Shipwerck Coast Classic Preview

The team's next race is the Shipwreck Coast Classic :
- start : 11.30am  at the Flag Staff Hill in Warrnambool
- finish expected around 2.15pm at the Allansford Cheese World
Have a look at the route and come along to support the girls !

Honda Women's Tour 2011

Well its been an interesting week so far with the 5 of us at the Honda tour this year. We started in Ballarat on Wednesday with a kermesse/criterium/circuit race of 6.2km around Lake Wendouree 7 times with lots of road furniture to get around each lap. The racing started fast with an attack within the first 100m of racing from SASI and attacks continued throughout the first lap with Delphine and Kate ensuring they were within the breaks. There was to be a sprint at the end of lap 2 and 7, and just before the first sprint there was quite a large crash that both Nik and Sarah got caught up in. What followed was what you could call a major kafuffle and the rules became very confusing, some girls thought they could take laps out, some girls were chasing and the follow cars were unable to inform the riders of what to do. The race continued fast and aggressive, Kate got 2nd in the second sprint and gained a time bonus and in the final sprint for the day Stacey finished 15th and Kate 23rd, with Sue Forsyth from NSW the eventual winner. Kate was in 6th on GC due to her time bonus in the sprint; Sarah and Nik were told with 2 laps to go after chasing an aggressive bunch that they were going to get bunch time so rolled in with a smaller bunch of the girls caught up in the crashes.
Stage 2, Thursday, around Belmont specific criterium circuit. We thought Wednesday was a fast start, Thursday was even faster; single file on the first lap. Over half the field was already pulled out as they were going to get lapped by lap 14 (out of 40laps). Position, position, position was the key to this race and  Kate's experience in The Netherlands payed off today, bring the only one to finish the criterium in 12 position and holding onto her 6th overall in GC. Thursday afternoon we went and re-conned the course for the teams time trial the following day and in the evening enjoyed an amazing cous cous with roast chicken and vegetables thanks to the fine dining skills of Nik in our accommodation thanks to BARTERCARD.Stage 3, Teams Time Trial in Drysdale on Portalington Road 6.7km out and then return over the rolling hills. We discovered a definate area of improvement that we need to work on as a team, and one of the disadvantages of us not having been able to have our teams training day as planned due to circumstances that had arised. Kate took off very fast, maybe as a result of the last 2 days, but caused a break down in the team working together and it ended with Sarah pulling some massive turns to bring home Kate and Delphine.Stage 4 Sorrento to Arthurs Seat, 43.5km a hilly stage. 1/2 of us stayed in Sorrento, the other half stayed in Geelong and caught the ferry over in the morning, waking up to a windy, yet Sunny morning on the bay. It was 10km with a tail wind before heading into the last 30km of rolling hills. Fast and furious yet again from the gun the first 10km was covered in about 15minutes, about 50km/hour. Nicole suffered from a puncture, and the rest of us suffered from punctured lungs at sometime during the day, with Sarah being our top finisher followed by Kate. We all need to do a hill climbing camp to improve our climbing abilities and move forward a a team.