Thursday, July 12, 2012

Teams Series Round 4

Kingaroy hosted the latest round of the Queensland Teams Series, where the team looked to make sure Condy held onto the lead of the Masters category.
Day 1
Saturday was a 120km road race around Maidenwell, which included three laps of a hilly circuit. The boys were fresh and ready to go and hoped to get amongst it.

After the usual hectic start, finally a break of up to 8 riders got away after about 25kms. With still almost 100km to race, the peleton did not panic and let the group gain over 2:30 minutes. The main pack set a steady tempo and managed to keep the break in check. Despite this, the break was clearly setting a high tempo up front, as the gap wasn't coming down.

With a lap to go, Matt and Michael started to get into some moves, hoping that they might be able to get across to the break, but the effort was not rewared. Instead, Matt and Jimmy went to the front to try and reduce the gap.

Into the finale, it was clear the break would have their day, and so the team worked to set Condy up for the sprint, where he was able to get second in the bunch sprint and take a top ten result for the day.

Day 2
With 144km around Kingaroy over a very hard course, some nervous legs came to the start line. Over the first lap and up the main climb of the day, the bunch split in two. Condy was feeling the efforts of day one, and was caught behind the front group. Matt managed to get condy onto his wheel and ride him back up to the front group.

After a brief rest, Matt then followed a move off the front and managed to get himself into the early break of the day. At one point, Matt and his two break away companions gained almost three minutes advantage over the bunch, however the testing course took it's toll and after 50km's of being in the break, what was left of the main bunch caught up.

Counter attacks started, and Matt then finished himself off by setting tempo on the front to bring the leaders back and allow the rest of the team to wait for the finale.

Condy was still suffering to stay witht e front, but managed to hold on and contest the finale. Two riders broke away with only a few kilometres to go, however Condy managed to get another top ten result, which will hopefully allow the team to move up in the standings.

Condy should now win the Masters jersey