Bob nearly broke my heart

Yesterday, Bob B, Leon, Nico, Bob Q & I went forth on a mighty quest – to compete in and finish the Victorian Teams Time Trial at the coldest place in the world, Ballarat. There was only one word for the conditions (hint: Graham Kennedy said it was the sound a crow made). 7 degrees and 30km/h winds coming off the snow.

We rode in the 135+ category – 3 riders per team, 2 to finish, combined age of 135 (easy done) – over a windy, undulating course of 23 kms, twice! The teams were: Bob B, Leon & I (173 years) as CCCC oldies and Nico, Bob Q & John Broeren (150 years) as CCCC youth team. Five teams started.

Team Oldie went to the marshalling area, whilst the announcer called for Youth Team to get to the start, but they were nowhere to be seen. They missed their start time. Team Oldie started on time and went out fast – what was to be expected with a track sprinter in our midst? – and then Bob B, fresh from a Melbourne to Ballarat the previous day, took the lead. Obviously I need much more than a 30 minute warmup. For the first lap, I struggled as my heart rate went to crazy. I’m glad I wasn’t wearing a HR monitor.

We got through lap 1 together and I was feeling much better than the opening 5kms. Lap 2 was pretty good for me as we’d worked out a good pace for the wind, which seemed to be in our face on all four sides of the course. Anyway, we finished strongly and almost caught the 4 man team in front of us – who turned out to be a group just warming up! Thanks to Bob, who kept us going when things looked bleakest.

I don’t know how they did it but Team Youthful were finished without passing us and 5 minutes faster. They claimed to have left in an earlier time slot (they probably only did one lap ).

Anyway, congrats to Team Young (Nico & Bob Q) for getting Bronze, and to my teammates for arriving, competing and helping me to the finish. Looking forward to next year (not). We got 5^th.

Leon & I got out this morning for a slow one to North Road to commiserate.

The real highlights of yesterday were the 3 M17 teams of CCCC cleansweeping the medals with Clement & Munro in the CCCC No2 team getting the Gold.

Other Bandido kids to get medals: Emma Doyle & Grace Povey (Throssell) Silver JW13; Tom Quirk, Will Thompson (son of Colin) & Wade Zervaas (Mark) Bronze M19.

Grant