Round 2 and a chance for improvement from the previous races. My job this time was to pick up the water bottles - certainly a more realistic target. Our main focus was to try and get George in the winning move and with the large field and what was going to be a fast pace this wasn't going to be easy.
The start of the race was neutralised over a small hill and then we started up a relatively flat completely straight peice of road (German Road) which rose slightly at the end. Even on this stretch there was a crash when someone touched wheels. I picked the biggest guy I could find for some shelter and would ride behind them until I could jump up to another big guy.
Midway through the rise Jeannie dropped her chain and had to stop. I'm not sure why she needed to change into the small chain ring as it wasn't very steep and she is a good climber. Anyway Felix and I stopped. Felix carried on to help George and I worked to bring Jeannie back to the group which were now speeding down towards the Ashley Gorge. We were trying to jump from car to car and picked up Tom H along the way. He helped us and we got back on to the back of the group as they climbed up out of the gorge. Because there was a double yellow line (and you get disqualified for crossing one if you are caught) we were unable to move up through the pack. Someone at the front must have turned on the pace because as soon as we caught up the people in front of us were all stretched out as they tried to hold on along the undulations after the river. So we were dropped again and ended up forming a small group of about 12. Jeannie said that she needed to catch back on so I did a long hard pull on the front. When I eased up to allow the next person through there was no one there so I had to wait for Jeannie and the rest of the group to catch up. I'm not sure what happened as I had made an effort to slowly accellerate and was on the hard left to give the most amount of shelter from the wind which was coming from the left.
Our group spent the rest of the race rolling through. We eventually picked up some other riders but they were too tired to contribute. On the climb towards the finish Jeannie dropped her chain again! With the help of aBenchmark rider we managed to get her back up the hill and through the group. She ended up 2nd woman overall which tied her on points for the series - so it wasnt all a waste of time. George had managed to get 4th so that was pretty good. One day I will get to do one of these races and finish with the main group!
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