This is both daunting and exciting at the same time as I know I can climb, but am also afraid of the course as this is my first time here at this iconic event and being unsure of my competition as I line up looking at some pretty fit master riders.
Our race was 12 laps long which appears to be quite short but this is how the Snake bites as I was to find out. I had a great start sitting 2nd wheel on the approach to the climb but was swamped by the bunch sprinting to get a good position so this put me back in the field watching the rider in front and once the climb was over finding that 3 riders had a gap, this kept happening to me but less aggressively until the 5th lap when I made sure I hit the bottom first and using some power that I had saved by not sprinting each lap I managed to exit solo at the top and work on building a lead which I did, so for a couple of laps I was thinking I had this race in the bag and had the measure of the snake but how wrong was I, as on the 7 th lap I was caught by Daniel Casper, took me a moment to realise he had caught me as I had been lapping riders already, this is when I payed for my early effort and started to struggle up the climb.
As we counted down the laps I was trying to figure out my best plan of attack to get rid of Daniel as he looked like he could sprint but the course decided for me, I was really grovelling on his wheel up the climb with 3 to go and was having searious doubts about even challenging when with 2 to go he wanted me to lead up the climb, which I took straight away as I knew I could set a pace and block so I had something for an all out attack on the last lap, and that is what I did but to no avail as he gave it everything to stay glued to my wheel, I could tell by the way the crowd was cheering it was for him to stay opposed to me getting away.
So we both had finished the snake totally maxed out, looked at each other and rolled down the hill back towards the downtown part of the course, had 6 corners to sort a plan, and my plan was to recover as much as possible by not even pedeling until we had to, I was relying on him thinking he was going to beat me in the sprint so I made sure he was on my right shoulder and I up against the curb, let it slow right down till the last left turn when I moved to look like I was starting my sprint but all I wanted was for Daniel to start coming round on my right which he did then I took a tighter line and opened up my sprint to the line on the smooth section of road in front, up shifting once and willing myself to the line to win by half a bike.
I was pretty much tired up in knots after as I had maxed myself but was more than happy about that as I had the result I was after, so glad to have had the chance to do this race, nothing like I have ever done before.
My prize amounted to a real brick with a plaque on it, a toy snake and some cash.
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