Chris has a spare road bike for me to use while here so we decided to go for a short local ride and meet up with another friend, Colly to work out some of the plane ride stiffness. Very nice to be riding with Chris around the town and area of Golburn, seemed very familiar and nice. The weather, windy and cooler but very acceptable. A stop by Gloria Jeans coffee shop for a latte and then back home for tea/dinner and then early to bed, seems like a long time since a real bed
Saturday morning, up early and off to a local car show that Chris' buddy Marxy helped organize. The team van graphics were from Marxy's hands so he wanted the van there for a while but we needed to get back to Sydney to register and then ride a few warm up laps just to get a feel for the track again.
Back in Sydney, registration in the Handle Bar pub which is attached to the velodrome, how convienient. The warm up ride times were scheduled by age group and seemed a bit restrictive but as we got to the track, there wasn't that many out so any age group and any number on the track were good. Very easy to start feeling comfortable on a great track. Identical to ours, but with a roof on the place the track surface is perfect, smooth, not slippery and seems very fast. A few hours later and we are headed back to Golburn, dinner and a nights sleep and then back to Sydney for the week, staying at the Ridges Hotel for the week almost right across the street from the Velodrome.
Sunday, packed and ready to go back to Sydney, lots of driving, it's about 2 plus hours between Golburn and Sydney, so it's great to be staying at the hotel. Sunday is another training day with a few more efforts to start preparing for Mondays 500TT. Close to the end of my time on the track the start gate was brought out for practice. Never having been in one before I thought it would be good. My first time in, count down to go and the gate sticks on, no start. The next few times seemed to get better every time and then the line got massive so I guess we were done for the day. More great time on the track and then drive around to find a dinner spot, back the the hotel and bed.
Both Chris and I have a 500TT on Monday. He is part of the first group out and I am in the second group. We are up at 6 to get to the track and start warming up. The open track closes at 9 to start racing and I wasn't going to repeat my Colorado mistake of getting there too late for a proper warm up. We had plenty of time and actually needed to spend some time on the rollers to stay warm. Before racing, bike weigh in, 7.36 Kilos well over the min. of 6.8 and a helmut check. Chris is supposed to be second out but the first riders scratched so he is first out of the gate. A PR for Chris so he was happy. A half hour or so later, I'm out. The start was a bit shaky from about 10 meters to 30 meters but then or it and before you know it it's over. I was a bit disappointed but still did a PR at 42.63 and 42.228 KPH. I ended up 20th out of 25 with one DNS. Warm up race for the real stuff to come on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The rest of the day is relaxing, finding food and getting a bit more situated as well as blog time.
Tomorrow, Chris does a individual pursuit bright and early again so I will go with and help call out splits for him. More results to come. I have a day off for a casual short bike ride for fun.
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