Racing kicked off at 9am, one hour early for the Upper Beaconsfield round on the shortest day of the year. After much persuasion, Mark finally decided to join Dion and myself (Sav) on a flying 3 team. Whoo hoo.
“The course was a little damp on the warm up lap, but after a few hundred riders had been over it conditions were perfect.Mark had put his hand up for first lap honors and was not getting any resistance from Dion or me. He came out of the blocks with a flyer that put us in a good position on a course that had a lot of work since last year’s race, with virtually no fire road and maybe just a tad more climbing than I cared to remember.
The day was running very smoothly with Mark and Dion putting in good times with a bit of style and flare (see video footage) until the end of lap six when Dion came into transition and Mark was no where to be seen.
I ran back to camp and grabbed my ride and headed to the track, still feeling a bit secondhand from my last lap.
When I got back to transition our lead had slipped back to twenty seconds. Things were a little tight, but with another strong effort by the lads, it was extending once again. All was back on track until Dion’s pedal broke, as luck would have it right beside where we were set up. The next two minutes were too funny, with a pedal being ripped off one bike. Dion’s broken pedal was not coming off his bike. Mark’s bike being grabbed it now only having one peddle and so on. I’m sure you get the picture. All this while our newly extended lead was evaporating. There was a whole lot of “Quick grab that one”, “What if we?”, “The other one”, “Where is that thingy!”.
The last two laps were hard work, good fun racing with maybe the occasional look over one’s shoulder. We ended up about three minutes ahead of 2nd place. Unfortunately, my dream of winning a flashing light was not realized. But there is always next time.