This Old Fart's still whipping Ass

By the time I got to the first climb the legs where nicely warmed up thanks to Gazza and Pete at the head of peleton pushing the pace along the road,the climb was very doable after the grader had smoothed the road out, very different to previous years when it was a goat track.
Recovered quickly at the top pushed along the fire roads at a good pace, then into the techy up hill section. Was going well until a branch went into the spokes of the back wheel at around 40km's, from then till 50km drink station the bike was making annoying ticking noises and felt like rear brake was dragging, stopped at drink station but couldn't find the noise and the brakes were fine.So rode off and thankfully the noise and dragging had gone
From 50km to 75km was basically by my own, chasing the group I had previously been riding with before stopping to fix the bike.I caught them at the end of the road stretch between the canoe bridge and Woomera range.I used so much energy trying to catch them that climbing up the first hill from the road they all road away from me it felt like I had selected reverse .The next 15-20km's were hard I was really hurting
Turning into Jacks track gave me a boost as I knew all the hills and pinches were behind me and there were fun times ahead .By the time I got to the road I had recovered enough to smash myself to the finish, was so glad to hit the finish line and get a beer