MMBCC race report
It’s not often the Mansfield Mt Buller Cycling Club attracts a crowd to watch a race. With the Great Victorian Bike Ride in town for a couple of nights we not only attracted a couple of extra entries to our usual Thursday night Handicap race… they brought their own cheer squad!
First away from the start line at the Botanic Park, surrounded by a thronging mass, was Di Condie off 16 minutes; she was followed by Rod Manning two minutes later.
Four groups were next: David Bock, Steve Flew, Craig Wilson and John Eisner off 9:00; Steve Plummer, Dave Moore, Will MacDonald and Anthony Plummer off 6:00; Bruce Halket, Darren Bakker, Mauro Brega, Paul Lange, Grant Harvey and Craig Skinner (both from Seymour who brought along their ‘entourage’) off 2:00; and the Scratch group was made up of Mitch Greenway, Foley Lachal and Kian Lerch-McKinnon.
Scratch started really strongly and had caught ‘block’ at around halfway. Once this group of eight got themselves organised, they reeled almost all the rest of the field.
Along the Barwite Road was where Harvey put the pressure on with an attack just before the Old Tolmie Road turn; and the only one to respond was Greenway (now that exams are out of the way and he’s signed for the Torq-Merida team, it seems the bike is back on the agenda!) All the rest of us could do was to limit the damage.
In cycling circles, a ‘vet’ is usually a term for a ‘veteran’ – an older racer who often lives by the motto “the older I get, the better I was!” However, in this case it was ‘Vet-erinarian’ Rod Manning who was proving he’s like a good bottle of red, genuinely getting better with age.
As Greenway powered up ‘the Coombesberg’ to the finish line, he couldn’t quite bridge the gap and Manning held on by about 10 metres (a whole two seconds!) to take a brilliant win.
Greenway took second (and fastest time of 44.06) ahead of Lerch-McKinnon, Harvey, Skinner, Halket, Lachal, Steve Plummer, MacDonald and Bock rounded out the top ten point-scoring positions.
Many thanks to our officials and volunteers: Leonie, Tony, Jenni, Tim, Mark, Peter, Di, Mauro and, of course, Francesca.
The MMBCC’s Summer Series continues on Thursday 11 December with a Team Time Trial along Howes Creek Road. It’s followed by the final race of the year, the Cycling-Inform Handicap, on Thursday 18 December with over $200 in prizemoney up for grabs. As usual, entries via SMS to 0438 513 355 by 8pm on the Wednesday before please.
Cheers,
Bruce.