Race Report June 27

[Chris Helwig]

An overcast night for what was scheduled as 8 laps of Scotland road.

Still a pretty sizeable group took the start. A few attacks on the first lap were quickly reeled back in. The pace was steady but not super fast, but quite a few attacks. Forsdike was off the front solo followed by Carlos off the front solo. Too big of a field for solo heroics, but the attacks kept coming. Joe Torchia was the most aggressive I have ever seen him and Julio was also aggressive. The home straight saw some good gutter action that made it a bit hard. On the home straight with I think 4 laps to go was where the winning break went. I was way too far back and all I saw was when I looked up there was about 3 groups of 2 riders off the front. They all came together for I think a 6 man break. The break I think was Tony, Graydon, Julio, Joe, Forsdike and Kees. In the pack there was a decent chase mounted with Jamie Gilgen, Sean Forbes, Tony Frosst and myself doing a fair amount of chasing. The remaining Westhaven riders all seemed content to let the break go, which didn't make sense to me as Graydon is clearly the best sprinter in the break. After the break was well ahead Carlos did go to the front, but it was too late. As I understand it the finishing order was:

Graydon
Kees
Tony.
Westhaven 4th and 5th.

Tony or Graydon can hopefully fill in the details on the action in the break and the finishing order.

[Graydon]

I believe the finishing order in the break was myself, Kees, Tony, Julio, Joe, Mike. It was a good group to work with, we pushed hard, and everyone was giving it their best efforts. I looked back once or twice and knew there was a chase effort in progress. A few times we got a bit disorganized, and a few people occasionally had to skip pulls, but overall we kept a good pace. Going into the last turn, Forsdike went to the front and pulled hard down the finishing straight. I was on his wheel, Tony on mine, and the others in tow. As the road tilted up I started my sprint and managed to stay away. Tony might be able to comment on how 2-6 spots played out.

[the Superstar]

From my perspective the early laps were super easy with 3 big solo attacks from Mike, Carlos and Tony Frost. The break started on the start/finish hill when I did a big effort on the front hoping to soften it up for some action on the rollers. About 2/3 of the way up I pulled over and looked and it was just Joe T. on my wheel so we put our heads down and went hard. On the descent I looked back and saw two groups of 2 coming up - Graydon/Julio and Mike/Kees. Once we all linked up we went to work hard, everyone pulling. After a couple of laps of hard action where some pulls were missed and it was not 100% smooth, we settled into a good rhythm. 1.5 laps to go the bunch must have been chasing well because I could see them getting closer so I started to freak out and yell to keep up the speed. Graydon duly obliged by doing a big turn on the rollers. Coming into the sprint, after the Mike lead out it was Graydon and me and Kees on his wheel side by side. I couldn't quite get a good draft and when Graydon went it was a race for second. Graydon just pummelled us. Kees and I drag raced for a bit but he was too good, so I just held off Julio and Joe for 3rd.

Post race note, as I was riding home over the bridge just past the start/finish line, as I got to the bottom there was a house on the left and a black dog came out and cut me off and he was REALLY nasty - flared muzzle, barking with teeth exposed, huge amount of foam all around his mouth and really pissed at me and trying to actually bite me - I had to put my bike between us to keep him away and he kept trying to get around! After a couple of minutes of that I got pissed off myself and charged him with my bike screaming and he yelped and took off back to his house. Beware next time we're out there.

[SIBO]

I heard the lady called the OPP and they want all bike riders muzzled from now on.....