Thirty-two participants in total for this year's Masters series wrap-up at Cherry Point Winery; north of Mill Bay on the way to Cowichan Bay. Paul Christopher, Rictchie Hughes and I were wearing the Tripleshot kit. Also riding from the club were Stephane Tran and Kevin Ford.
Bill Yearwood (President of the Masters Assn.) flew over in his helicopter, landed by the vineyards and provided heli-sharing for two others from Vancouver. The hell sharing involved all 32 and took place during the 63km (7 laps), hilly (920 meters) event.
The two eighty year olds (John Smith and Dick Nicholls) and on Cat. 70 year old (Peter) were given the first head start. Smith recently completed the Sydney Tuesday night TT with a 29:51 (that's 17.4km in less than 30 min.) or faster than 35kph ... on his lonesome.
After a good handicap for the 80s and 70, Paul and I headed out with a group of 12 in the 60's peloton. Right away, on the first lap our group was whittled down to four: Ron Cook (Duncan), David Lawson (IRC), Roy Quade (Vancouver) and yours truly. We worked hard and well together.
With three-and-a half laps to go the speedy foursome (Steve Bachop, Paul Taylor, Peter Stevenson and Tony Wakelin) from the 50's group surprised us and sprinted passed us on the ugly part of the long hill. We responded as quickly as we could but their jump was too much. We held them constant at 50 meters for about 2kms. but then they picked-up and left us to our devices. Then, we lost David. Our threesome hammered on until we lost Ron on the last lap. I tried to shake Roy Quade on the final hill but he dug-in and on the downhill sprint finish burst by me (you need an 11 cog for this sprint finish). As I crossed the line in 6th place overall (just out of the points competition for overall placings ... Roy snagged points for fifth place) I was shocked to discover that the 40's (Kevin Ford, Stephane and their group) were right behind us. Amazing how the handicap had brought us to the line seconds apart after almost two hours of hard riding.
On the women's side, Helen Martindale was there. So too was Connie Strub who was the overall winner of the Women's Points competition.
Full results will be posted on the BC Masters Cycling website in a day or two.
http://bcmasterscycling.com/race-results
Cherry Point - BC Masters Assn. - Series Finale
Moderator: mfarnham