Pinjarra turned out a fine day for us - it hit 10 degrees or so by our start time and that was quite nice.
Off the line, four riders broke away and had a 300m or so lead on the pack all the way to Del Park Rd - they kept that lead and went on to win. Along South-West Highway the pack was comfortably (or uncomfortably for some) sitting on 40-45 km/h - I was in the middle of the pack with the rest of the SPR riders.
Gerard was giving cycling lessons to some guy who couldn't hold a line and wouldn't decide between keeping left or right. Other than that is was pretty orderly.
As soon as we turned onto Del Park Rd, there were people in pain. There is an initial uphill which is long but not too steep and that turns into some fairly large rolling hills. Predictably, the pack broke up pretty quickly with the main group (including Stuart, Gerard, Jill and Lorraine) heading off at a resonable pace. I couldn't keep that pace up so ended up being dropped - not so much off the back - more towards the middle- as there were plenty behind me.
Heading up one of the ongoing undulations a little while later, Tony Tucknott and Ben from SPR jumped around me so I decided to stay with them. We collected Mark (SPR) and someone else in Perth Mountain Bike gear (probably Steph) and made a five-some. From there we rolled across to Dwellingup - there are some nice fast bits and some medium-sized uphills that are annyoing but it was generally pretty good.
I was starting to run out of steam on the uphills but luckily Dwellingup hove into view and we were headed out of town with the junior racers coming towards us, plying the uphill from Pinjarra to Dwellingup before their return journey.
As with last year, the descent out of Dwellingup was lots of fun - long sweeping bends with some short uphills followed by more downhills and bends. Top speed was 74.1 km/h down there - not bad considering it isn't really that steep. I bunny-hopped all the way over one of the railway crossings because it looked a little dodgy and we kept rolling as a group until we got to the flat section that leads back into Pinjarra.
And again, the flat section (after the excitement of the descent) was kind of boring and I was getting more than a little tired. We kept rolling through at a reasonable pace - 40-45 km/h or so until the pack broke up about a kilometre from town when Ben tried to up the pace.
All-in-all, a nice day out. Good weather; very little wind; and an average speed of 35.8 km/h. Well done to Jill for second in the women's race; Lorraine for third right behind her; Stuart for his second place in the support race; Brendan for his sixth place in the open event; and Mike for his second in the open masters.