The weekend started off with a 5-6hr drive down south in to NSW to grafton. My time was spent by looking out the window and moving around so my ass would not fall asleep, and also listening to Tessa and Jack screaming at eachother over who would listen to the ipod. By the time we got to Grafton it was around 5 o'clock and the sky's looked pretty dark. We unpacked our gear and headed down to sign on, in the city of city of Grafton. With the voice of Michael Tomolaris welcoming everyone to grafton while it was about to bucket down. Myself,Terrence, Steve and Nikolai managed to sign on and get the hell out of there before we got drenched.
As 7 o'clock came along the whole team Data#3/Merida went over towards the local pub for a massive meal of carbs and callories. Everyone else but myself and Nikolai managed to get a proper pasta or rice meal,as the pub had ran out of both dishes, even though Heathy had rung up and told them prior that a bunch of bottomless stomachs were arriving. So i ordered the plain pasta and thought I'd add a pumkin soup to it for flavour which was a wrong idea, as it was the worst soup i have ever tasted, so i ate a bowl of chips instead floating in tomato sauce. After dinner the A grade team came together and we talked tactics. Nikolai was our team captain and with his extensive knowledge of cycling, we all worked out a plan of what our goals were for the next day. Our main goal of the day was to protect Michael Cupitt(Merida) and keep him fresh for the end of the race.
Morning came, and we all met eachother at Maccas and had a great brekky of hot cakes and coffee to fuel our body for the 228km journey. We regrouped after brekky and rode to the start line of the race for photo op and tv coverage. As Henrich Haussler shot the gun to start the race, Chewy and I raced to the front of the peloton and was in prime position for some good tv coverage for the start of the day. As the race got started it was a pretty steady pace for the first 40km, and Dave Melvile (Merida) managed to get in the EB of about 13 riders. So myself Chewy, Mich and Nikolai were quite happy with how things had turned out for us.
As Gibraltar range go closer and closer i felt more and more nervous on how my form was, but as i was dragging Michael up to the front of the peloton i felt pretty good. I was sitting about 4th wheel up the climb with Mich not too far away, and Chewy also keeping up with the pace. Unfortunatley Nikolai was suffering up the climb and got dropped about half way up. A couple of kilometers later he managed to find himself within B grade, pulling turns!!!!!!!!!!, untill the referee pulled him out sadly......back to the climb, there were about 3 or 4 accelerations up the climb of which i did suffer abit and i think nearlly popped. But otherwise the climb was pretty steady and fun. By the top, the break away had grown to a length of 10 minutes, which was quite amazing.
After the climb it was up to Chewy and I to help out Mich as much as possible, be that giving him food or water or protecting him from the wind. Chewy and I were very active within the peloton making sure we slowed down the chase as much as possible and chasing down dangerous attacks. As the clocked ticked around 180km my legs were feeling quite tired and tight, and as we were about to climb up Wire Gullly, it is renound to be the decider for the race, and it was, Brendan Brooks(shortis.com.au)and Nathan Earle(Genesys) broke away from the break away and managed to stay away till the finish line. Earle took the sprint over Brooks quite easlily it looked. In the peloton there were attacks left, right and centre, i tried to stay with them but my legs were just screaming, STOP!!!!!!. Half way up the climb Chewy and I got dropped from the peloton and formed a grupetto, cruizing into inverell. Luckily enough Mich had stayed with the attacks and and sprint home for a respectable 14th place. While Dave had mangaged to grab a awsome 9th place in the final sprint.
So in conclusion Data#3/Merida i think had worked very well together and i look foward to our combined efforts and 2011. All thank to Heathy and Terrence for organizing and helping us along the way during the whole weekend. I look foward to next year and kicking some ass. Highlight of the weekend was riding the quad bike at the farm with little Jack.
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