The Phoenix lads and myself lined up at the start of the Stage 1 Criterium around Vansittart Park, and for me it felt like the calm before the storm. After ominous overnight weather at Mt Gambier, the morning of the first day of racing at the Tour of the Great South Coast turned out to be quite pleasant – bar the winds which were slowly picking up. I was feeling quite nervous, even though generally everything seemed calm. I personally would have preferred a time trail or a standard road race rather than a criterium for my first race in the National Road Series, but I was just happy to be along for the ride.
The pace was on from the gun, shelling several riders fairly early on. Tristan Ward managed to hold a reasonable position around two-thirds down the field which allowed him to avoid a lot of the early shelling. After around 15 minutes of racing Tristan was our only rider remaining in the field. Unfortunately he had a mechanical in the last portion of the crit, but a quick wheel change got Tristan back in the field and allowed him to finish with the bunch. It was a harder pace than I was expecting. The winds created gaps which became more and more difficult to close as time went on. My
time recently off the bike due to illness was coming back to haunt me. Nevertheless I was determined to stay with the bunch and keep on pushing. Unfortunately I was not able to cover all the dropped wheels and start dropping off the back with a few other riders. There was a crash at the bottom of the hill which pretty much put my race to an end as I was pull a few laps later.
Most of the lads were eager to start the afternoon stage after the slight disappointment from the crit. I was personally a little nervous about a couple things heading into this stage – first and foremost, whether I could even hold on! After a couple of setbacks in preparation for the last half of the NRS season and the pace in this mornings crit, I didn’t have a proper benchmark on what racing in the NRS was like and didn’t know what to expect.
The Blue Lake Kermesse took the riders up O’Halloran Terrace past the Reidy Park Primary School (where the kids were having a blast cheering on the riders) and around Blue Lake for 10 laps and a total distance of 64km with 1000m of climbing. The team rode really well with by following instructions to work together and moved up through the bunch quite well in formation. This included myself with my focus set on positioning and confidence in the peloton. This was very tough at times, showing the depth and strength of the senior experienced riders from the strong teams driving the pace. Breaks were going and being shut down throughout the whole Stage. This really hurt.
Kelsey, Nathan and Scott rode really well today finishing with the bunch around the Blue Lake circuit with myself, Tristan and McCosker coming in soon after, and Pickering was pulled with around 3 laps to go. On the whole it has been a day of survival and finding my legs again. The overall result has given the team a positive confidence boost with all of us going through to the second day ready to look for some moves!
I am really looking forward to Stage 3 as the team has a few ideas to try out, and I want to reinforce my positive experience from racing Stage 2. I am happy with how things went today. I still have a lot to learn and become stronger, but I have targets set now that I have experienced the NRS.
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