Being off the bike for close on a month, with the odd race thrown in, I was pretty nervous to see what the countries top roadies had to throw at me. Surprisingly I felt pretty strong, and definitely felt that I could make it to the bunch sprint at the soccer stadium in Durbs.
The race started off fantastically. I managed to secure myself in the bunch and pretty soon I found myself contending with the top guns... and I felt GREAT!!! We peaked over the notorious Fox Hill, which winds its way out of Maritzburg, which lead to the attacks coming hard and fast. I was able to react, and soon found myself with a very small select group of riders. As we turned onto the Eston road which makes its way towards Camperdown the race took a completely different direction. We had a full on block head wind. That meant only one thing.... GUTTER = NO SLIP STREAMING... thats where things stopped going my way! The group swung across the road to prevent us being able to slip stream the person in front of us. I found myself sitting in 2nd, so I still had a small amount of the slip from the rider in front of me, then.... the next thing I knew I was grating my butt away on the tarmac at 60kph. The tar that was on the yellow line dropped away to the side which forced me onto some dodgy gravel. I managed to get back onto the 'good stuff,' but was then clipped by a rider passing me. I came down with the most disgusting sound of grinding carbon and aluminium in the process of being mangled, not to mention the smell of my what must have been my skin being peeled off and left on teh road surface. After sliding for what seemed forever I eventually came to a halt. My bibs were shredded, my glove of my left hand, disintegrated, my shoes were ground down to a fine carbon dust, my handle bars and pedals had been mangled by the rough surface. The bodily injuries were quite painful. My left cheek of my butt was virtually non existent, despite me flashing it to everybody from here on as there were no bibs to cover up any longer. My elbow had taken the full brunt of the initial crash, and my fore arm had lost half the skin, which, by the way was still sizzling in the road.
I jumped up to try and limit my losses, I fixed my chain and began the most intense chase of my life. It doesn't happen often, but I literally pushed myself to the point where I could taste blood. I eventually made contact with the bunch when we got to the bridge crossing the N3 at Camperdown. But I was definitely feeling the effects of the chase. As we approached the last major climb of the race the attacks came like no tomorrow, I simply couldn't react. I had to sit back and try keep my cool. Luckily the gap didn't grow too drastically and I managed to make contact with the rear of the group, with the help of some reckless descending down into Botha's Hill. But again, the attacks came which equalled the end of my day, and my chances of a good result went down the tube.
From there I decided to just make the remainder of my race a good start into my base training, so I just chilled for the final 20km or so. It was really a bummer not to get the result I was hoping for... but hey... thats racing and that's the way the cookie crumbled at the end of the day. I ended the day with a really good lunch and a fruit smoothie before heading back up the hill to Maritzburg.
A huge thanks must go out to Clint and Ollie Olsen for arranging a new shifter in time to replace the one that snapped the previous week at Midmar / Notts. You guys were fantastic and thanks for all the encouragement and advice.
Now comes my base, starting on Tuesday and hopefully a good result at the 94.7 is possible!
Wish me luck
peace\
making the junction to the bunch after my crash
1 comment:
sorry to hear about your crash brendon and good luck for Urban Rage
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