A big surpise out at Oakey

Hey all again,

I went to race today at the Oakey kermesse. For me, my expectations were quiet low. Although I felt the form was ok, I really wasn't expecting to have the fitness and the high-end ability to rival the stronger of my rivals.

As per usual, I had a good think before the race about how to play my cards. I was expecting that a break would go today in the opening laps of out 67km race. I knew that the best thing to do you are racing by yourself is to try and make sure that you make the break. If you don't, then you are stuck in the main field with the team mates of the riders in the break doing nothing (as I mentioned in my past post).

The A-grade field had about 45 started and included 3 riders from Fly V (Rolfe, Brooks and Bozzano), 5 riders from Merida, a contingent from Fusion, 2 xRBS Morgans/Virgin Blue, 4 x UQ/ Quitar Gym, 2 x Real Aussie kids ( a drapac porsche feeder team), 2 x AIS ( Michael Hepburn, Mal Rudolf) and a string of other strong individual riders.

The first lap was raced at a super fast pace as the attacks started. I covered the first few moves but nothing stuck. After the first lap, the pace finally dipped below 50 km p/h, so I jumped clear and rode across to the one lone rider from UQ. I was quickly joined by Hayden Brooks (5th place in the Australian Open Road race last month). We were then joined by Adrian Booth (Merida), James Hepburn (RBSMorgans/ Virgin Blue) and Bazzano (Fly V). A couple of kms later, Mal Rudolf crossed the gap with two riders from the Real Aussie Kids team. At this stage, we all pretty much knew that this break had a good chance to succeed. I was surprised that Merida only had one rider in the move but they seemed to be happy with the situation. We quickly got settled and completed the next few laps at a very fast pace with everyone working well together.

By the time we got to the mid way point, out lead had stretched out to a couple minutes. I few riders began to be dropped from the break and it looked likely that we would stay away for the duration.

In what came as a complete and unexpected surprise to me (and probably those in the break), I was actually having no issues with the strength of guys like Mal and Hayden. They began to cut the group down in size on the one hill heading out of town. I spent the Nationals titles weekend last month sitting on side lines with absolutely no form, whilst Mal came 2nd in the u23 road race and Hayden 5th in the elite race. The three off us, separated ourselves from our only two remaining companions on most laps through the tough hill section. It hurt, no doubt, but I honestly can say that I was one of the five riders which survived from the break, and only one of three riders who did not skip a turn for the 60km we spent of the front. To be doing this with such a high calibre of riders after 7 weeks of modest riding (400km per week) came as a big shock.

In the end Mal, Hayden, Booth, Real Aussie kid and I survived to fight out the final sprint. The cat and mouse games started with 2km to go and I tried to make sure that I did not get stuck on the front. I ended up on Boothy's wheel heading in to the last corner with Mal and Hayden leading it through. As the sprint started, Boothy stood up to power out of the corner and he cramped up and stopped. I tried to swerve around him, but he also had moved to get out of my way and he pushed me further wide. I was unable to get back onto the other three riders to contest the sprint. In the end I ran 4th.

I don't really understand where I found the legs today, but I'm not complaining! I was not expecting to go well today at all. I even did 170km on the Saturday as I really didn't care about the race on Sunday! For me, it’s opened up my eyes to what may be possible this season. I do believe that I can achieve some good results this season and I'm hoping that I can finally deliver on the potential which other have seen in me, but to which I have not yet lived up to. To have guys like Mal and Hayden shake my hand after the race and speak highly of my performance is surely a great confidence boost going forward.

See you all soon out on the road.

David