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RM-DB Rider Wins Sooke Classic Junior Race

Posted: Jun 02 2006

The annual road race from Sooke, BC to Port Renfrew and back is always a challenge and the riders almost never have a chance to enjoy the Pacific coast scenery! This year’s race on May 27th was as difficult as ever, but our promising young rider Graeme had a great day and finished on top!

Here is a report from the race in Graeme’s words:

The Junior Mens race was 111km on a hilly out and back course in Sooke. Right off the bat, I knew this race was going to be hard because for the first time this season the juniors did not race with the cat 3’s. So the pack was small, plus there was a team of juniors who made up 60% of the entire peleton, so I knew tactics would be very important. Right off the gun, two team mates of the large team went on the attack, and no one chased until they had 5 minutes on us. But with only 4 people including me not part of the lead team, it was going to be a long and frustrating chase.

After about 60km of chasing, the break was finally brought back in. Then we rode easy for about 1km before more attacks came from the fresh teammates who had been resting in our drafts the whole race during the chase. I was frustrated by this, so I chased immediately, not letting anything go. After doing that about 5 times, the attacks stopped. Then we approached one of the final climbs, and it was my turn. I attacked, eventually shelling all but two others who came with me (this was good because there was still quite a long way to go to the finish and I needed some help).

As we got to the summit I looked back and saw that it was just us (no one from the large team had made it up). Then we TTT’d all the way to the finish. But before we got there I attacked again on a little roller dropping one of my compatriots, so it was down to two with about 3km to go. The finish was on a climb, not steep, but long enough. This is where I attacked my opponent (and friend Matt Savage) to the finish, and I was able to hold him off by 13 seconds to come across the line alone for the win.

For more RM-DB race team reports you can always check here

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