Windsor Park - Sun Jul 24

[Plawless]

What can be said - we rode like a team and it was AWESOME. I cant say enough about how cool it was to be a part of it today in the B race. Guys were looking after each other and talking and willingly sacrificing themselves for the team's goal. IT ROCKED!!!

We won because we rode as a team. With 5 laps to go Joel (VAC) was a monster pulling everyone fast with Kelly on his wheel and Greg in 3rd with me 4th and Kevin (protected rider) 4th. Kevin had done a great job all day staying tucked in. How cool to also have Geoff W come up with 4 to go and see where we wanted him! Even after a hard pull guys were willing to get back in line near the front and go again so that others could save energy etc.

The real hero today was Greg though. He sat in 3rd until 1 lap to go and on the back stretch when Joel tired and Kelly didnt want to pull through there was a tiny pause. I yelled at Greg to "go" and he opened it up perfectly. It wass that moment where we won the race. Greg has a super smooth accelleration that made it easy to stay with him but suddenly we were rocketing along. Greg totally sacrificed himself and as a result when I came around him after the last corner no one could get by us. IT WAS SPECTACULAR TEAMWORK.

What really stood out for me was that at that stage of the race any one of 10 guys could have won. BUT without a teammate there was no chance of anyone getting by. So from my perspective it was the best race I have seen us do. Every one of the TSC folks in the race worked and were part of the team plan. Super cool folks.

[Stéphane Tran]

Damn, wish I could have been there! Had to settle for watching the final stage of the TdF on the Champs Élysées, which is almost as good as Windsor Park.

[Josh.E]

right on

way to go guys. congrats Peter

[DIStrasser]

Peter really did capture the essence of it. TS rode like a well organized machine and the stacking and lead out on the final lap really made it virtually impossible for anyone to come through, including Jason and I. Very impressive work.

Sorry again to the TSer that I exchanged a handful of heated words with. The heat of the moment got to me. I have quite a bit of respect for how your Team organized itself today and the amount of work you guys did to maintain a challenging race pace.

Well done, a victory well deserved!

[Plawless]

MOOOOOOOSE!!!!


- anyone get any photos?

[Rolf]

Fun C race today. Only 11 starters, at least 3 or 4 juniors, 20 minutes + 5. Things started pretty mellow, with Jenny S. and Jen E. taking some long pulls. A couple of early attacks never made it more than 50m or so.

There was a prime on the fourth or fifth lap which popped the eventual winner well off the front, but he came back to the bunch right away. He then dropped us like a gold brick with a half lap to go for the win. When he rode with us he kinda toodled along next to whoever was at the front of the line.

For the first half of the race I rode 3rd or 4th wheel and saw almost no wind; somebody always seemed happy to pull. Then I started dropping back a little so I could get a sense of some of the other riders. At 12 minutes, I came into the 90 degree corner by the tennis courts behind a junior who picked a bad line and tried to correct it by increasing her lean. She went down hard and, despite locking up, I had no choice but to barrel into her and do the shoulder-roll. The guy behind me later said he may have taken out my rear wheel, just before bunny-hopping The Curb That Broke Bill's Hip and ending up on someone's lawn.

I jumped up, made sure the junior was moving, and leaped back on my bike, my brain a tunnel of adrenaline. The rest of the group was about by the start/finish when I started chasing. I had no idea I was entitled to hang out and wait for them to come around again without penalty. So after going full gas, I caught them on the other side of the park, a little worse for wear.

A bunch at the front jumped with two laps to go with the eventual winner taking a big gap. I tried to drop back no more than four or five and then gave myself a little room to get the best possible line on the last corner and carry it into the sprint, which I took for second.

My bike was mostly fine; Max at Fairfield has already worked out the wobble in my back wheel. From the weird bruises and abrasions on my back, I think I must have landed on someone's bars, but it's nothing serious. I hope that junior's okay; I did see her on the course later.

Since there were no real breaks -- apart from the winner toying with us a bit -- and since it was such a short race, there were no real race strategies to consider. But I still feel like I learned a lot (especially from the crash aftermath ) and look forward to getting my butt kicked in a B race, one of these years. Thanks to all you Tripleshotters who cheered me on...

[Rolf]

Here are some photos from the finish of both the B race and my little 4 year-old's lap of glory...

Some great bike throws in there, especially for 8th in the B's.

Big congrats to all who contributed to the TS domination of the B race and to Gavin for a stellar finish with the A's!

[4827north]

Great B race results! I'm sorry I didn't have it for the end. I wasn't sure if I was even going to start never mind finish the race. I've been fighting a bad cold with a nasty cough all week. I'd been looking forward to this race for months, and just had to get out there. I decided after staying near the front for the first half of the race to go for primes. I just missed the first prime by a few inches. Dang what we'll do for a water bottle! Geoff won the second prime, which I didn't go for as I saw Geoff was setting up for it. After I settled in, waiting for the last 5 laps. Then I skipped off line on turn one due to a gust of wind, lost the wheel in front of me and that was it. Game over. Finished it up pretty much dead last. Oh well, didn't expect much with this cold.

Hats off to the team for racing a patient race and executing. 1&2 and a prime! Fantastic.

And a big congrats to Moose for 3rd in the As! We need more As racing, so now I think Peter must be ready to move up and help out Gavin, Josh, Ryan, Dylan.

[JohnT]

I think many of us go into Windsor Park with a bit of trepidation, given what happen to Bill a couple of years ago. So one very satisfying result was no crashes in the B race. One rider touched a pedal and had a scary moment right in front of Peter, but otherwise it went smoothly. I stayed at the back for almost the entire race. In the end it was a case of too much patience. I was feeling really good, keeping an eye on the front and paying attention to the 'imprecise' riding that happens more at the back. But Joel Taylor, as Peter mentioned, picked up the pace with a few laps to go, so most of my saved up energy ended up being spent chasing rather than moving up the pack. I was close enough to see Greg's amazing effort with two corners to go. That really set up the final TS 1-2. Apologies to John Guthrie: Towards the end of the race I sat in behind him expecting him to move up. A gap openned, I waited for him to close it. He didn't, so I sprinted around leaving him behind. Normally not something to comment on, but only afterwards did I remember he was riding injured from the Caleb Pike race - the polite thing to do would have been to work in a way the kept us both in touch with the lead pack. In addition to the amazing last few laps, something else that the team did well yesterday was to allow a few other riders to expend energy off the front. Kelly went off early in the race and then two Pro City guys did the same. Rather than jumping on them, our guys gave them a bit of rope. In both cases it didn't take long for the breakaways to realize they needed to be back in the pack.

I didn't stay for the end of the A race, but what I did see was exciting. A break away slowly grew in number to the point where it could have been dangerous (Ryan was the forth or fifth to get in there and it looked like Gavin and Dylan moved to the front of the chase group to slow things down a little). After a few laps it was closed down. There was anothet break, this time just two. They developed a 15 second gap (almost the length of one straight-away). That was reeled in, though one guy managed to stay off the front. He was joined by another. I overherd one say to the other - "Wanna do a time trial?" But then they were caught. A great race to get a great result Gavin.

JT

[jj12]

Great b race guys! I'm glad to have watched most of the race, and congrats to the a riders, gavin for placing third.

[Kevin F]

Great race everyone! Again another fun race with the team plan met. Both Peter and I achieved our goals of getting enough points to apply for Upgrade for Cat3. We also beat my point combatant in the B series thus getting a few points closer to the title.

I feel fortunate to not be racing against TSC as we had a little HTC action in the last few laps which made near imposible for anyone else to place in the top two. Thanks to Greg for the massive three or four lap pull with a great final lead out launching Peter and I. Big thanks to Peter for playing General during the race and making sure we road a smart race. I would have launched earlier...

Next is taking the whole podium.

It was great to have people contribute to the overall victory and have a great race with the race for Geoff and Brad fighting out the primes. Until Wednesday... Latoria is calling us