A brief update before the Mansfield Tour kicks off. This week:
- Dirt Crits Gravity Enduro from Tuesday night;
- Thursday's Handicap Road Race; and
- Updated map of Mansfield Tour stage 1.
Gravity Enduro
After a hiccup with signage on run 1, Dan Friday set fastest time during run 2 to take the win from Matt Empey. Thanks to Damian, Kate and Adam for a fun race.
Here are the results.
Overall winners: 2. Matt Empey; 1. Daniel Friday; 3. Will Grundy.
Womens' Winners: 2. Ruby Dobson; 1. Elise Empey.
Junior winners: 2. Zac Empey; 1. Ruby Dobson; Equal 3. Charlie Dobson and Finn Baker.
Howes Creek Handicap, Thursday 16 March
Last Thursday saw the return to the challenging Howes Creek Road course for the club’s 25km handicap for the third time this season. Bolstering the regular field were Jean-Daniel and Laurent Guerin along with their mates, Damon de Angelis, Matt McLennan and Simon Bone – all up for the Mansfield Tour on the weekend.
In her first race, Talia Appleton took off courageously into a blustery southerly followed some time later by the dynamic team of Will MacDonald, Kody Appleton, Dave Bock and John Eisner. Di Condie, Dave Jagger and Craig Wilson followed with Steve Flew, Gretchen Nadenbousch and Jodie Batchelor up next.
Tim Hall and Janine Appleton then Tim Ross and Dave Moore made up the middle field while Jarrod Appleton, Rob Skinner, Aaron Peterson, Darren Bakker, Luke Olver, Mauro Brega and the Melbourne lads made up the rest of the list.
The MacDonald crew worked smoothly and it took the well sorted Condie trio most of the race to finally catch them at the 15k mark. With these two groups working well the following two groups struggled to make ground and subsequently broke apart.
Similarly at the Scratch and Block end, both were looking sharp until the turnaround where it was reported that things became a little untidy.
Taking advantage of this, Limit settled down and after a minute of sorting clockwise vs anticlockwise proceeded to let Craig Wilson lead a very fast downhill run towards the finish. Getting slightly boxed in David Jagger missed the jump, lead by the "yep-need-to-move-in-a-group-or-two” Handicapper who also caught Bocky by surprise to take second place. David Jagger came third, Craig fourth and Di fifth with Damon de Angelis recording the fastest time of 39’ for the 25km course.
The night was all Talia Appleton’s though, who rode a great, lone ride, exceeding her anticipated average to beat the rest of the bunches by a comfy three and a half minutes – well done!
Thanks to the crew of volunteers and the Delatite Hotel for hosting the post-race dissection.
Here are the results and pics below are thanks to Tony Copland.
Finally...
Many thanks to all our members who are giving up some, or all, of their weekend to help run the Mansfield Tour. For a small club we do a great job!
Good luck to all competitors and particularly our own club members Josh Hopwood and Dan Purcell (no pressure boys - just enjoy it!)
The map for the Individual Time Trial, Stage One of the Mansfield Tour, has now been updated with a cobbled-together Google Maps version. Hopefully this makes the distance seem more logical.
However, to the hipster outside of Registration tonight who complained that the map hadn't been updated earlier, apologies and I hope you enjoy the Tour!