We arrived in the small town of Harburg for the Tour de Kranz early on Saturday morning. Despite the marathon champs happening on the same day, all the usual snakes were present, Craig Paul, Dave Leiman, Trav Walker and Andrew Hill. Straight out the start attacks came hard and fast, but they were countered very quickly and the racing resumed to normal.
As soon as we hit the first kick, Craig put down the hammer and split up the field. It caused a group of 6 of us to peel off the front. My legs were feeling a little dead and I could seriously feel the super hard week that I had had, but pretty soon it burnt off and I was rolling on at full speed.
After hitting the first climb, I dropped off slightly, but managed to close the gap back down. We rode on now only four of us up front. We hit one of the tougher climbs in the race and I was forced to drop off. I tried to limit my losses and got into a good rhythm and just pushed on. After cresting the climb I started to real in the gap again.
I pushed super hard to try close down the gap but unfortunately, while being caught up in the moment, I missed a turn and went down the wrong contour road. Luckily, I heard Carl Calvarley and Dave whistling. I turned round to notice that I had now lost two positions because of the silly mistake. Now being really frustrated I chased Carl and Dave really hard, but heard the dreaded sound of air being forced through rubber, before catching them. Now Nic Porteous had passed me and I was seriously frustrated. I got back onto my bike and tried to catch Nic, but punctured again on a rocky climb. I was now really irritated, I bombed it again, but was now out of CO2 canisters. Mike Smith had now caught me. I managed to put a small gap between Mike and I, but my tyre was losing air yet again.
Now sitting without anything to re-inflate my tyre, I rode until I got to a rode crossing where I could hopefully find a pump. By the time I had reached the road crossing, I was well outside the top 20. I found a pump and pumped the tyre up as best as I could. I got going and was now riding as hard as I could. I set a goal to try at least get back into the lead of my category and possibly the top 10. With Only 15km to go I knew it was really going to be a tall order, and knew I had to dig really deep.
I started catching the people one by one and soon was back in the lead of my category, and around 15th overall. The positions were coming down and was soon in 14th with 3km to go. A bunch of 4 were about 1km ahead, I set my sights on catching them and gave it my all, unfortunately, I ran out of time, coming in about 20sec down on the small bunch.
I was really bleak with my overall result, but performance wise I was really happy to have come off with a 13th overall and first in age, after 3 punctures. Well done to Craig who pulled off a good 3rd overall.
Next weekend is a really big one for me, especially for the sponsors, Cowan House Super Classic is always a must, so if you've got a bike in the garage, come on out to Cowan House for an awesome days ride!
Ciao
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