straight, and entered the last corner cleanly. I was in 3rd wheel behind Amy as we sprinted up the final straight and made some ground but I couldn't quite get over the top of her by the line. Crazy race day, but was glad to give it a go in the end.


Happy to finish Women's A-Grade

Hawthorn Crits


In the last month the Hawthorn Cycling Club criteriums have finished up and I managed to squeeze in one last mid week brutal race after work. There is a great little review with extra links on the Hawthorn Cycling Club site.
And a mini vid from HCC with my face on there and helping out fellow racers by pinning on numbers.

Victorian Masters Crit Champs & Show Woman's Crit


That final race at Kew was the last part of the preparation for my goal race of the season - the Masters Crit Champs. It was on a new course in Hardcourt this year that would make for some great spectating and was a little more suited to my strengths. The morning of the race it was pouring down in Melbourne, but it was clearing as we left town. When we arrived in Hardcourt the races before lunch were cut down to ridiculous times of around 10-15mins. Our race was scheduled to be only 20mins, which was less than half of what I am used to racing flat out at St Kilda. The other difference was the course was being run in reverse from the advertised route to take out the fast corner.

I was totally psyched up for this race, after eating clean and healthy all week, resting up and itching to WIN! Last year on the old circuit I came home with a silver in the final sprint by 1/2 a wheel. This time I was confident that I would try everything to ensure it was not going to happen again.

Nicole Mcnamara on the front of the train into the headwind
 We had a combined group of each age range in the Women's Masters group and it was something I could use to my advantage. There was no neutral lap and no time to waste, so as soon as we were released, I took off to the first corner. My main competition was Nik Mcnamara and she was hot on my heels.

A rider from another age group took off up the road and allowed us to re-organise for a lap or two, then slowly we reeled her back in. When she was close I counter attacked to keep the pace high. The course was pretty good and it was fun to try pushing the pace and jumping at different points to see how the group would react and to see how far I could get away.

Keeping my cool in the group, getting ready to pounce
At 2 laps to go Nicole was caught on the front, and lead out the main part of the last lap. I called up Jo O'Shaughnessy to take the lead into the last straight and into the last corner. I took off from her wheel into a sprint up the last rise, across the finishing line and it was one of those moments where everything just clicked and felt great!

Sprint to the line
I came in first across the line and first in my age group. Jo came in first in her age group and second across the line, and Nicole came in third across the line and second in our age group. After the race when I rolled back to claim the place and find out when the presentations would be, the officials from Cycling Victoria mentioned that they were going to open up entries to the elite Women's Crit that would start in a few hours, if I wanted to pay and enter right then. They had got me on an emotional high. I quickly renegotiated my departure time to later in the day and entered before I could change my mind.


The lineup for the Show Women's Crit was a little more serious with the whole Building Champion Squad from Bendigo, a few other local riders, and one or two from Melbourne for the race.

Calibrating...
It was good to see Emma Pane racing again with a new club, team and bike! We were going to have some fun today. Ten minutes before the start they announce the circuit would be raced in the opposite direction to the previous races and on the line our race time was cut to 20mins as "there are not many of you here to race".  About five minutes into the race Lauretta Hanson attacks and we are blocked by her whole team and chased down on every move to bring her back. After about ten minutes she had lapped us and it was a race for podium positions.

Attacking and countering again and again. Legs = toasted.
As we came into the final lap, I thought I was in a good spot to give it a good shot towards the line, but when I accelerated out of the last corner, the first 3 riders were already out and sprinting up the road leaving me in 6th place overall and no ground to be made up. It was good fun, but again I learnt the lesson about being in the right spot to get an armchair ride to the finish.

Photo of the top 7 riders - without me as I had to leave before presentations.  (L to R:  Marquessa Jelbart, Tayla Evans, Lauretta Hanson, Emma Pane, Nik Mcnamara and Jessica Lane)

The Ride Cycles Women's Ride 


Each Friday there is a women's shop ride for The Ride Cycles in East Kew which is ridiculously close to my house, but I rarely ride in that direction unless I am going for long kms. I was keen to check out the route and back roads with the ladies and chat over coffee on my recovery day.

I put my party lights on the bike and it only took ten minutes to ride there! Everywhere I go it takes me 30mins to ride places, so I was happy and fresh to start the ride.



I was excited to meet Cazz Clarke, Barb and Angela and her sister (to name a few regulars) and check out the trails around the back blocks of the east. There was one great bike path section I am definitely going to check out more of that crosses over Whitehorse Road with a cafe on the corner.

There was a steady amount of climbing as out in the eastern suburbs there are hills, but also there are good downhill sections. It's a "no drop ride" and everyone was taken care of, including me who stopped at one point to turn off my phone alarm telling me to WAKE UP!

At the end of the route, we finished back at the shop and just a few doors up at the local cafe for a free coffee, delicious mini treat (diet sized) and to discuss great massages for cyclists. Always good to get a local tip, I'll be back again for more.


SKCC Club Crit Champs


Finally the last crit of the season was upon us with the biggest finale of the St Kilda Club Crit Champs. Each week they run three women's grades, three times a season they run Latte Laps (crit training sessions) and this year we were back with another big 50min (+3laps) race.

The women's crit champs are an "ALL IN" style of race where you claim for a place in different age categories. For example you can be WMAS4, race with the elite category and sit on to the sprint finish and win your age group. Or you can be WMAS3 win the overall race and your age category etc. Again this year they broke the age categories up into 10yr blocks instead of the usual 5yrs (I still can't see the reason for this).

 There is often a little bit of teams racing in A-Grade, but this time we had 4 riders from Stay True (ST), 3 riders from Total Rush (TR) and 4 riders from Bike Bug Next Gen (BBNG). The rest of the field was randoms from A & B grades that I've seen racing throughout the year.

Doing my nails on the start line. Photo curtesy of Dale Maizels

We had a lead out car for the first 2 laps that went at over 40km/h and blew the field away until we got settled, then somewhere after the flurry of first attacks around 10mins in Prue (BBNG) and Hannah (ST) took off into an early break. There was a lot of blocking and pacing tactics where I got to have a chat to welcome back Jenny Macpherson (ST) for the championships in those first 20-30 mins till TR and I closed the gap and brought it back to another attack fest. 

The last 15mins was attack after counter attack from each group. Nothing was getting away, I was jumping at different spots on the course to see if I could snap away, at one point I thought I had a wining break but it was shut down again (even with the main teams represented). 

On the last lap Bridie(TR) attacked in the 3rd corner and I couldn't quite go with it. I managed to catch back up by the last corner, but Jenny came in first and Liz (BBNG) had broken away with her around the last corner and came second to a close finishing third for Bridie. We were just spectators in the bunch and I did forget that others in the group were fighting out for age group placings so I promptly got out of the way and rolled in about 7th or 9th overall (electronic timing would have been nice to sort this out for us). 

Champagne for the winners!
I was very happy with my activity in the race. I had no team mates and nothing to lose, so it was a bit of fun to mix it up and finish up the season. Again it was a well run event by St Kilda. I hope they lobby to run some of the state events in the coming year as it would be a great credit to the club for all riders that compete at these events to see how great we've got it!


Only the best ALLPRESS coffee served by real hipsters!

Podium Pics with awesome crowd because we like to celebrate in our club

Always testing and a random regional Handicap thrown in for good measure


After an indoor power test during the first week of April, my coach had lined me up to do an outdoor power session on a climb. I had not tried to give Kinglake a real crack before, so I headed out there to kick my weekend off in style. I was pretty motivated to do a good time, but was not really sure where the start of the climb was, so I didn't hit my lap counter until I was sure the road was consistently going up. The problem after that moment was my gears were not consistently changing! I had some real grinding and crunching issues all the way up and probably scared off all the remaining wildlife and one Hells500 grey striper that I passed while doing the unintentional strength effort. I had flash backs to my hideous Masters Nationals Time Trial where the gears were slipping around on my TT bike and I had to just find a gear that worked and mash it to the top. I'll be going back to give it another go in the coming months for sure.


The next stop on the way out of town with Shane was to pick up Stephen Lane fresh from winning the Coburg Club Crit Champs in A-Grade and we headed straight out to Seymour.
They put on great club racing each week - check out their Facebook page to see the schedule when the Northern Combine is full or the weather is a bit uncertain and you can get a start for $10 entry on the day!

I got a fair handicap starting with three other guys at about C-Grade level for the 60km race. We worked even turns out to just past the turn around where we zoomed back in towards home on the same road to see the scratch bunch coming. Shane was on the front of the bunch and had a massive grin on his face as he past us. It struck fear into our bunch that immediately went to pieces and stopped working together.

They caught us at the 39km mark and I was on the front as they came by and sprinted to get across to the back of the train. My average speed jumped from around 36 km/h to 42 km/h and all I could think of was to hang on as long as possible to get me closer to the finish and to try and finish with this group.

It was really cool to see my team mates rolling turns up the front in a massive pace line smashing each other and trying to soften up the rest of the group. At one point I see Shane grab a drink and water goes EVERYWHERE! He's pouring it all over himself like he's on fire. A few minutes later we're on another small rise and I can see the guys driving it into the head wind as the group of now 10 riders snakes along behind them with me near the tail. My mind wandered off for a moment to a conversation in the car on the way to the race how there are B and C-Grade riders who can hang on to a sprint finish in some races without even hitting the wind - I had a chuckle to myself at that point as I was benefiting from the slipstream and essentially "I was that guy"!

It was going to be easier said than done to hang on though as I didn’t know the route and we had a technical section through town where I had to sprint out of each corner to stay with the guys and then we hit the hills. I remember from the rough overview Shane had mentioned there was a double kick in the final hills. Initially there was a small climb out of town that Stephen had perfectly paced the group halfway up and dropped back through the group to rejoin in front of me. Just as the next rider was looking to roll off, he attacks up over the top of the climb and disappears off into the distance. I manage to hold on with the group as they respond up over the top of the climb and scramble on to the back.

We are 51km into the race and each kilometer I can hang onto is one less I have to ride home solo. I realize that there is another hill coming up and it must be the last one. I can still see Stephen up the road, but I think we are starting to make some time back up on him. So Shane sets a tempo on the climb at the front that is pushing it for me and just hard enough that it seems that nobody is going to counter. Sam Fuhrmeister was the next to roll through to set tempo, then I was next and ready to try my best at blocking, but Shane pushed me off the front and promptly counter attacked on the other side of the road. This was bad timing for me, I was already in the red zone and then the explosion from the group to respond to Shane jumping across to Stephen who was fading up the road was the end of me. There was a little more hill to go and someone was still on my wheel. I swung my elbow once, twice, but they didn’t come through. Bad mistake, as I was starting to go backwards fast and lost contact with the front of the race.

There was about 7-8kms left to go and I could see the group up the road but nothing behind. That means I was guaranteed a top 10 placing if I could keep the pressure on.

We worked together towards the line and then I jumped early to try a sprint and rolled in for 7th overall. Totally ecstatic with the result, I rolled around to find Shane who had brown gel goo all over himself. During the race the gel pack had split when he opened it and covered his face, hands and he’d tried to wash it off unsuccessfully during the ride. That was the gush of water in the peloton that I had witnessed.


The boys had gotten away with a first place for Stephen (double win day!) and second for Shane after wearing down Alan Adams before the finish. It was a great day out in the last of the summer’s warmth.

Totally washed out after a big day out with the boys and the team car
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