Wagga Wagga Classic
The weekend just gone saw Mick Troy head down to Wagga Wagga for the Classic weekend along with several other Orange Cycle Club riders. This consisted with a 120km handicap on the Saturday over a tough undulating course North East of Wagga Wagga followed by a Criterium on the Sunday in the CBD of Wagga Wagga.
After a fast start in scratch bunch, which eliminated a couple of passengers straight away with a 2km climb starting at the 3km mark. After that, there was a fairly solid working bunch motoring along, regularly approaching the 60km/h mark.
Mick Troy, working strongly was thriving in the average conditions.
Unfortunately his race was over at the 80km mark when he blew spectacularly, going straight out the back door with 40k to go.
Sunday morning dawned, foggy and a little damp, but quickly dried out for the earlier grades.
As A grade were marshalling, the skies opened up and the rain came down. With a lot of grumbling coming from all the A grade riders, the race started with conditions deteriorating.
Mick had rediscovered his legs after his poor showing yesterday and decided to make the most of them, regularly at the front of the bunch driving it or trying to get off the front, coming second in a couple of the sprint primes. Coming into the finish, with the pace on and a bit of argy bargey happening on the slick course, Mick had positioned himself perfectly on the wheel of J. L. Rathbone (who went on to win the race), but unfortunately on the second corner, let the wheel go to drift right instead of taking the inside line. In the final sprint ended up 6th (and they only paid to 5th).
Thankfully, most guys stayed up, being a little smart in the wet conditions, although Mick did say that he lost count of the number of times that he started losing his rear wheel on one of the many cat-eye reflectors or white lines that littered the course.