In this issue:
Vale Ray Watson;
Mildly extravagant self-promotion;
VDHS now Tier 1;
Have your say about the Station Precinct;
Big news for ATC and local mountain bikers; and
Some other weird cycling-related news.
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Ray Watson, on the right, riding across the Bonnie Doon bridge with his good mate George Chalk. This image is from a photoshoot organised by the Shire in 2011 to promote the rail trail.
Vale Ray Watson
Long time club member Ray Watson passed away a week ago. Our thoughts go out to Ray’s family. He was an absolutely lovely bloke, who really enjoyed riding his bike.
Any club members who are available on Wednesday 24 October to attend Ray’s funeral at St Andrew’s Uniting Church at 1pm are invited to ride their bikes to the church to celebrate Ray’s love of his bike.
Pedal on Ray.
Mildly extravagant self promotion
By Nathan Pelling
The second road race for the season got underway with a strong field of 24 riders. The 25 km Handicap race along the Howes Creek Road course with it's undulating terrain kept everyone on their toes.
First group off the mark was Bella Green and Tony Morris with the respective groups starting afterward right back to Josh Hopwood who was in a lonely pack of one off Scratch. This wasn't going to deter The Juggernaut however, fresh off his Bronze medal performance at the Victorian ITT Championships he was in hot pursuit of the strong group of 6 riders a minute ahead of him.
The main action was happening a little further up the road where the group of three, Christine Hopkins, Nathan Pelling and Allan Gerrans were riding their own team TT to quickly round up the couple of groups ahead of them. This formed a large group that was now in good stead to hold off the quicker chargers behind them. The aforementioned trio continued to force the pace at the front of the pack rolling turns with the odd cameo appearance from a couple of others in the bunch.
This group was able to roll along strongly and hold off the quicker groups for most of the return leg, the short sharp rolling hills took their toll on riders legs however with those who were still fresh enough able to push a bit harder and break the pack up a little.
This is where the blatant self promotion kicks in; I did exactly this on one of the last hills of the course looking behind at the crest to now surprisingly be in a breakaway containing only myself.
Sitting there now lonely in my chamois there was nothing left to do but pedal as hard a possible as there were still a couple of early starters visible in the distance and only a couple of K's to go. Surely this is how Sagan, Froome and the like feel when chasing down the last of a breakaway! Fair comparison I feel, amateur hack in club race and the biggest stars of the sport.
Anyway enough suspense, the last of the riders up the road, Bella Green, was caught with only 50m to go making for a close finish. The final results being N. Pelling with a maiden win from Green and Tilda Reeve, followed by the fellow early pack leaders of Gerrans and Hopkins with the rest of the field closely behind.
Many thanks to all the volunteers we had at our race this week; great to see so many helping out including Gwen, Belinda, Deb, Janine, Kody, Jarrod, Tim, John, even Ben and Alistair! Thank you all.
Many thanks to Tony Copland for the pics - here are the results.
Next week’s race in an Individual Time Trial, starting and finishing on Graves Road. Entries via SMS to John on 0428 503 437 by 8pm Wednesday.
Mt Buller VDHS earns Tier 1
Our Mt Buller round of the Vic Downhill Series in now an MTBA Tier 1 event!
MTBA no longer organise a dedicated national series but allocate points from all events towards an overall points score called the National Cup. The ‘bigger’ events are listed as Tier One and award the highest number of points. This should mean we attract more visitors (and therefore, entries) to the mountain this summer.
More details about the National Cup calendar here.
Station Precinct Activation Project - have your say
Mansfield Shire are trying to find out what to do with the Station Precinct. The club was invited to put its two-bobs worth last week (about a possible club rooms and a multi-use trail linking the end of the rail trail to the centre of town, the Botanic Gardens and a loop of town - even up to Riflebutts Reserve.) Now you can too.
Use this link to have your say.
ATC wins tender to run Mt Buller shuttles
All Terrain Cycles have announced they’re the official Mt Buller Bike Park Gravity shuttle operator for this season 2018/19!
Plans for the summer include a discounted locals pass, an opening weekend / 10 year anniversary party on 1 December and a DIG for a PASS Program. More details on Facebook.
Finally…
Some slightly weird cycling related reading for a rainy day.
There’s hope for us old bike riders yet… Andreas Tafi won Paris-Roubaix in 1999, aged 32. He wants to make a comeback and ride it again next year, as a pro, aged 52! WTF!
Hannah Jenkins is English but after a bike crash she speaks English only in the morning… in the afternoon it has to be German! More at the BBC.