The Cross Melburn series is being held at Lysterfield park which is traditionally a mountain bike venue but those who tore themselves away from their latte’s, deeply intellectual conversations and left the confines of the inner city were rewarded with a sweet course, cracking weather, good coffee and good people.
The day started early and once again Ben Vlass proved that when it comes to erecting a tent/marquee he is your man. Once setup many coffees were downed while a lot of shit was talked which is the iRide way.
Will and Llew were looking pretty relaxed knowing that Ontario’s under 12 cyclocross champion Ken Moore wasn’t going to be there to cause them any trouble. Will also seemed fresh as having spent the previous day being shown the basics of bike mechanics by Ross he wasn’t able to head out on an easy road ride only to come home 3 hours later fucked because he is always trying to prove he is a heavy hitter.
Ben Vlass was racing in the Open class on his mountain bike this time so he was the first to race, he would have the full “support” of the team from the sideline. Vlass looked good at the start but seemed to lose himself in the middle of the race unlike Andrew Threlfall who was charging through the field once warmed up. 3 quarters into the race Vlass rolled through the starting area looking a little too casual. This prompted Will to throw his almost empty coffee cup at Vlass and make the threat that if he didn’t pick things up next time he rolled through it was going to be a chair coming his way. Wasting a good coffee like that hurt Will but he knew that he needed to be a hero at that moment and take one for the team in order to motivate Vlass. Suffice to say Vlass put in for the rest of the race for a solid finish.
Just as the open class finished Phil Wood and Double Trouble in the form of Simon and David Ross rolled up, so more coffees were downed, more shit was talked and even a few practice laps were done.... well maybe 1 practice lap.
With A grade CX class due to the start soon the boy started warming up Will, Llew and ring in Dan all started rolling around while Ross was warming his voice up for the vocal torture he was about to dish out. Dan got off to his usual flying start while Llew, followed by Will were slightly impeded by a rider who made up for his lack of fitness with an ability to block riders like no other. As soon as the track opened up Will was able to lay down some power. Llew tried to follow Will as he laid down the ponies up the climb on the course but then realized Will was probably going to do his traditional party trick of going out hard to early then blowing up so he let him go. About 3 laps in, Rapha Condor rider Casey Munro and Giant rider Lewis Rattray were going hard at trying to tear each other’s legs off. Lewis made a charge but Casey came back for more. Then in an unfortunate twist of fate, whilst doing 40km/h down a gravel road, Lewis gestured to one of his support crew, hit a bump in the road and went down like Divine Brown on Hugh Grant – it wasn’t pretty. Lewis’ arm was gouged to the bone and full of stones. Needless to say he required surgery that night, and if you're reading this Lewy, heal up tiger!
By the halfway point the race seemed to have sorted itself out into a nice order. Will was showing a pain face like no other whilst running about 6th. Dan was holding strong in second and Llew was running about 8th.Not long after this, Will seemed to be running out of power and slowing down a bit. 7th place was getting closer and closer to him and worst of all he could see the large gap he had on Llew was getting slightly smaller each lap. Will feared he may have gone too hard too soon. After all this is cross, not love making.
At this point is it worth bring up the small steep loose pinch climb on the course. Everyone had to walk up it except Llew who was using a combination of skill and power to ride up it. Fast forward to 3 quarters into the race and Will has 7th place right on his wheel. The crew consisting of Ross, Vlass, half of double trouble and other spectators (mainly ladies who couldn’t resist Will’s musk) were all at the pinch climb. After receiving some vocal “support” from the crew, Will came in and powered his way up the pinch climb using less skill then Llew instead favouring horsepower. In the process of doing it Will got his second wind and rode 7th place off his wheel and was chasing down 6th.
Llew was suffering from the burden of having been the only rider to do the pinch climb every lap and had dropped back to 9th. Dan was still holding strong in 2nd, proving that 2 weeks ago at Dirty Deeds round 3 was a mishap from a guy who generally kicks ass. On the 2nd last lap Will caught 5th place then made sure he put a whole lot of sweet daylight between them. The other boy’s positions stayed the same so in the end Dan got 2nd, Will got 5th and Llew got 9th. A pretty solid outing.
Needless to say, the Jamis Nova's are still running brilliantly and the SRAM running gear matches perfectly. Some may have noticed that the team are now rocking the new Garneau X-Lite helmets. At 190 grams, matched with a skinsuit, it is the closet thing to riding naked without getting your 40" python caught in the chain.
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