Chris Winn: Ramblings From The Road

pedal.write.pedal.write.pedal.



28 January 2007

Done and Dusty.


It only comes around once a year and it ain't yo birthday or Xmas people. Yep I'm talking bout' Nationals, where everyone is willing to hang out in the hurt locker in search of a green and gold stripy jersey. Canberra played a fine host, and actually in other exciting news got the bid for 09' World Championships at the Mt Stromlo venue too, so hell yeah, bring some rainbow love down under for sure. The best description of the course I heard was like riding on the moon, and with absolutely zero shade to speak of it was pretty frickin' exposed to the wind and sun. Add 50 odd lycra clad guys at max heartrate and you got a pretty good recipe for a suffering spaghetti. After a full days racing on friday the powder dust course got pretty chopped so it was definitely ASR time for me.



Photo Credit- Shelley Flood

With a second row grid position I got off to a pretty good start which was complete carnage as it always is. The battle then begun the first couple of laps to keep it together on a pretty tough course full of a least four thousand corners full of powdery dust.


Photo Credit- Shelley Flood

Hmmm its kinda funny how you brain erases memory painful events, but I do recall having a super cool battle most of the race with local hero Dylan Cooper who was smokin' the descents with all the right lines before I'd hook back up on the climbs. Coming into the last lap I caught Coops on the main fire road climb and gave it a little gas to get a gap heading into the last half of the lap.
Photo Credit- Shelley Flood

With a solid gap coming into the last km I started to cramp up in both legs pretty bad. Kinda not a good thing when pedalling equals forward motion so I started to get pretty worried! Managed to limp it over the line and keep position. So my goal this year was to crack the top ten and I managed to do this slipping home in 6th place in Elite (9th Overall). Pretty happy in my first season outta U23.

Perry busted out for last spot on the box on the Sat.

So STXC I was pretty keen for to say the least. After coming home with a medal last year there was no doubt I wanted to repeat or better. But with a race like short track, 20mins of cactus swollowing pain if you aint got it then its hoop time. So after a crappy start and pretty ordinary legs it was day over for me. Expectations blown. Wasn't all bad however, with Rowney showing us all why he has a few NORBA STXC medals on the mantle piece, schooling us all for the big W in a damn exciting race.

Photo Credit- Mark Gunter
The veteran still has it! Do I smell a comeback??


The pro doing some secret underground car park training...




The post race team tart tradition couldnt have come sooner...

I gotta give a big shout out thanks to everyone for the cheers on the course over the weekend, much appreciated, and to Shelley for roaming the course with my camera for the pics,
! Cheers y'all, Winston.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done .... a damn solid weekend for Team Yeti

K_10 said...

Nice work Winn dogg! Great pics, and well done to Rowney too!

Anonymous said...

Great Job..
P&J

TheKillerAnt said...

Congrats on ur 6th place and top10 overall winny, crackin' ride :)
Ant
ohh yeah, we will have 2 hook up 4 some road k's soon!

Anonymous said...

Great result Chris!

T(e)! said...

Hey Winny, saw the chops on Cycling Central talking up the circuit! Nice One.

Anonymous said...

Hey Chris, out of interest, did Pezza also ride a dually or his ARC in the cross country ?

Chris Winn said...

Thanks everyone for the shouts...yo t-dawg, after much debate pezza rode his dually too..all the way to the podium!

Anonymous said...

oh those photos did turn out alright..
thats good then.
there's some pics on that web site if you havn't looked at it already.

www.ontrackimages.com.au