Robert Winder

So, I think Joel summed up this race pretty well:

Masters race was interesting, the field being small the pace was somewhat on the slow side. I took off from the gun to try to speed things up but never got a really big gap and the only taker was a Morgan Stanley rider who wasn’t going to work, so… back to the drawing board. Sat and watched as breaks formed and were caught. Then with 10 laps to go or so, a Squadra rider took a flyer and a Mako rider then bridged. Thought it looked promising, so I bridged up as well. It wasn’t the smoothest break but it stuck. Two to go I pulled a bunch cause the other guys were prematurely playing the end game I thought, field was getting close. Last lap, I gapped them a bit on the hill, but they got on my wheel again after. Ended in a dead sprint, in which I got second. After five weeks of Cal Cup Velo promo races (which I love) the nice payout was a shocker.

Having worked hard to keep the race together, I saw Scott Derdenger go off in front of me and I didn’t respond. It was pretty much a text book move - bugger - and I was sick as a parrot to have been so stupid to think it wouldn’t stay, especially when I saw Joel move up there too.

Coming to the finish I’d already resolved to go early, and use the hill to my advantage on the last lap. The finishing straight was downhill and had a strong cross/head wind, these are definitely two factors that create problems for my fast spinning sprint against the guys with the big legs. I made my move and didn’t look back, up the right side of the road and round the last two turns in front. The finish wasn’t pretty, I looked more like someone tying themselves in knots than actually sprinting. I guess that was obvious to the guys behind me, and was passed by Morgan Stanley but still held on to 5th.

There is an impressive sequence of photos that shows my all over the bike huffing and puffing sprint.