2008 Sydney Road titles...

[Simon Llewellyn]

Today was the annual Sydney Road Titles at the Regatta center Penrith. Essentially this event Almost doubles as a second state title as medals are given instead of prize money. The entry list was filled with the A grade teams you would normally see at events like Grafton, with the FRF-institute of sport having a fairly strong showing and a few other set up squads. In fact most clubs had at least 4 riders so I kind of felt a bit out of place being the only club member but was keen to race none the less.

As you would expect the racing was fast, we covered 100kms in 2 hours 15 minutes. The bunch was fairly large with about 67 riders to begin with as it was elite and under 23 combined. To tell you the truth though there was hard parts & I almost got dropped at one point but otherwise it was a fairly easy day out. Once a break went which had a team member from all the main teams the bunch kind of sat up a bit. There were constant attacks but with that size of bunch it was not too difficult going. I think Richard Lang (NSWIS not FRF) won only because I saw him with flowers afterwards. He may have got a place though and got flowers for that.

In the end the race was won by a bunch of 8 by about 100 meters if that. They stayed away for about 20kms and deserved the win. I put my card in the hat and put in an attack with about 500 meters to go quite reminiscent of Dapto except this time I actually went for it as opposed to being forced into that position. & Of course this time they were all A graders. The FRF team were on the front with about 4 riders for Bennet I think and pulled it back very quickly. All in all it was a very enjoyable day out. I absolutely love the course and will no doubt go back and do it all again next year, hopefully with some support!!! (hint hint nudge nudge).

Here's a few photos.


Team DHBC was once again down to me & dad.


I absolutely love riding at the Regatta centre!!


It was a rather large group to begin with. Very nice to sit on.


But very full of teams this year.


Here's the best riding shot we got.


The bike will have to wait for next week for its next big hit out at Wagga.

[FAswad]

How hard would this race be for mere mortals like us?

[Simon Llewellyn]

You know that is actually a really difficult question because there were lots of surges and the pace kicked up pretty sharply at times which can be very difficult to hang on, but generally the pace wasn't too bad. The problem being if you can't cope with the accellerations you'll get dropped even though you may have been able to ride most of the race. They always start out quickly as well, so if you going to get dropped it is likely to be in the first four laps or the middle as the constant grind finally hits you. Today there was a break away from the gun and people weren't too happy about it. So they chased and chased real hard.

I don't have a speedo on my bike anymore so I don't know what the acceration amounted to? But overall I was definitely more stuffed after Dapto, today was pretty easy in comparison. I guess you've got to take into account that I do do alot of sprinting training at the track though so continuous accellerations come pretty naturally. Hills definetely don't!!!!!

[Simon Llewellyn]

Here's the results lap by lap. Dad's taken to using a stopwatch now to kill time in these long haul races. It's not a bad average speed and I'm quite happy to say I've now ridden 100kms without dropping below 40kms/hr at any point. I guess one thing to say though is that we tended to fly down one side of the course and cruise on the other, so the average lap may not totally give the whole picture of the race. The final lap time wasn't properly recorded because dad was timing from the wrong spot so missed the half a lap. I suspect it was close to breaking the 50kms/hr if it didn't?

For reference they were 5km laps...

On a whole it was a lot of fun & not too difficult, I strongly recommend it for next year!!!!!