Ballarat Cycling Classic – World Champs Warm-up

Yesterday we were given a rare treat on our local country roads. The best cyclists in the world lined up in Buninyong on the same course as our National Championship circuit in lead-up to next week's main event.  There were more Italians hanging around here than on Lygon street during a soccer match!  I've raced these roads a few times in recent years and I have a pretty good idea of the speed guys like me ride up those hills. These PROs were absolutely smashing it today. To them the 130km distance was a walk in the park and they raced it like it was a hour long crit. It was amazing to see this spectacle right in our backyard.
One thing that was unique about this race was watching the riders get prepared. There were no team buses, no fancy hotels, no grand entrances. These guys sat in the back of their cars parked on the grass getting ready with no amenities just like any of us would do before a race.
I won't write a race report because you could easily go to cyclingnews for that. Hopefully the photos tell a better story and show what a fantastic race it was.
Thank you to James Broadway, Leigh Schilling and Veeral Patel for slogging it out with me all day with their camera gear and contributing these great images.
Apologies in advance if this crashes Internet Explorer browsers when you read the full post. It seems to do this with image heavy content on IE.