Velocity 2012

Well first ABA race of the season has come & gone!

Time Trial:

Felt fairly strong coming into this & was subconsciously thinking I had it in me for a solid ride. I think the first year I did this my time was 15 minutes & the second was 14:02 & I wanted to shatter this time. The wind wasn't strong this year & all the times were fast. My power meter was giving me issues all weekend & started during the TT which made things interesting. I was going very hard and the watts were reading zone 1 readings so I knew it was not correct & just paid attention to getting my lap speed up. Ended up with a time of 13:10 according to zone 4 but i stopped my garmin at 12:58 & thought I would be right around there. Anyhow no biggie I ended up 3rd which was cool.


Road Race (5 laps 112km): The road race started out super slow some small attacks going here and there. Top Gear & RMCC came to play & posted riders on the front of the group & then launched riders out & blocked/slowed the peloton to let the riders go clear. A few other surges happened but nothing was serious until the 2nd lap when a RMCC guy went clear & Craig Fraser from Top Gear bridged to him. Top Gear then had about 5 riders posted at the front blocking everything & slowing the group down to a casual training ride. While 2 guys went up the road threatening my 3rd place GC I didn't see 1st & 2nd really showing any concern about losing GC podium placings??? It was clear to me that this wasn't good as there was no way the peloton was gonna bring the group back as control wasn't being taken away from the teams representing the Breakaway. I decided to jump part way into the second lap & went up about 50 meters and did some tempo spinning but not really attacking trying to see if I could draw out a few riders surely thinking someone wanted to come along. Waiting... waiting. looking back... looking back.. fuck it i'm going.. I quickly put some serious time into the group & was making headway to the 2 leaders. I chased & suffered in a way I haven't felt before where you know your the only guy that can bring the breakaway back. Got it down to about 30 seconds & a truck pulled up to me & said I had over 2-1/2 minutes on the peloton keep going! By this time I had already been away for two laps on my own & was getting close to being in the hurt locker. I kept eating & drinking trying to keep the tempo up hoping the breakaway would ease up or a lull would happen somewhere. Well it didn't & approx 40+km of solo riding to try & bridge I was brought back for part two of suffering. Any rider knows that once you put in a sustained effort in a race & tax your reserves it is an absolute battle to hang on to the peloton & that held a true as ever. My glutes were in a world of hurt but my cardiovascular system was actually feeling really good still which is awesome I think. I was stretching trying to avoid complete locking up of the legs to hang in the peloton & managed to stay in with a same time finish to remain 5th place in GC. The breakaway ended up staying away & the two riders mixed up the gc placings which was expected.


Crit: When you hop on the trainer to warm up & your legs are tired you know its going to be a hard day. The Crit started out very fast with strong surges into the wind & before the technical corners. I had to play it disciplined as my legs were no where near 100%. The group got shredded to about 11 guys & I tucked in behind whatever wheel I could find until the last lap. Well bell lap came & I thought all this disciplined wheel sucking & no off the front attacking would pay off in the end. I jumped starting the bell lap & the light switch to my legs was still off just like it was at the beginning. Let's just say my legs put me into my place as my cardio system wanted to go but the legs said not today jevro you kicked the shit out of us yesterday.

I think I ended up 5th or 6th on GC depending how things get sorted out as me & Eric Johnstone are tied in time. I came here not with certain point or placing expectations but to race smart & race to my potential. I took a calculated gamble in the Road Race as I had confidence I could bridge to the leaders when I had the gap. If I had bridged the entire weekend may have played out differently but that's how she goes. Shoulda, coulda, didn't...


Congrats to Craig Fraser for a podium today was good to see a great guy do well in a stage race.


A huge congrats goes out to my cat 5 teammates Evan Bayer & Rob Leishman who managed to both podium (Evan 1st Rob 3rd (maybe 4th?) in GC!! They are relatively new to racing & have already accumulated enough points to get into Cat 4 which is great! With some coaching from Jack & Ashley about more tactical awareness they will be a force to reckon with in Cat 4 & maybe even cat 3 this year!.