Hey everyone,
This weekend Glenn and Matt headed to the Island to meet up with Sam and compete in a stage race in Comox. The stages were as follows, Stage one; a 16km TT, Stage 2; a Kermesse (50mins + 1 lap), Stage 3; 80km road race.
This was Matt’s first ever stage race and Glenn’s first ever attempt at a TT on a fixed gear as both Matt and Glenn rode their beloved track bikes. Sam was riding his SPANKY new Naked road bike.
The TT was quite a bit harder then expected on the track bikes for the boys and a bit of a frustrating experience for Sam. The start of the TT was a false flat to 2 VERY draining climbs at about 4-6%. Glenn and Matt both were second-guessing the choice of gears. Glenn was also cursing Matt for putting the stupid idea of riding a bike with no gears UP HILL in his head. Sam had a 3rd technical problem with his drive train since his return to racing. Even with getting off his bike and trying to fix it he still managed a top 20 placing! Glenn rode to a strong finish with a 15th place and a time of 23:40. Once Matt finally got over the hills he proceeded to storm the course and clocking a time of 22:50 to finish up in 5th place.
The 2nd stage was a 50min + a lap circuit race with a LOOOOOOOONG finishing straight. Tailor made for Matt. The team worked exceeding well as the torrential rain fell throughout the whole race. The three Twitch riders were very active in attacking and reeling in several breaks. It was apparent that nothing was going to get away as the field was very strong and very well matched. Glenn took a huge flyer with 2kms to go which forced the other teams to do the chasing leaving Sam and Matt sitting in to sprint in case Glenn was caught…well Glenn was caught and with 500m to go another rider attacked and Matt immediately jumped on the wheel. This guy pulled until 200m when the final sprint started. A rival rider jumped hard past us and opened a slight gap. That was a short lived gap as Matt got the big meat rolling and proceeded to sprint away from the pack to take the victory with Sam powering his way to 3rd place. Autographs were signed pictures and interviews were taken…. NOT! We did celebrate though.
The 3rd and finally stage was the road race. Matt was 2nd in the GC (General Classification) now and the team was pretty motivated to work for our GC leader. The course was the TT course but we screamed around the course for 5 laps. Once again the 3 of us worked well making sure there was a rider in every break and blocking while they were away. In lap 4 both Glenn and Matt started cramping on the climbs and beginning to wonder if we were going to finish the race. Well as we entered the 5th and final lap, Sam rode away from the pack with another rider in tow. Knowing that Sam was a much better finisher then the guy he broke away with, Matt sat at the front of the pack for a good 5km while Sam and his breakaway partner opened what turned out to be an un-surmountable gap that resulted in Sam winning the sprint and securing the GC! Both Glenn and Matt fought it out to try to protect Matt’s GC placing. Glenn once again took his patented 2k flyer but alas was caught with about 500m to go. It was a hard fought bunch sprint where Matt seriously cramped about 100m from the finish. While having to sprint seated, Matt managed a 6th place finish and a 3rd place finish in the GC.
2 Stage victories and 2 podium GC places for the Fast Twitch Cycling team in their 1st ever Stage race as a team! Great job guys!!!
Matt ”Lego” Chater
P.S. Welcome Back Sam!
