I surprised myself with how well I did in ZRL tonight, finishing 7th out of 47, best result from my team.
Having been dropped on every single ascent in last week's race (caught up on the flats afterwards most times), I figured the two hills this week would see the same result, but I just about managed to hang on to the tail-enders of the lead pack on the first basically by sprinting through the segment banner at the top (if this was a points race, I think I'd have got FTS).
Up until that point the ride had been done at an insane pace for no apparent reason - some of the teams seemed to think they could race the flats and try and drop other teams, but all it did was tire them out. This worked to my advantage as the pace on the second climb was a bit easier - yes, a select group of leaders got away and the rest of the pack was strung out all over the road, but I got to the halfway point of the climb still within touching distance of other riders and so as soon as we got to the figure eight bit, I hit the feather power up and absolutely went hell for leather. Ended up in a group of four riders, only 6 seconds behind the leading eight and 5 clear of the next group.
As it flattened out, me and one other rider launched again, we caught and passed two who'd been dropped from the front, then as we got to the final bridge, I found myself a second clear of the other guy (not sure how) and closing in on the front pack who I'm guessing were playing games before contesting the finishing sprint. I was visibly closing on them but not quickly enough and my avatar finally popped its head up to show it was in their draft with maybe 50 metres to go - too late to actually catch.
Team finished 5th but we only had 5 riders, so that's pretty good really. We stay top of the league but only by 1 point and there's a good chance the team in second will beat us on next week's race as they are VERY strong on the points races, although they did have a guy DQ'd tonight for going over the power limits, so if he can't race next week that might help us.