2005 SACA ROAD RACE 2:

After missing race 1 due to a knee injury received while practicing advanced front braking techniques (won’t reveal it here, least every Tom, Dick and Harry beats me round the corner next race) AND having to deal with mad people on bikes who question my mathematical skills. I decided promptly that I would be racing this time round.

Heck, anything that gives me a legitimate excuse to not be at the timekeeping tent for an hour at least!

Was racing Sports Cat, and as the 2^nd last cat to go. I had ample time to warm-up and bug the other sluts milling around. Whom of which, I must mention. There were very little this time round.

We went from having a “gazebo” and enough sluts+family/blablabla to form a cheer-leading squad to a total of 7 Sluts! Nigel & Diesel racing in the Super Masters, Beef and Spanish Fly racing in Masters Cat, Stick and Sandman as motorcycle outriders.

Anyhow, on with story

Warm-up itself consisted of 3 fast rides to the nearest toilet (strategically spaced out over a period of 4hours) and several laps of Car Park A. After which I ran out of time, and I was ready to race, whether I liked it or not.

Felt jittery at the start line, this being my first race and all. Heart was pounding and I was upset I wasn’t in time to get a better start position. I was stuck behind 2 rows of riders, and was fearful of being dropped right from the start. Most importantly, I wasn’t in a good photo-taking position, and my dad wasn’t able to capture any shots of me!

Race was fast from the start, made it round the first corner safely, and saw the peloton was already moving ahead without me! Nooo!! Sped up and caught up before the 2^nd corner, which was pretty sketchy. Swerved left and right to avoid getting my front wheel smashed and was pretty relieved to come out alright. For a moment I really thought I was going to buy it. Came out of the corner to see 1 guy had already crashed. He wouldn’t be the last`

The first few laps proceeded in this manner, with more people crashing out at the 2 90 degree corners. One particular time, was pretty iffy, I was coming out of the 3^rd corner (onto the 4 lane road, s-bends) when I heard a crash behind me. Turned around, and saw a guy that was just behind me had bought it. Well, better him then me!

The next memorable bit was when the whole section of the bit of the peloton I was in suddenly disintegrated! One moment I was among riders, the next moment I was seeing the peloton pull away from me! A quick check showed that a good 20mins of time still remained, I wasn’t going to allow myself to get dropped that early in the race. Had to spend quite abit of energy here, bridging to the back of the peloton. Just making it back to the safety of it on the home straight and took the first corner fast enough to get back into the pack.

The next fun bit was when I discovered that the wind was coming from the LEFT on the s-bend portions. So I decided to try irritating the ANZA riders, by coming in from the back, to the front and then slowing down to break the pace some.

Don’t think I succeeded really; no one took notice of an insignificant twit like me. I got dropped back to the mid/rear of the pack when we reached the corners again. I wasn’t feeling confident cornering right behind some of those guys, in addition to the fact that the ground was still slick from passing showers.

The last bit of fun I can say I had in the race was when I saw a break of 3 riders go off the front. I looked at the time, and it seemed as good a time as any to break for it.

I had come sneakily up to the front on the s-bends, and then instead of attacking as I should have tried to (heck, newbie has no face to lose! Attack or no attack also no chance for placing!)I let myself come to the front of the main bunch SOMEHOW.

So I picked up the pace, in hope of killing some people and bridging across to the front 3, before launching my own nefarious attack.

Yes, ambitious plan! I vaguely remember thinking of the of-quoted maxim “aim for the stars and settle for the moon or something. Well, apparently my aim is real lousy.

This went on for a few seconds till I realized that it wasn’t going to work. I signaled for the guy behind me to take over. But it was a damn ANZA rider, who had 2 guys up front and wasn’t going to work.

He kept telling me something, like “go on! You can do it! Or something to that effect”

A lot of rubbish that went out the other end, as even chao newbie like me knows. I’m not ANZA, I’m not going to work for him!  He’s the guy who has ½ the peloton filled with teammates.

After this point really, all I remember was suffering through a lot more corners praying I didn’t crash. Able to go to near the front of the peloton, but unable to hold my place in the line (still not experienced enough) and being too far back on the final lap to do any damn thing but finish with the pack. I couldn’t even pretend to sprint and get away with it!