Always go in with a plan.
It was a _perfect_ spring day in Sydney with Marconi hosting Parramatta and Penrith, as well as a few others, for some graded scratch races. The course is a flat and fast 3km lap that takes in the West Sydney International Dragway as the start/finish straight (a loooong and wide finishing straight).
I had another go in B-grade, last time I was spat out the back in the finale and finished probably around 20th out of 25. This time I was going to follow a plan.
I know I'm not the fastest sprinter, but can do a little bit of TT from triathlon, so waiting around for the bunch sprint is not the best idea in the world. We had 18 laps to do and about 20 riders, so the idea for me was to gamble that any early breaks would come to nothing, sit at the back and try to counter after a hard chase at around 2/3 distance. 2/3 distance seemed like a good idea 'cos it still meant a good 25 minutes to go, so the chasing bunch might let go for a while (hopefully too long...).
As it panned out, there weren't any serious breaks in the early stages as anyone that tried to escape was reeled in within half a lap - no-one was willing to let a group go, so it stayed together for most of the race. There was a Turramurra jersey in front of me that decided to have a go at almost exactly the same moment that I was considering the same thing: six to go and the bunch had slowed after a couple of faster laps. We went hard and got a gap as the bunch looked at each other - those on the front had done a lot of work already. We swapped turns and stayed away until 4 to go, but the Turramurra fellow was too strong for me, and we were swallowed up anyway as the group organised itself.
Oh well, four to go and still plenty of time to recover if another break doesn't go. Lucky again as it was easy to jump on the back of the bunch that was going fast enough to discourage anyone from taking off, but not too fast. At two to go, I threw my hat in the ring again when everyone slowed and pushed hard for maybe 30 seconds - it wasn't going to happen, so I dropped back to the safety of the bunch before spending my (ahem) sprint for nothing.
Last lap and no-one wanted to lead - it wasn't my problem - I was right at the back recovering, but no-one wanted to try their luck with 2km to go. The pace increased (as it does), I found a big unit to sit behind and he pushed through to about half-field. The final sprint is about 600m to the line, so you can't quite go full on from the corner. I sat on until about 400m, by which time an eager beaver wearing (I think) a Turramurra jersey took off up the left and was chased by... just about everyone. My lead out started to lose power at about 300m, so I had to go and pushed up the right side, where no-one was on my wheel.
Head down for a few more seconds, look to the side and see four riders - the eager beaver kept his gap to the end, winning by a bike length or two. The next three hit the line more or less together, my throw wasn't enough, so it was fifth for me... not too bad for a 'non-sprinter'. I can throw in a smiley 😄
Oh well, when I look at the bunch and think about where I ought to finish, fifth is probably a good result - at least I had a plan and executed it, this time pretty well. Unfortunately, the motor just isn't big enough, but having a plan got more out of it than otherwise.
Next time...
Ritch
PS. FWIW, if you _do_ have the motor, it changes things. I heard that Eddie Salas rode everyone off the wheel to win solo in A-grade...