This Bud's For You, 9 May

An unforgiving wind blew into the towns along the foothills yesterday and left in its wake a path of desolation, the Bud's Ride evening hopes picked clean and cast aside like sheaths of corn, dried and crumbled. No room for challengers, the group blown to bits, a smoking shell sitting in the roadway waiting to be picked up and carried home.

Scattered between "the three" and "the rest" came the shell-shocked no-mans-land men, hollow eyes, wasted, incredulous head-shaking, turning pedals in mechanical instinct. In some ways, I suppose, the rest were the lucky ones, their illusion dissipated in a mirage somewhere up the road; contentment - there is something in that, and a sprint of their own.

For the three, the rest, and those in between, this Bud's for you.

truth is the finish was a two-up sprint between the two 303 Project team riders

everyone before "the rest"

the rest