Victorian State Titles:
The middle of August marked that time of year when the Victorian State Titles roll around. Friday the 13th was the 20km down and back ITT down along the foreshore at Portarlington. With a strong team including new member Clare Dallat who recently placed 4th at the Irish National Championships in the TT, expectations were reasonably high. The competition was tough as the event doubled as a national road series race, with several interstaters coming south to try their luck.Unfortunately no one from the TDT R.A.C.E team was overly satisfied with their result, Chloe was the highest placed in 15th, 1:05 back from the winner, VIS rider Jo Hogan. Flick was only 2 seconds further back in 16th. But to take the positives out of the race, there was a big improvement in several riders compared to last year and with such small time gaps between 1st and 20th place, the girls did ok.
The middle of August marked that time of year when the Victorian State Titles roll around. Friday the 13th was the 20km down and back ITT down along the foreshore at Portarlington. With a strong team including new member Clare Dallat who recently placed 4th at the Irish National Championships in the TT, expectations were reasonably high. The competition was tough as the event doubled as a national road series race, with several interstaters coming south to try their luck.Unfortunately no one from the TDT R.A.C.E team was overly satisfied with their result, Chloe was the highest placed in 15th, 1:05 back from the winner, VIS rider Jo Hogan. Flick was only 2 seconds further back in 16th. But to take the positives out of the race, there was a big improvement in several riders compared to last year and with such small time gaps between 1st and 20th place, the girls did ok.
Saturday was the road race with 2 laps of a brutal 47.7km course out at Anakie. The team did some reconnaissance the weekend before and decided the course was definitely going to be one of attrition. The race started off with a 6km steady climb, then come some undulating hills before a steep and tricky descent down over a bridge and then a wall of a climb out of the other side. This climb is where the race plan came slightly unstuck…Chloe was one of the first down the descent and then had some bad luck strike when a mechanical problem forced her to stop on the climb and fix a thrown back wheel. Bec stopped and waited, and dragged Chloe back up to the group, along with assistance from Sarah and Flick which took almost 5km. By the time the girls got back on there was about 3km recovery before the major QOM. With a lot of energy being used to get Chloe back up to the front it was going to be a tough task climbing with heart rates already beating at max.The major climb is where the bunch blew apart with 8 girls in the front bunch and then a chase group of 10 including Bec and Chloe, followed by the a strung out rest of the peloton including Sarah, Vic, Flick and Delphine.
The rest of the race was just a matter of finishing with winds picking up, the threat of rain and hill after hill. After the first lap, almost half of the 60 odd field had pulled out. The chase group worked well together but not well enough to pull in the lead group. About 5km from the finish, Chloe had a slow leak in her back tyre which limited any chance of sprinting for a top 10 finish, coming through in 15th place. Bec finished just off the back of the chase group in 17th place, and Sarah had a solid race to finish in the third group in 21st place. The win was taken by fellow Victorian Jo Hogan ahead of Laura Luxford and Loren Rowney.All girls agreed that this course was one of the toughest they had ridden.
Sunday was the final day of competition in the form of a criterium at Eastern Park in Geelong. As most would have heard the race was marred by a horrendous crash just after the finish line due to a photographer stepping out in front of a bunch of girls on a saturated course. Former team mate Jenny MacPherson got the win. Unfortunately Sarah and Vic got caught up in the crash, but luckily escaped with no serious injuries.
All in all not a bad tour for the first time with the new line up riding together, no amazing results but consistently up there with a bit of bad luck. Now to look forward to the next one!!
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