Chris Winn: Ramblings From The Road

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28 April 2008

Deer Trail Blowin' A Gale

So when I reported from last weeks race at the Springs I called it as the windiest race I've ever done. A week later scrap that cause last weekends hoe-down at Deer Trail was off it's trolley. From what seemed to be a fairly calm early morning with blue sky, the weather turned hard and fast with dark skies, mega wind gusts and a little hail / snow action to boot. Unfortunately this occurred while Kat was racing and while I was eating bagels in the car. Coupla hours later the cold temps and mega winds were still remaining but thankfully the snow/hail never came back.
Deer Trail was an odd course to say the least. Pretty much a series of 4 different dead straight out and back loops. And boy did the wind make it interesting, one section we were floating with a sweet taily and then we would be grovelling in the gutter from mega cross winds. With an odd course came an odd race, but the legs were feeling good and I found myself in a couple of early breaks that were brought back. Halfway through the race after one of the many u-turns the shite hit the fan into the head winds with a flurry of attacks from the stronger teams, namely Vitamin Cottage in their splendid purple and orange colours who had the most numbers in the bunch. With a strong break of 8 formed and away, we put our nose to the grindstone to maintain the gap with around 25km to go.

From all reports the last out and back loop was the worst, featuring a stack of rollers and to add to the fun a mega strong cross wind. And when I mean strong I was fully fighting the bike at times to keep it upright from the random gusts. Working in a pretty tight echelon over these rollers was tough and the group whittled down to 5, and unfortunately for me still included two Vitamin Cottage guys. The last 4km was an expected bun-fight, with Cottage basically working over the group as any good team would to take the big W. I grovelled like hell falling off the wheel with one km to go with my skinny frame no match for power of the rest of the guys in the group. Still it was my best finish to date and one of the few races I've done wearing that many friggin' clothes.


I actually got collected by one of these genuine tumbleweeds during my warm-up..just like the wild west..

All smiles pre rain/hail/snow..

Deer Trail, famous for being the home of the worlds first rodeo and some guys garage.

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