Cycling Victoria - Geelong IRTT. May 25th 2013

With a funeral in Ballarat at 10am I was only a 50/50 chance of making the start line on Saturday. After the church service I was able to point the car towards Geelong to make it there. 64 riders across all grades, slightly up on last year which is good to see. A little confusion about the actual course with three different maps online. Just prior to the start we found out it was a true out-and-back. In the last few years we've never raced back on the main road.

The lead up week was a crack-up. Cycling Victoria were on board creating a bit of a rivalry discussion on Twitter....

Then I whipped up something to add to the event promotion....

That got a few re-Tweets and likes. Great to see the interest in TT growing! With the amount of Kask Bambino helmets getting around at $500 a pop, the local bike shops have to be pleased at the uptake of the discipline too. As for the actual benefits of Bambino over any other helmet, I'm not sold.

Back to the race - A 30km/h westerly wind and the true out-and-back course meant a quick game change from what I was expecting. The Zipp 404 once again got a run due to the cross winds. The course was good, no traffic to contend with at the intersections. A quick time calculation at the turn showed I was about 15 seconds up on Kelly. Back home into the head wind and I had to use a bit of course knowledge to dodge the rough sections of road. The final 2km with the wind was a blast! 53/11 mashing away at 55-60km/h, wheels whistling away, leaving it all out on the road.


A Grade Top 10
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1     Shane MILLER        32:23.667                46.304
2     David KELLY         32:56.538  00:32.871     45.534
3     Nick BENSLEY        32:59.217  00:35.550     45.473
4     Nicholas SQUILLARI  33:20.763  00:57.096     44.983
5     Oscar STEVENSON     33:28.639  01:04.972     44.806
6     Zac SHAW            34:12.674  01:49.007     43.845
7     John CAIN           34:14.254  01:50.587     43.812
8     Stephen LANE        34:23.171  01:59.504     43.622
9     Mark FAGG           34:28.758  02:05.091     43.504
10    Stuart Cameron      34:36.968  02:13.301     43.332 

A Grade Podium

I've had a few club TT wins recently, this A Grade Open Elite win was an awesome bonus for nailing the ride.

Full Results: MyLaps
Cycling Victoria Event wrap up
Jo Upton's Photos
Mandy Hosking's Photos (maybe locked down on FB) 

Helping Dave shave off a few more seconds.

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