You might surprise yourself

DBR Australia ACT Women and Juniors Tour
NRS Event
Stage 2: 38km RR
Saturday 4th July
Sunny, little breezy.

With the ITT out of the way, it was time to relax, sit back in the bunch and get to the end of the tour. The rest of the stages were just for "training".

It was a big field with the U19, Elite and B grade women all combined for the tour. I think there was close to 70 of us. (OK, compared to some of the races some of you are doing O/S that is not big, but for us that is a lot!) It would have been nice to have been able to use both sides of the road, but we weren't, so we had to suck it up and try and move through the bunch as best as possible. Although staying on the left of the line was more difficult for some than others and the commissaires weren't at all happy with us- and certainly let us know about it on Sunday morning. I believe there were a couple of crashes in the bunch in this stage, I know of at least one as they touched my wheel and came down.

The course was out and back and then left hand turn out and back and into the finish- kind of like a big L. The plan was to be at the front at the first U-bolt. Didn't quite go to plan and ended up a bit too far back when the kick went up the 3 sisters- not that I was ever going to stick with that! (Do I really need to remind you that I have been solely focused on TT and haven't really done any hills lately?!) But despite my poor position at the turn, I promptly set about making up positions and trying to limit the gap to the front of the race.

The little group I was with managed to hold our gap to the leaders until they headed for home after the second U-bolt. In the end I won the kick for our small bunch, finishing 19th, 2:39 on the front bunch. I can't be unhappy with that, I had expected to lose a lot more time and be much further down. Although, I will definitely be trying to improve my hill climbing!