Muzza C Grade Race Report 11/06

A quite cool, crisp morning saw a field of 40+ riders, with Adam Clark, Chris Elder, Matt Woolnough (in his first C grade race) and myself line up. Pace wasn't too high at start, not too many wanted to do any work today. A few surges here and there but no-one got away. B grade overtook in forst half of race so this kept the pace down until they were far enough ahead for us to race again. Come the prime I latched onto a nice leadout from two RideOz boys, jumped their sprinter 50m before the last corner (thanks for that tip on last Sundays' ride from one of the A graders) and managed to get far enough ahead for the others to give it away well short of the line. Second half of race wasn't too exciting, a couple of us went to front for short efforts to try to bring the pace up and tire out some fresh legs but no-one was willing to stay up front and work hard. With about 5 minutes to go a young guy turned into me and got his handlebars tangled up in mine - somehow we both managed to stay upright, then watched him almost do it again next lap to someone else and at end of race Adam C told me same guy did it to him too - might be time to move up to B grade for safety reasons I think! After that I got stuck at the back of the bunch, last two laps the bunch completely blocked the width of the track so there was no way anyone was going to make a jump for it. This continued until the bunch sprint in final straight. From my position at back of bunch I saw Matt W get forced into some Cyclocross action in the grass on final corner, somehow he stayed upright. Good win to Chris E, sprinted hard just pipping another rider on the line. All in all a very uninspiring race, think we'll need to do more work next week to get things moving and make the race a tad more interesting.
+ Prime - Mick McKean
+ 1st place - Chris Elder
Post by Mick McKean