Jayco Bay Crits – Day 3 Portarlington – report by Liam White

The weather for the Portarlington, stage 3 was a big relief for most riders after the previous day’s weather of just under 40 degrees. Portarlington was known as the toughest stage and a lot of the boys, including myself wanted a bigger and better performance after pulling out of the previous day’s race.

We left and checked out of the accommodation at 8.45am to travel to Portarlington.  At 10am we went for a short ride down the coast line which incorporated a few sprints. When we got back from the ride we were approached by John Trevorrow (organiser) telling us that the course had been changed around and now we were actually going to race it the opposite way, which made most of it up hill. At first I thought ‘Oh Dam,’ but then Helen gave me a really good pep talk which made me go back into a more positive frame of mind.

Throughout the week I had a few mechanicals and just before warm up started, today was no exception. The SRAM support saw that my rear derailleur was bent and in trying to fix it, snapped my back hanger off.  This sent Bob, Helen and I into frantic mode.  Amazingly we found a spare bike which to us was a big relief. Then when I was at the start line the dad came running towards me with my bike. Everything was fixed except that I hadn’t had really had a proper warm up.

Our aim today was to finish the race considering only a couple of my teammates had finished the previous two stages. The race started fast but unlike the first 2 days the pace just stayed on for practically the whole race. Luckily in this stage none of us crashed.

Most of us in this stage lasted at least the first 20 minutes and even after 30 minutes, 5 of us were still in (Aaron, Mark, Michael, Nick and I).  Just after the 30minute point, Mark, Michael and Nick cracked and got taken out of the race.  I was the next to pop with 3 laps to go.  I was so close but so annoyed that my legs cracked so close to the finish.

At the end of the race Aaron put in himself in a terrific position going into the last lap only getting pushed out in the second last corner. Although this happened Aaron still put in a terrific performance, getting himself a top 10 result. WELL DONE AARON!!!!