I'm pumped with how awesome my Specialized Venge (a sprinters race machine) worked in the Bike N Bean Preston Mt Classic in Strath Creek. Shaved a little weight off (the bike is seriously light anyway!) by swapping the 808's for 404's then just told the legs to shut up and enjoy the pain! My max HR of 191bpm on the final climb can atest that there was plenty of pain! I came up 3 min short from catching limit 6 of the buggers survived! Was great to be working with some riders prepared to hurt and catch the riders in front, a few of them did start missing turn towards the end to save their legs for the climb though.
7th overall is ok considering I prefer going down hills instead of up them, starting to be happy with my form again after losing so much with the tonsil op & 4 weeks off a bike! After doing a preview lap of the course last week, mind you I did 210k the day before, I was not really looking forward to the hills today, but I managed to take almost 2min off my climb time from last week. If i could do that week in week out I would be very happy..And also start having ASDA knocking on my door every few days. Have a very busy few weeks of racing that will no doubt sharpen the legs up and shave some insulation off me too. Interested to see where I will be at in another month or so, hope injury free, illness free, and a stronger cyclist with a few podium results, coz you all know I'm not big on not getting a result....
Also congrats to Stephen Lane for a top result in the open.
Huge thanks to Specialized, Bike N Bean, and also Preston Cycling Club for running a great event, whoever put the order in for the weather keep that email address, it seems to work!
