Tennent Creek Tour - The Outcome

As I said, if one keeps one's expectations low then one is never disappointed. So we drive for 11 hours to get there on the Friday. We swap drivers every hour or so and had some great laughs. We get there with the usual stiffness and lazy feeling when Andy bounds out of his van and says "What time for a ride?" We all look at each other and sigh. Anyway about a half hour later we're on the road checking out the course. It's a 20 something km out and back on some of the roughest road surface I've ridden on.

So the next day we have a 3.1km time trial which determines what grade you race in for the road race and the crit. I, not having ever been a time trialist am not worried about anything and confident of riding the 'C' grade road race of 40km in the afternoon. We race the race, I put in all I could and go back to the unit happy with my mediocre performance. The thing that was a bit weird was we didnt get to find out what grade you were in until the road race starts.

Aaron and I ride to the start of the road race and decide to take the back streets. Now Tennent Creek has had it's share of media attention regarding alcohol problems and as we went down the first back street we could see the whole street shimmer with broken glass. A quick 'yikes!!!' and we turn around and went on the main roads (very thin race tires and glass dont mix).

At the start the officials pin the results of the time trial and the subsequent gradings on the trailer and I am confused that I cant find my name in the 'C' grade list. Much to my horror I find myself in 'B' grade riding instead of a 40km race a 80km race!!!! This is not good news and thankfully Aaron made me put four Gu's in my pocket.

So I immediately went into defensive mode with the sole aim of not getting dropped and having to ride 80km on my own because: a) it's embarrassing and b) it's hard. We rode out and I took my turns on the front and Trevor (from Kunnunurra and riding for Darwin) and I noticed that no one wanted to do any work......it's going to be one of thoses races :)

Anyway I made sure I was on the front on the hills and the turn arounds but sheltered in the head wind and about half way I'm starting to feel that maybe if I hang on that if I'm in the bunch at the finish I might be able to give the sprint a nudge.

To cut a long story short I was about 10th wheel in the last km, Trevor and some bloke from Alice Springs were off the front by about 20m and I got boxed in but then about 200m to go a gap opened up and I thought 'go for it'. I rode past all riders and was gaining on Trevor but the line was too close and I got 3rd. I could not believe it!!!

I was very very excited about that and if you ever meet Aaron and Andy (who I shared the unit with) they will tell you that I didnt shutup about it :)

My crit was bloody terrible but I dont care I got a podium in the road race in 'B' grade!!!!

Top weekend and everyone was already planning next year.