The road trip up was
quite eventful ranging from a brief stop at the inland submarine, a random man
at a road side rest stop with his knee totally popped out and dislocated and a
gorgeous 45minute ride in Goulburn to brake the trip up (utilising my local
knowledge of the bike shop/greengrocer/cafe in Goulburn to ensure we had good
coffee for the final 3 hour drive).
We arrived in Newcastle Friday night to a beautifully cooked
roast lamb with roast vegetables and beans and nice wine, all local produce
thanks to Gill’s great preparation. As well there was of course, the great
company.
Saturday we got to sleep in a little and headed off to my
favourite cafe in Newcastle, 3Bean, for an amazing breakfast and coffee to
start the day off in a calm manor we then went for a brief stroll along the
lake and headed home to kit up, prep up and ride out to Kooragang island in the
gorgeous summery 28 degree weather.
Off we headed for the 28km ride out; I’d forgotten how busy
the traffic was in Newcastle. On arriving Nicole realised how much of a local
celebrity I am haha…it was great to see all the riders from Newcastle, and to
have such big entries in all grades was awesome indeed. We had 20 girls in the
race, divided into A and B grade but all racing in the same race, for 7 laps of
the infamous 7km “gang”. Nik and I had a few pre-race plans, obviously wanting
at least one of us on the the podium but preferentially the 2 of us, obviously
we aim high.
The race got underway and as it was so warm and a smallish
field no one wanted to show their colours too early so Nik set a lovely steady
high tempo on the front to discourage any early attacks and to allow her to get
to know the course.
Thanks to Aaron Dial for this mid race pic
After 2 laps a few surges occurred however no one wanted to
continue on with a move until after 3.5laps I got away with a local rider Kelly
and we got a gap of 100m fairly quickly but the gap never grew more than that
and we were away for only ~5km before we were brought back, numerous small moves
were made over the rest of the course but it seemed most of the girls wanted a
print or didn’t want to work to keep moves away.
I was giving a lot of guidance to Nik throughout the
race, and had gotten a few funny looks from other girls in the race wondering why I was yelling at her,
but its all a learning curve and was a great experience for us to get to race
together and for me to be able to give her advice whilst racing.
Coming into
the sprint I was sitting second wheel and not rolling through for the last 3km,
a young local girl ,Alicia MacDonald, launched the first move in the sprint with still
900m to go, I let her get 15m on us before I jumped and followed as she was going
fast. When I got to her I thought it was to early to sprint but new I had to keep going then as everyone else was coming so sprinted for 800m and took the race out by a bike length.
Nik had just gotten on the back and had been about to come around underneath everyone when Alicia jumped.
Podium girls, I like it when they aren't so tall