Category: B

Paul and I rode the track this evening. Paul rode in the A group (the good guys) and I rode in the B group (the not so good guys).

This was my first racing after my 3-week lay-off and boy, did it show. I didn't worry the scorer in any way except winning the cookie prime in the first scratch race. Great, except that they are peanut butter cookies and as peanut butter isn't my favourite substance, I cannot really enjoy them :-(

I turned up viewing this evening as intensity training and so it turned out, except that I was not able to go at too high a pace for too long. I did make sure that I wasn't the first rider eliminated in the de'il and though I was dropped early in the combined points race, I did jump back on a lap down for a good workout for another 10 laps or so.

Next week I will gear up a bit from the 50x16 I was using this evening. Let's hope the extra development contributes to some extra speed.

In the A's, Paul was looking strong and managed a 5th place finish in their de'il. He was almost eliminated in 6th spot by a beautiful move by the rider in front of him, but another rider was riding too low on the track and was elininated instead. As I indicated, the move was classy and was timed so well there was little Paul could do about it. He was trying to come round the second to last rider to eliminate him, and quite legally, this rider moved up the track and slowed. This forced PP to go hogher and slow also, and when he was in the middle of decelerating, the other rider jumped away clear and making sure that PP would be the last rider. Nice move, shame it was on Paul.

In the C's there was a crash. I am not sure what happened - someone said that there was the classic touch of wheels. Three riders went down (2 female and one male) and one of the females has a suspected fractured collar-bone. She let forth quite a verbal torrent after the crash...

All in all, it was very nice to be back at the track and the large number of riders in all categories is very encouraging. It is great to see 15 riders in each group.

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