Robert Winder

I’m glad I waited a day for the perspective to come to me.  If I’d written this post last night it’d be full of self-pity and the guy that reads this blog (I call him Tom, because he’s in Belgium) would be turned off from ever reading again!  This was the stuff of dreams, sad as it sounds, but I’ve wanted this kind of day for a long time.

24 hours on, and I can see yesterdays Menlo Park GP M35+ 123 race in a whole new light.  For the first time this season we had a good team showing, Dave  “don’t call me English” Nelson, Chris “the engine” Carscadden, Steve “Quick Pop” Pelaez and me.  Dave had wanted to show himself strong and laid it all out in the break that stuck, until early season form got in his way.  With Briggs, Robertson, et al going strong it looked like game over.

Until Chris came by and hammered so many laps that my fingers  were going numb from being in the drops for so long, surely he deserved the Most Aggressive Rider award for his long solo pulls to bring the break back to under 15 seconds.  Almost as soon as he swung off he was back on the front drilling again trying to pull back the break.  Without his heroics the next chapter would’ve been even more bleak.

With 3 to go Steve called me up to follow his wheel, “I’m going nuclear if this break doesn’t come back with 2 to go”.  OK.  Steve and I haven’t ridden together yet, but I found out what its like to be on the wheel of a guy competing in the World Cup Track races - one word - “ouch”.  The nuclear war started into turn 3 and the fall out finally came after turn 2, a lap later, when I just couldn’t get on the wheel of the break, 3 bike lengths might as well have been 3 miles.  For one lap I tried to get on terms with Steve and connect to the break, but couldn’t, “Quick Pop” is more than a tag line - he was truly amazing to close that gap so quickly.

Now comes the self-pity: Guilt, thats all, I hang my head in shame at the efforts of the team.  Thanks boys for a lot of fun yesterday.  I can’t wait to repay it.