Cross Melburrrrrrrrrrrrrrn!

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.

I feel the need for deeds, Dirty Deeds!!

Round 2 of the Dirty Deeds cyclocross series started off pretty normal for Team iRide, Will Geor showed up once the tent was setup and as always it wasn’t his fault he was late. The big shock of the day was Llew Thomas not only showing up before the race started, but he was one of the first of the team to arrive.

New edition to the team Catherine Fraser-Smith was first to go in the open category. Catherine proved the old saying of spin to win is always true, spinning her way to second place in open female with a smile the whole time and somehow staying remarkably clean. Questions would be raised later that night in the Wilkinson/Fraser-Smith household as to who was the more elite athlete.

With all of the Team iRide cyclocross riders in A grade we got to watch the B grade race. After seeing the fast start that B grade got off too it was being mooted by more than one time rider that maybe getting a kebab and going home was a better option.

While most other riders were warming up, Ken Moore went searching for some of the many people who had video camera in the hope of doing a rider interview, but sadly no one seemed too interested in getting an insight into the 4^th placed B grade rider from round 1.

Lining up on the start line it became clear just how big A grade was with over 50 riders, Mikkeli lined up in his preferred front row position with the rest of the team trying to hide in rows two through to four. In the lead up to the action most team members were trying to play it down and put pressure on the others. Ken Moore was spouting his usual line of “I'm just here to have fun” while Will kept going on about how he had a road race the previous day. As soon as the starter yelled go it was on and any notion of taking it easy was out the backdoor along with a few riders who were struggling from the get go.

Mikkeli used his fast start to once again be one of the first riders into the corner only to be held up at the first barrier when Michael Crosbie plowed into the first barrier, giving the rest of the field a 'hello boys' stance on all fours. Needless to say, it would have proven quite valuable for Crosbie to learn how to get off a bike at speed before declaring world domination in the world of CX. Shortly after this Will became the team rider leading the charge sitting in about 20^th position. Will had Llew and Ken nipping at his heels. The race started to spread out over the next 20 minutes and by this point most team riders were in a world of pain that only someone who has raced cyclocross could understand. Head Honcho Ross Wilkinson was using his diesel engine to slowly but surely work his way through the field. One spectator was overhead saying how Ross reminded of him a rugged Jan Ullrich.

10 minutes later Llew bridged the gap to Will, who more than likely would be regretting not exaggerating how hard the road race was he day before in order to provide some excuses. Ken was a little further back after deciding that laying down in a couple of corner would be a nice break.

Whilst this was going on the real battle was between Ross and Ben Vlass who were turning themselves inside out in order to beat the other. Vlass beat Ross in round one which would explain why Ross turned up for round two not saying too much and being all about the business. Ross, covered in 5 laps worth of beer thanks to the boys in the Hell Krew, passed Vlass with a few laps to go with a big turn of speed. Details are sketchy but it appears the mental anguish of being passed caused Vlass too blow harder then a cheap hooker resulting him pulling out with 1 lap to go. DNF remorse will haunt Ben for the next 12 months as he is unable to make Round 3 at Brunswick velodrome.

With one lap to go Will could see he was catching back up to Llew, he was also very fearful that Ken may come outta no where and roll him on the line, pure dirty Canadian style. A painful last lap made sure Ken didn’t make any special appearances and got him onto Llew’s wheel with half a lap to go. Disaster/miracle whichever way you look at it struck when a lapped racer who Llew and Will were passing crashed in a corner allowing Llew to get a gap on Will going into the final quarter of the track. Will chased hard to catch Llew at the start of the finishing straight but a fast finishing Llew held off Will for team glory.

Llew ended up in 24^th place, Will in 25^th, Ken cruised home a little bit later for 26^th. Mikkeli and Ross held their own with 33^rd and 36^th respectively and Vlass stilled managed 43^rd even after having to pull out early.

A massive thanks goes out to Jamis Bicycles and SRAM for supplying some amazing bikes that performed flawlessly in some extremely muddy conditions. Cyclocross is hard work, but this winning combination sure made our day much easier! Look forward to seeing you all at round 3 in August!