Last weekend saw the contention of the Cycling Victoria Masters ITT and Road championships held in Harcourt just north of Castlemaine. For the forth time in four weeks we packed the car full of Specialized S-Works and set out on a road trip and boys weekend away. Shannon and myself were hoping for good weather and good form. We were riding the wave of success from Shannon's Melb to Ballarat win the week before and had high hopes of a podium again. Saturday was the Time Trial. My form was slowly coming back since my accident back in April Id been doing my Strength efforts to get my TT form back in line. Paul had set up my brand new Specialized Shiv (well.. I did most of the work) only the day before and it felt fast in practice. This new Shiv from Specialized is freaking awsome, If you want some extra speed then this thing is the rocket you need!! Our main contender was going to be good friend Shane Millar who I believe is at about 30 for 30 TT wins this year already. It was a hilly course so pacing was going to be crucial. I went out of the blocks with the intention to aim for a 315 Watt average for the 20km course. I was slowly pulling in my minute man on the hills in the first 5km but was loosing ground on the down hills. By the turn around I still had good legs and could now gauge my time on the riders behind. By now Millar had mowed down the three guys in front of him and there was no way I was letting him pull me in. I hammed it home for a 29:26 and 305 W average. It was good enough for 2nd behind Millar and about 40 sec ahead of Shannon who placed 3rd.
It was now time for legs up and recovery so we could prepare for the road race on Sunday. The road race was held at the same location and consisted of 2 x 56km laps with a decent hill (900m @9%) about 40km into each lap. Id decided that this hill was going to be the spot to go and I was going to make the break if I could. The first lap to the bottom of the hill was pretty tame. No one really put the hammer down so it was a matter of staying upright and enjoying the sunshine. We hit the hill and I went to the front to set a hard tempo to set up the break. Gabe Carey from LSD Sports put the power down and I followed. We hit the top of the climb with about 6 riders having a 50 meter gap. I kept the pace on through another rolling rolling set of hills and we then had a good break. The group of 7 rolled strong turns for the following lap and then had enough distance to the chase group to begin thinking about tactics for the down hill sprint to the line. This type of finish was not going to suit me so I tried to break the group again on the climb on the second and final lap. Gabe Carey went again and Shannon locked on to his wheel to crest the hill with a small gap to the remaining 6 riders. We worked to pull them back in... and now it was a certain bunch sprint for the line. I went to the front again to stop any chances of a last minute break and to at least give Shannon a clear run to the line. The sprint went early and Shannon held a gap for the win. I ended up 3rd in Masters 1 and was pretty happy with the days efforts.
We now have a week off racing and a chance to get some big km's int he legs before the Footscray club champs im racing with team mate Dom in mid August and possibly the State TT champs in Geelong in a few weeks time.
Cheers
Stephen
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