Lakes 2 Sea (Feb 6th)

Wanting to make up for the previous weeks fiasco I decided to ride to the start of the Lakes 2 Sea.  It was a bit cool in the morning but the forecast was for fine weather and it looked like it was going to be good.  I arrived at the lake with plenty of time and managed to find someone to take my excess gear back down to the finish line.

The race started at a moderate pace.  Given that the first real part is all downhill there were very few attacks - the only successful (initially) being Dean Fulton who disappeared early on in classic Dean style.  A couple of guys tried to bridge but couldn't make it across.  The climb up Kerrs split the group up as expected.  I rode near the front so I could try and respond to any increase in pace which was fairly relaxed.  Even so, we lost a number of people on the climb.  I rounded the top of the hill in 2nd position and took off down the other side with Ashley Whitehead.  We were joined at the bottom by some others and ended up with a group of about 14.  

We caught Dean just before the Golden Downs camp and started to climb up the Reay.  Again the pace put some people in trouble and our group was reduced to 10.  It was down the Wai-iti valley and the run in towards Rabbit Island that the attacks started.  The main protaganists were Ashley and Dave.  Each one was bought back after a short chase.  Coming along River Road Thomas and Dave broke away and quickly gained a small gap.  We chased but with a breeze coming up and being so close to the end - no one wanted to sacrifice themselves to bring them back.  Along the Causeway road we caught Dave.  Thomas was just ahead but a vehicle that seemed confused about what to do got in between the two groups.  Thomas held on for the win with Murray squeezing around the car to take 2nd.  The rest of us had sat up, figuring that it was unsafe to sprint with an undecided car in the rode.  Plus we were not supposed to cross the centre line - something that you had to do in order to pass the car - still with Malcolm  - "rules are just rough guidelines on what might be a good idea if someone else was running and event".

Thats the end of my rant.