B-grade, Oakville again for six laps of the 7.1k loop. A smallish group rolled out and immediately refused to co-operate. The hill just after the start/finish line proved to be the only place where the pace would pick up, in the hope of shaking off some of the weaker riders. Despite this, the small group remained together throughout the race for a bunch sprint.
The course takes a 90 degree left turn about 600m out from the line. The first couple of hundred metres are a slight incline before levelling out. The final 50-100m has a little uptick, just for fun.
Turning into the final straight and no-one wanted to lead out, fair enough. Another rider lifted to pace on the flatter bit, but had several riders on his tail. Unfortunately for me, I was not one of them - caught in the wind on the left side, but not pushing too hard.
Into the final 400 and the lead out rider was lifting but had no chance from that far out. One rider took off from behind and shot up the right side, so I figured it was time to go down the (vacant) left side. It was flat out to the line from there and was probably fortunate that I had been ignored as a potential lead out - it helped when the other bloke was taking off up the middle of the road. When I looked up as I crossed the line, there was no-one in sight, except for the rider on the far right about a bike length behind (yes, behind!)
What a day! V happy, especially since the bike's rear tyre had only about half-pressure when I went to put it in the car. I pumped it up to about 85psi and hoped for the best... phew!
Ciao,
Ritch.
PS. Maybe spend a little while in the B's, but who knows?