Pat Shaw - Tour of Great South Coast in review Back home in Ballarat after what was a very successful week for the Satalyst - Giant Racing Team. Firstly the ability of the team as a whole, riders, mechanic (Jamie Kelly) and manager (Andrew Jackson) to push to be better as a unit has impressed me immensely. We began the tour with firm goals; to be aggressive and create our own opportunities. To everyones credit in the team we did exactly that in securing three of the most aggressive stage awards during the tour. We factored in every major break away during the tour and always fought hard throughout the stages. Which resulted in a fantastic 2nd place in the overall Teams Classification. To achieve this it takes the full effort of all 8 riders everyday in every stage, with the help of Jamie and Andrew with the work between and after stages they do this was made genuinely a lot easier to achieve. Huge shout out must go to Kane Walker, 14th on GC whilst racing the tour as a massive foundation for our group Kane also spends a huge amount of time on our evening meals making sure the riders and staff are fuelled for the next day and getting the nutrients required to recover. His efforts are as usual with Kane well above standard and not easy job especially after the long hard days on tour. A big cheer for all the boys, listened to team plan everyday and followed it, even if it seemed crazy, as mentioned our plan was to be aggressive. This made the bunch weaker over the stages, which allowed me to break away on the hardest stage of the tour and take a total of 23 KOM points, securing the jersey for the team and elevating myself to a high individual GC. Im very heavily marked in these races and without the relentless and highly fatiguing work all the boys do to help me I would not be able to achieve the high GC results I have been. Although we are not the biggest team in the NRS we sure raced as well as any other this week. We did our sponsors, supporters and ourselves proud, no doubt. Without the support from our sponsors we are nothing. Huge thanks to our title sponsor Satalyst, we really appreciate your support and without it we couldnt be doing any of this, the huge steps of development and progression is in most parts thanks to your fantastic ongoing support of the team. Thanks Giant Bicycles Australia for our superb bikes, Torq Nutrition Australia for race nutrition and post race recovery (this is a big reason we can back up each and everyday) Cyclemania, Snap, McDonalds, InfoCrank and all the other Team sponsors. Lastly thanks to the crew back in Perth doing great work for the team and the staff that were on tour, now focus is only riding the momentum into and beyond Tour of Gippsland (September 3rd-7th), Thanks everyone!!!!
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 02:27:56 +0000