Winning the big bucks

Bridie O'Donnell and the Australian Women's road squad win bragging rights in Baltimore.

Baltimore insists that its two biggest claims to fame are Babe Ruth and David Hasselhoff, so it was with this in mind that the Australian National women's road team ventured south west for BikeJam! The Kelly Cup, another of the big US domestic races in the women's calender.

Unfortunately, despite the field being the same as the previous days Grand Prix, the prize purse wasn't. Not even a honey-baked ham on offer for sprint primes!

Still, once we saw the convoluted one mile circuit around the park, and all did a quick physical assessment, motivation was high for a breakaway win.

Belinda Goss' wrist was starting to look like a special kind of Lancaster Ham; Davina Summers was probably still concussed from yesterday; and Carlee Taylor was keeping the powder dry back at the homestead (ready to rip it up next weekend). But Lauren Kitchen and I were raring to go.

The plan went like this - settle in for four laps, then I attack, then I stay away, then we win. Tres simple! Well, nearly to script, anyway.

Lauren attacked at lap four, was chased down, and so I countered. Then began the race.

In two laps, I had 15s, and by the third I had only 8s. Then the plan got derailed: as I climbed the pinch up the hill to the start/finish line on lap seven, I was told to stop. There had been a crash, and the race was neutralised. Of course, 10s later, the fifty or so chasers rolled in behind me.

There began five long minutes while they removed the girl from the course who looked as if she may have fractured her collarbone.

But good news! I was to be sent off solo, and the entire peloton breathing down my neck 10s later. Hmmm, time to choose.... reignite the attack or try something else? I went for A and burst up the hill like Anna Meares in the 500m - well, that's what the visualisation was aiming at - truth be known, it was more like two legs filled with lactic acid pretending to go fast.

Over the next ten laps, my lead got to as big as 28s, and the team were doing a superb job running interference, covering chasers and generally not making any friends. With four laps to go, Team Type 1 and Colavita Sutter had nearly shut it down, and I thought I was caught, but the girls screamed "GO!" over the radio and I pushed on up that f%#king hill three more times in a desperate attempt to seal the win.

And so I did. The chase group pushed hard on the last lap, and Lauren had a great sprint to finish 4th (2nd was the previous days winner, Laura van Gilder). Belinda even managed to semi lead her out, despite riding with one arm!

Now we have a stress free week of training and a long to-do list that includes photographing Amish buggies, visiting the Hershey factory and pooling the money from Marv's swear jar.

A very big congratulations needs to go to Beth, our soigneur who hasn't had many moments to herself in the past five days, Marv, the ultimate DS and inspiring head coach, and Merlyn, the Magical Mechanic, who was our last-minute man and did a tireless job over the last 36 hours building a new bike for Belinda, and servicing all our machines.

Next stop, Sommerville - Marv's desire for bragging rights to his old Quebecois buddies means that this crit on the 25th is the new World Championships!