This shoot is from the 11th Stage of the 2007 Tour of Murray River in Victoria, Australia. Wind back to the previous day which was an out and back 80km stage of fast undulating roads, I was keen and determined not to get shelled in the early cross wind so I took flight down the inside of the bunch on the gravel..big risk but I was willing to take it and it backfired on me. Boom, front tubular went smack into a rock. The next 75km were long and annoying after I couldn't claw back on the bunch but I was fired up by the end of the day for the following days criterium.
Stage 11, 42km on a perfect criterium course which had a small hill heading up to the finish line. After warming up on the course I got my team manager Stu Sanders to put a radio on me so he talk to me during the stage and let me know of any attacks that were brewing on the hill climb. This plan worked perfect. I was in the action from the get go and slipped away in a few moves which eventually led to the winning move of the stage. In the photo above Peter MacDonald (eventual winner of the tour), Jack Bobridge (2007 Junior Team Pursuit World Champion) and Sean Finning (2006 Commonwealth Games Points Races Champion) and myself led the charge for line honours. Looking back on this day I should've sat on more because I was well down on GC and with Peter and Jack wanting more time from the higher GC riders in the peleton it was going to be their lose. To the finish, I ended up 4th on the line but was awarded the "Most Aggressive Rider Jersey" for my efforts and was well pleased with the stage ride, earlier in the tour I picked up a 7th and a 3rd place on stage 7 in a similar situation to stage 11.
No comments:
Post a Comment