The first criterium of the summer was held at the Traffic Education Centre today in hot and sunny conditions. Kirky was on-duty and consequentially details of what happened are a little thin on the ground to say the least. Complaining that he’d already run at least five races already this year, he managed to avoid actually running yet another one, handing over the legwork to an unknown visitor who generously obliged and oversaw both A and B grade races of around 35 minutes. Many thanks whoever that was!
Not content with cleaning up in the Club Championships last weekend, it is known that Sam Jenner was back for more although he was way too respectful in letting Kirky go in the early stages of the A-Grade race. Kirky was on his training bike yet again having attempted some last-minute fine-tuning at home “I literally just touched it with a screwdriver and the gears completely fell apart”. He did his usual ‘attack’ with lots of backwards looking glances and slowly managed to edge away from the pack. Sam was doing what he could to make the move look good and having slowed the bunch down to around 12 kph Kirky did manage to creep ahead slightly, although after 3 laps he was clearly struggling to maintain any sort of forward momentum and the whole sorry process ended there.
Judging by some Strava activity, it looks like there was a bit of reasonably quick racing for a while with around a 40kph average overall. With a few laps to go, Sam decided he’d seen enough, clicked up a few gears and took off. Kirky insists the move was only successful because “I showed Sam the same respect he had shown me earlier by not chasing him down”. Unlikely, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and reflect on the positive that we still have some true sportsmen in the club ranks.
It seems that B Grade was probably won by Phil Thomas, well done Phil if that’s the case and well done Sam for your victory. Johnny, Josh and Houlty probably rode quite well too and Rhys wanted to ride well but also had some mechanical problems at the start.
Fortunately, next week someone else is on duty, however we won’t be falling for the psychological tricks of Mr Kirk. He plays the fool very well, but of course we all know better, he’s a smart, highly intelligent and very capable individual who clearly needs more experience running races so he can overcome these little personal hurdles. The new club racing calendar for 2017 will be out soon and let’s hope the committee will recognise the latent skills and reward Kirky with some good opportunities. Perhaps putting the signs out on a 40km Boorolong race would be a good test for him early in the year?