19 January, 2009

Robbie McEwen, Lance and bad weather

The first event associated with the Tour Downunder took place yesterday and Robbie McEwen came from nowhere to win the Cancer Council Classic criterium in Adelaide. As expected, all eyes were on Lance Armstrong to see how he and his Astana teammates would fare. It looks like the plan must have been to protect Lance as most of the Astana team finished very closely to Lance in 64th position.

So where does the bad weather come in? Dee and I are waiting for the intermittent showers to stop so we can head out on a ride. As we wait, Dee is watching streaming video of yesterday's TdU event.

Our ride to Charters Towers is fast approaching (this Sunday) and we had our last training ride for the group yesterday.  An 80+ km ride along the same road we'll ride on Sunday. The majority of riders came through ok- there were a couple who found the pace a bit quick. We're aiming for 27-28 km/hr for the ride which should equate to 5 hrs "ride time" along with some rest breaks along the way. Hopefully the group will roll into "The Towers" around 10:00 at the latest. It starts to heat up from about 8:00am so we don't want to be out on the road any longer than is absolutely necessary. I think it is usually up to about 35 or 37 by the time we finish the ride.

I'm also thinking I may have to surrender my ride and act as the main support vehicle. We haven't had anyone offer to this point and it would be a dangerous undertaking to not have a support vehicle.

Oh look! I think the showers have stopped.

The week:  233.8
2009: 653.0

Cheers
Ride safe
BoaB

3 comments:

Bluenoser said...

Hey, I love watching Robbie come out of nowhere in the sprints. That's what he does best, he's like a ghost then boom, the win.

I had predicted he was going to do that on home turf. You're lucky to have met him. Hope the weather brightens.

-B

BoaB said...

He's such a phenomenal talent when it comes to those bunch-sprint finishes. Wish we'd been in Adelaide to see it.
Weather has come good the last few days- should be in for a big week.
How about the weather back East?
Cheers
BoaB

Bluenoser said...

Typical January BoaB you're certainly not missing anything special.

-B