Results and pics from last week's races, roof racks for sale, a ride in Beechworth and an offer to improve your riding skills.
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Dirt Crits
Finn, Charlie and Gretchen.
A great night of racing for the first Irish Handicap of the summer; depending on speed and fitness, racers were given anywhere between two and seven laps.
Charlie Dobson came away with the win ahead of Finn Baker and Gretchen Nadenbousch.
Full results here.
This coming Monday is a Gravity Enduro round.
If you’re interested in trying out the new track at Riflebutts on Sunday afternoon before Dirt Crits on Monday, contact Damian to reserve your place (on 0411 045 771) at a ‘viewing’.
Thursday Night up and over the Coombesberg
It felt like the good old days! Thirty seven entrants awaited starter’s instructions at the Botanic Park last Thursday for the first MMBCC Handicap Race of the summer. We haven’t had that many racing for ages!
Part of the increase was the recent arrival of some new members; a big, hearty MMBCC welcome to Richard Plumb, Nathan Pelling and Andy Stephenson.
Next, many of the staff at Timbertop had the night off so we saw Sam Foura, Ross Hopkins and Mark McDowell on the entry list too.
But the majority of the increase came from a recent influx of juniors racers… which is fantastic! Welcome to first timers Bella Green and Ben Grundy; and welcome back to Talia Appleton, Kody Appleton and Will Grundy.
To make sure Juniors don’t overdo it, some of the younger kids are given a maximum distance of 20km. This applies to Talia, Bella and Ben who started first as the Limit Group.
Everyone else started the full 22km from the Botanic Park, staggered in groups of various sizes based on their expected pace, right through to the Scratch Group of Josh Hopwood and Dan Purcell who started 15.30 after the kids off Limit.
And those last couple of paragraphs is all you need to know about the results!
Talia, Bella and Ben worked well together until after the turnaround at Long Lane; just before the turn into Barwite Road the girls snuck away from Ben.
Dan and Josh roared their way through the field and collected only a few hangers-on along the way; Rob Curtis, Bruce Halket, Anthony Plummer, Dave Moore, Sam Foura and, near the top of the dreaded Coombesberg, Jodie Batchelor.
Bella and Talia stayed away on their own with Talia taking the sprint on Graves Road to take the win from Bella.
Purcell won the bunch sprint from Hopwood with Plummer filling the last spot on the extended podium.
Purcell’s time of 33.18 was the fastest… but much of that was owed to Hopwood who did a lot of the work into the wind and reinforced Purcell’s resemblance to Mark Cavendish - the ‘Cav’ nickname might stick this time.
Results here.
Next week sees a return to the bad old days with a finish up the hill on O’Hanlon’s Road. Entries via SMS to 0428 503 437 by 8pm Wednesday.
Roof racks for sale
Ross Hopkins is selling two roof-mounted Thule Proride 591 bike carriers. They are an older model (maybe 5 years old) but still work well despite expected wear and tear.
If you want to have a look or ask questions please contact Ross on 0404 573 667.
Price is $100 for both.
Life Cycle 55+ Beechworth
Cycling Victoria’s next Life Cycle 55+ ride is being held at Beechworth, along the Rail Trail, on Sunday 12 November. There’s another later in November too… at Timboon.
Here are the details.
Damian Grundy coaching offer to MMBCC members
The summer season of racing is here and I am keen to get fitter. I wonder if you would like to join me?
As you may or may not know I have done a little coaching of cyclists in my time.
My racing experience is broad having been at first a road and sometime track rider and then moving to mountain biking later in my career. I also have 15 years of bicycle industry work experience that gives me a substantial technical knowledge of equipment selection, set up and maintenance. For 5 years of my coaching I worked out of the AIS in Canberra liaising closely with the world’s best sports scientists, physiologists, nutritionist, bio mechanists and sports psychologists therein to develop the likes of Cadel Evans, Mary Grigson, Paul Rowney, Rob Woods and Anna Baylis for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. This work has given me a substantial background knowledge in all of these areas. Of course the real skill of an elite coach is not necessarily knowing everything but rather having the ability to identify areas of performance that may be improved and then knowing who, where and how pathways to improvement can be found.
And yes, I was Cadel Evans’ first coach for his mountain bike career.
It is however, a little known fact that in his period of mountain biking Cadel was already road racing. Under my guidance he won a bronze medal in the U19 World Championships ITT. In that period he was also a somewhat regular guest rider at the Australian U23 Road Program in Italy; he won several of the top U23 road races and finished second on GC at the U23 World Cup road stage race Tour d’Alsace in France. During his days at the Volvo Cannondale MTB Team Cadel was also racing some events with the Saeco Cannondale Road Team. In this time under my guidance he won the overall GC at the Tour of Austria.
My knowledge and experience stretch well beyond mountain biking. I am planning to run some weekly training clinics and wonder if you might be interested to join me.
Tuesday nights 4.30pm will be road training nights from the Botanic Gardens.
Wednesday nights 4.30pm will be mountain biking at Riflebutts Mountain Bike Park.
These sessions will often be focussed on the technical aspects of cycling… the basics! They’ll often involve much discussion and practise rather than just going for a ride.
Road sessions
- Sprinting and how to get the best out of your ability whether you are hopeless in a sprint like me or maybe the next Peter Sagan;
- Strength training;
- Cadence development;
- Effective bunch riding (or how to suck a wheel better than Robbie McEwen);
- Hill climbing; or
- Maybe you have an idea, tell me please.
Mountain biking
- Effective XC;
- Pedalling;
- Flow;
- Drinking;
- Gear selection;
- I don’t like jumping! But I want to get better;
- Climbing;
- Descending; and
- again if you have an idea, tell me!
If you are interested, please let me know on 0411 045 771. If I have an idea of numbers early I can better manage things for you.
No age limits! Don’t be worried, you won’t get left behind as many of the activities will be based at a spot rather than travelling far.
Fees? Initially the sessions will be free of charge.
Cheers,
Damian Grundy.