Its 8.30am on Sunday morning and its a very chilly 8 degrees, hot air balloons are in the sky, I can't think of a better way to start my first cycling race since joining Blackburn.

On Friday evening I got a phone call from Carl asking me if I was interested riding in Blackburns first ITT along the Yarra Boulevard on his tandem. I jumped at the chance, but remembered after I said yes, just how difficult they were to ride and the memories of riding

and the arguments with my wife Julie come flooding back!

Carl suggests that we have a quick warm up which will give me a chance to get used to being on the back and he gives me some key instructions that we will need to do when the race starts. We take off and its a nice gentle down hill ride, Carl at the front and I am on the back and already we are sitting on approximately 50km's an hour! We turn the first corner and I am thinking how weird it feels turning and having no control of the handlebars.....Scary stuff!  After about 4km's we decide to turnaround and head back, Carl's says that in the race we will probably both have to get off and push the tandem around the roundabout because tandems are like a bus when it comes to turning. We ride back to the start and have around 15mins to rest before the real fun begins.

Just like the start in the Tour de France Nicho gives us the countdown, five, four, three, two, one, go and we are off! This time we are cruising down that gentle down hill at around 60km and hour and the adrenaline is now pumping. We get to the first hill and I am pedaling like mad, Carl tells me no to go out too hard and I ease off just a fraction. We finally get to the top of the hill and again there is a nice flat stretch followed by another gentle down hill. Carl seems slightly distracted by something in front, I can't see what the distraction is until we have gone past them. Two young ladies out for a morning jog, I tell Carl to concentrate and he seems

to respond after about 10 seconds. We get to the halfway turnaround point, a small roundabout and I clip out of my left pedal just in case we have to jump off and push the Big Blue Bus around the roundabout. Carl takes a very wide line and skillfully guides us around the turnaround point with ease, we both breathe a sigh of relief and have a good laugh. We are now on the homeward stretch and both work together up another gentle hill. When we get to the top I remembered there are a couple of tight little corners coming up that is all down hill. Carl tells me to stop pedaling and I just hang on and hope for the best!

With about 2km's to go we get passed by another rider, we both put the hammer down and can see the finish line in the distance ahead. The last 800m is all uphill and I can see another rider about 100m behind us, we both dig deep even though our legs are now burning. With about 100m to go the rider behind us is now about 40m behind us, we finally cross the line and I was really pleased that only one rider was able to catch us.

We finish with a creditable time of 19.43 mins, which is probably about middle of the pack, but we are the first tandem across the line!

Many thanks to Carl and to the volunteers at Blackburn for making it such an enjoyable morning.

Rob.

Results are up (what? BBN getting results up?!)

http://www.blackburncycling.org.au/results/KB-ITT-Jun.html

We weren't last!