Season ending barbecue
The club will host a barbecue lunch on Sunday 3 April to celebrate another successful summer of mountain biking, road and BMX racing. We'll be presenting the trophies for each discipline (and the combined trophy too!) plus there'll be bike games for kids big and small and the ANZ barbie trailer to cook lunch at the Mansfield Botanic Park. More details to come soon.
In the meantime, to help with catering, please let us know if you're coming by sending an SMS with your name and number of attendees to Wil on 0417 596 288.
Mansfield Tour
Great racing last weekend during the Mansfield Tour. Feedback from entrants has been terrific and everything ran very smoothly.
Many thanks to all the club members who donated their time and enthusiasm to make the weekend work so well. Great work by all the Commissaires and all the Cycling Victoria staff.
Many thanks to our major sponsors, Mansfield Shire and the Mt Buller and Mt Stirling Alpine Resort Management Board.
Huge thanks too to Dion and the team from Martin's Garage for their support, especially during Stage 2 on Saturday afternoon, the Martin's Garage Road Race to Jamieson and back.
Well done to Josh Hopwood who finished 5th overall in Masters B-grade and to Foley Lachal who found the going tough in B-grade.
Here's a quote from Wil...
"Well Done to Di Condie! Superb event, superb organisation. Also well done to all the team of volunteers over the weekend. 'Together we are strong!' "
President Craig 'Wil' Wilson
… and here are a few images from Ernesto Arriagada's portfolio of images from the Tour.
If you weren't involved this year, please keep the weekend after the Victorian Labour Day long weekend free... Cycling Victoria are expecting the Series to get even bigger and better in 2017 so we might need a bit more of a hand. Besides, there are a few more club members making noises about racing, so we'll need someone to cover for them... and we'd love to have you involved!
Dirt Crits finishes another dusty season
Monday March 21st saw the last race night for this season of mountain bike racing at Rifle Butts Reserve. The juniors all arrived in fancy dress. We had the usual mix of tutu’s and onesies, this year even the Easter Bunny came and rode. The juniors have had a mixed series of events from one, two or more timed lap races. We were also lucky to get the juniors out to ride in the Delatite Dash courtesy of All Terrain Cycles. All riders revelled in the chance to ride something a bit more challenging and proved they could all get to Mirimbah incident free. A number of juniors stayed on and raced it again with the seniors.
We were also able to have a night of skills coaching taken by Coach Damian Grundy, David Empey, Clarissa and Kate. The riders really gained some important lessons on how to ride corners and berms, how to tackle the dust and how to ride over rocks and bridges. Next season we hope to introduce a lot more of these sessions as they proved invaluable.
The final night the juniors were placed in pairs for a final pair’s race. The triumphant pair was Ruby and Taycia. It proved Taycia’s best ride for the season. In close second was Zac and Blair followed by Max and Archie.
In the overall standings (based on wins, PB’s and attendance) Elise and Dan have battled for top place with Elise nudging Dan out of top spot. Elise has raced every week giving 100%, she has also raced the Gravity Enduro seniors’ races this season.
We have hit record numbers this season with 31 riders registered with the majority now attending regularly on a Monday night. It has been great to see a of number new riders, boys and girls, to the off-road circuit and although there has been a bit of ”bark off” at some races all juniors have shown great enthusiasm and resilience in the hot and dusty conditions. We even had a fire to contend with and the riders remained un-phased. Great season guys and thank you to all the parents as well.
Kate Stonnill (Empey)
Final senior Dirt Crits results from Monday night here.
Second last road race tomorrow night, starting at the Botanic Park and finishing on Graves Road. Come along for a look... don't forget to enter by 8pm tonight if you want to race!
Good results at MTBA Nationals at Bright
Well done to all the MMBCC members who competed at Bright last weekend. While we didn't come away with any gold there was a silver from Kian and some other almost as impressive results from Matt, Dave, Shannon and others. More details to come.