Caleb Pike

[JohnT]

Beautiful evening for racing. Sixteen laps for the B's, 20 for A's. The B race was steady. The pace picked up towards the end, but no especially fast or slow laps. There were a couple of minor breakaway efforts, but nothing too serious. Kevin and Stephane moved to the front on a few occasions, but they were marked well. Steve dropped a chain - twice I think. That sucks - best not to use the little ring

About midway, I chased and caught Joel Taylor's during a breakaway attempt. Someone nearby then said that it was my turn. Whoever that was hasn't been to Italy! My turn? This is what I learned in Sardinia: "Let him eat his dinner, and you (meaning me) can eat his dessert." Eating his dessert, just in case it isn't obvious, means passing him at the line, not pulling him around the course.

About 15 B's were still together at the bell. I got a pretty good draft down the hill and a decent run up. One of those weird green vegan dudes flew up on the inside line on a very cool looking titanium-framed, carbon aero-wheeled stealth bomber. I tried to follow and I think we were both in too tall a gear - it was a bit like slow motion. A Pro City guy passed me with about 10m to go. Third was good given the competition - only the hard-core racers were out during the hockey game.

Turn out was good - five of us in B and two (Gavin and Roland) in A. But it could be much better. This is a lot of fun and I am getting dropped on Beacon Hill all the time. So there are lot's of people in our club that could run at the front. Brian, Greg, Alan, Old Dylan, just to name a few of many.

Sorry, don't know how everyone else did. I showed up with minutes to spare and then left quickly. Heidi had the strange impression that I gave up summer racing for the week in Italy I was trying to limit the damage.

JT

[Kevin F]

Nice result John. I snagged 6th. I got a good lead out from Stephane. I'm glad Peter wasn't there. Peter knows what I mean.

[jj12]

Good race guys, a fast one, 16 laps for B's and i think 21 for the A's. I need to work on a few things like braking on the corners and positioning but all in all another race under my belt. Looking forward to alot more.

[Stéphane Tran]

An OK race for me. I was on the front a lot at the beginning of the race then smartened up and conserved more in the pack. I could tell one the teams in red (IRC?) had a strategy to keep sending riders off the front but they were always reeled in pretty quickly. Another thing I noticed was that after the fast downhill here would be a slow-down and a bottleneck as soon as the uphill started. I got tired of building a lot of downhill momentum and passing people on the descent only to have to brake and scrub off all that built-up speed, so I tried to always be first down the hill and keep my momentum uphill. The pace didn't really pick up that much on the bell lap and it basically came down to a sprint finish in the last 100 metres. I tried to give Kevin a good lead-out but I faded badly halfway up the incline to the finish (just like at Latoria) and was out of the top 10. Well done to John T who raced a smart race and got 3rd. Great to see Dylan out after his concussion. I think he still remembered us!