Young Ben Johnstone has amazing results at Rev120
On Saturday 19th February 2011 I travelled to Hamilton to compete in the Rev120 cycle festival.
The race was 120km around the roads of the Waikato. I was riding for my new sponsor AvantiPlus Whangarei.
The race started off with 200 riders. It was GMC coaching and place makers putting the pressure on right from the start. At 35 km into the race we hit French pass, a 2.5km climb with an average gradient of 7.5 % . On the climb I was feeling strong and thought I would try my luck and try get away. The effort worked and I had a break over the top. I had about a 10 second lead.
This strung the bunch out. I was off the front by myself for about 5km until I was joined by a rider from Hamilton. Together we worked hard to get a good gap from the bunch. We could both see behind us, the bunch was in one big line chasing hard. We felt strong and felt we could stay away with a sizable gap. The legs were burning but we were hanging on to our lead. We had about a 1.30 minute gap. Then at 105 km we could see a bunch of 30 odd fast riders right on our tail… dam we had been caught with only 15km to go and only to run out of water. CRAMP rushed up my mussels fast ... OUCH. After we both were caught I went right to the back and tried to recover as much as I could for the sprint finish.
Were coming up to the line with only 500m to go cramp set in again. We were all fighting for position. Coming round the last turn through a roundabout and 150m to go still having cramps, then I get pushed into a kerb but managed to stay up right and I gave it everything I had. In the end I crossed the finish line in 12th position overall and 2nd in under 20s It was a great race and I hope to do it again next year for Avanti plus Whangarei.
Ben Johnstone
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