This would be my last set of races for the year. I'm not going to lie...being right at the end of a long year of racing, motivation levels were not high, but I was prepared to put a big effort in for one last weekend. I was entered in the 4km Team Pursuit with Darling Downs Cycling Club alongside Matt Hickey, Matt Locker and Trent West, the 15km Scratch Race and the 4k Individual Pursuit.
4km Team Pursuit
We qualified with the fastest time of 4 min 39 sec. This of course put us in the gold medal ride-off later that evening. Not a blazingly fast time, but we rode well together and some of our team were on their first ever attempt at a team pursuit so we were pretty happy:
The final was a short time later and again we produced a controlled efort. We were up against the University Cycling Club who had qualified only one second slower than we did. It was close until late in the race when we managed to pull away and take the win by three seconds with a 4 min 37 sec effort. It's always nice to win a Queensland title:
Scratch Race
There were seventeen starters in this event and to say it was fast was an understatement. Five or six of the biggest young talents in Queensland track cycling involved and they absolutely tore it up. The field disintegrated very quickly and there were officially only four finishers. I was pulled out by about a third of the way through and at that point there were only eight riders left. I was actually quite happy with that effort:
I decided at that point to withdraw from the 4km Individual Pursuit the next day. My legs were shattered and my heart just wasn't in it.
Credit to St.George and Darling Downs Cycling Clubs for the photos I have used in this blog post.
So that's it for 2017! Unfortunately I was forced to miss the Queensland Masters Track Championships as they were moved to a December timeslot this year (due to the Commonwealth Games) and I had already booked and paid for an awesome family vacation at Noosa during that time. Not a worry though, as all of my energy will go into the Australian Masters Track Championships which will be held in Melbourne in early March 2018...right after I have a little rest.
Nice write up Dean. Alway like reading back your account of the events. Really enjoyed racing with you this year. My first year of racing on the velodrome and I'm a little bit hooked. My highlight was riding the Madison with you. First time I have ever done the arm fling... and it was in the race. We all stayed upright! Cheers, Matt Hickey
ReplyDeleteHey Matt. Very happy you enjoyed the madison, they are awesome!
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