Waikari Classic 2012

I did this race as the second in March which was a month of big races. I thought that this would give me a bit of fitness before the Grape Ride and Le Race. The course was a 25km block out at Waikari which took in a category 5 climb on state highway 7 going north out of Waikari. Four laps of the course and it was a handicap race to boot.

I started in the 28 minute mark and we quickly caught the mark ahead of us. With some extra riders who were a bit slower hanging on,  we had a bit of a clear out twice a lap, firstly between Hawarden and Waikari with the norwester behind us. We hit 50km/h and aimed to hold it for 7 or 8 km and then on the cat 5 climb on s/h 7. This was quite successful as each time one or two riders would struggle to stay with us and slowly drop off the back of the bunch.

Between John and me, we rallied everyone to work hard, pointed out that we were in the lead and yet to be caught. Each lap we reminded everyone of the same and did not see any other bunches until the last 10 km when we saw a bunch of 4 or 5 of them about 500 metres behind us. This spurred us on to ride even faster and keep our advantage. We sprinted into the finish and I came in 4^th place to win $100.We were well clear of any bunches behind us. I finished the 100km in a total time of 2 hours 52 minutes and was a little dehydrated given the warm day and the norwester blowing. Everyone felt that it was a very hard race, given the distance, warm conditions and blustery cross winds.