Wheelers Wheeling Windy Windsor Park (May 1st 2016)

[ianbrown]

Summer vibes greated the Wheelers at Windsor Park today, along with Discovery Coffee and Yonni's Donuts.

During a quick warmup along waterfromt the game plan was hatched. With 6 rocking the blue and gold, we split into teams of two, Trev and Kristoff (Eugene), ARuss and Geoff, and then myself and Stephane. We were going all in for the win, there would always be a duo up the road, and if they got brought back, we had another locked and loaded ready to go right back up.

From the gun Trev and Eugene got a nice gap with some forgotten cabouses, but were quickly brought back by the fresh legs of the peloton in a few laps. Can man Canning launched an attack down the back straight. Being on crowd control duties, I quickly jumped on his wheel, followed by Geoff, ARuss and Jordan Landolt, form a strong griup of 5 (3 Wheelers, 2 Russ Hays). Since we had the numbers and being completed out gunned by the other 4, I threw in what I could, but let the other 4 manage the pace. Within a handful of laps we had the gap to the main field at 30secs, where it held for quite a while, but soon the break picked up its pace and the chase wavered (thanks to some excellent shut down maneuvers from the 3 Wheelers in the pack). We quickly up'd the gap to 45, then 60seconds, and a little after 30mins into the race we can come around back around and lapped the main field.

Back with the field the effort levels dropped enough the break to get some recovery, knowing that we had our full team now able to help bring back any funny busnisess from the Russ Hays duo. So aside from from a couple efforts the second half of the race was pretty uneventful.

Since the main field was lapped, their sprint was 3 laps before the break of 5 were set to finish. Trev and Stephane lead out Eugene for the pack sprint and 7th on the day. Through the pack sprint chaos the group of 5 got split up, where I got stuck at the back with Jordan. Geoff, Aruss and Cody played it a little smarted and had an easy gap on us. Staring to get a leg cramp and knowing we had the numbers up the road, I happily sat on Jordans wheel as he bridged us up. Geoff and Andrew tried the old 1-2 punch on Canning to no avail, as he miraculously powered away in the last half lap for the well earned win. Jordan then tried to come arournd Aruss and Geoff, but I stuck to his wheel and launched out of the final corner, nudgeing my wheel in front of his just before the line to take 2nd.

Despite really wanting the win in our home race, we have to happy with executing our race plan two a T and only being beat by BC Crit Champ. And coming away with a 2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th against some other pretty big guns.

Again thanks to all the volunteers and Oak Bay Bikes for putting on the race, and all the Wheelers sponsers who make riding bikes really fast in small circles for an hour possible!

PS. Just moved and have no internet so writing on phone, will fix spelling tomorrow.

[andrewbyrnes]

Also a very exciting race in the B group this weekend. A big group of 27 riders took to the course. Four Wheelers were wearing the colors in this race including myself, Randy, Dave, and Marcel. There were lots of attacks early in the race, but our group of four kept together as the attackers eventually made their way back to the pack. IRC and Tripleshot also had some strong riders in the B group and were teams to watch.
At the midpoint of the race, and working as a team, we started making our way to the front of the peleton--looking for good position to respond to any more serious attacks that might be coming. Randy was in the lead; pulling the three other Wheelers and navigating us through and around other riders. With about 10 minutes + 5 laps to go the pack was starting to get strung out and gaps were forming at each of the corners; spelling opportunity for attack.
With 8 minutes to go, a big attack came from some very strong riders. Dave was on the button and fought hard to reel in the attacking 4-5 riders with me on his wheel. For 3/4 of a lap Dave was reeling them in one by one and on turn #1 we caught the leader. I had good momentum and fresh legs so went on the offensive attacking off the front. A shoulder check and two other riders had gone with me, Matt (IRC) and one other. We'd opened up a 10 sec gap in the process. With only 7 laps to go, the three of us pace lined taking turns on the front and got the gap opened to almost 20 seconds. Unfortunately it was not enough--or the pack knew what they were doing--and they managed to catch us with less than a lap remaining.
A good team effort all around!