MTBA Nationals in Bright
Cross Country
In Under 15 Women Ruby Dobson won the Silver medal and Talia Appleton finished 6th… a great result from both girls! Well done.
In Masters 5, past member and friend of the MMBCC, Brett Kellett won and is Australian Champion! However, it’s not all good news… Brett still barracks for Collingwood.
Downhill
Matthew Empey finished 18th in the highly competitive Under 19 Men while Elise Empey won the Silver medal in Under 17 Women!
Final race of the summer is a cracker!
By Tom MacMunn
Perfect conditions for the last race of the Summer Series on Thursday night. It was a slightly smaller field with a bunch of juniors on their way to the Mountain Bike Nationals for the weekend. The smart money was on the handicapper, John Eisner, who started himself first. Bella Green and Craig Wilson joined him to make up the strongest looking limit group in MMBCC memory. A group of five old blokes (some older than others) followed them and chased hard all the way to the turnaround at Sawpit Gully Road, pulling back more than half of the two minute deficit.
Meanwhile Cam Lachal and Steve Duke were trying gamely to stay away from Bruce Halket, Dave Moore, Damian Grundy and Tom MacMunn. They had a three minute start but with only two riders it was always going to be a challenge. Both groups were together at the turn.
Josh Hopwood and Lewis Dowie had pulled back a fair chunk of time from Scratch, but with a tail wind on the way home the other groups had a good chance of staying away. Josh and Lewis were held up at the turnaround, with the marshals keeping them safe by holding them to let a car pass. At the end of the race they were calling it 10-15 seconds, by the time we got to the pub they were saying at least a minute.
It was a fast downhill, tailwind run for all groups back towards town. The front groups came together but thoughts of staying away were dashed just after the Barwite Hill. Dave Moore, likely series champion, played the ultimate team role and pulled a massive turn to catch everyone and allow Damian, Bruce and Tom to launch an attack, with only Steve Duke able to respond. The four leaders worked together to the final turn on to Mt Battery Road. Steve’s version of the sprint was that he decided not to win so that he wouldn’t have to write the race report. The author of this report feels the sprint was won fair and square. Tom from Steve, Bruce and Damian. Fastest time went to Josh in 39.30.
Thank you to all the marshals, commissaries, volunteers, the handicapper and the road committee. Thank you also to the other road users in the Mansfield District, particularly those who use the Mansfield Whitfield Road. This is one of the best places in Australia to ride and a big part of that is having a community who helps to keep our cyclists safe.
A final thanks of the 2018/2019 season to Tony Copland for the pics and here are the results.
General Meeting tomorrow
The usual MMBCC Exec Meeting will be held tomorrow, Monday 8 April, at the Delatite Hotel at 7pm. However, this time, all members are invited to come along to see how things run and to add more voices to the discussions.
Summer Presentation
This coming Thursday 11 April the MMBCC will host the Summer Presentations at the Delatite Hotel from 6pm. This is where we’ll award the Summer Road Series trophy, the Dirt Crits trophy and the Alain Guerin Memorial Crossover trophy.
See you there!
Lake Eildon Challenge
Apparently there’s a silver lining to every cloud.
A very dry summer means we might soon be able to ride out to Jamieson more often if the amount of traffic drops with the lake level.
But until the roads get that quiet, you can ride out that way with a bunch next Saturday… the Lake Eildon Challenge is on!
Unlike previous years, this year it’s not really an official ‘event’ just a fun day out. Use this link for the LEC website, have a read and let Liam Delaney know you’ll be coming along for the ride. I know of at least one local planning on riding to Eildon with a support driver picking them up.
QTCs
We’ll have the final financial results of the Mansfield Tour soon. So far, it looks ok.
However, the largest cost of the Tour is the wages of the Qualified Traffic Controllers (QTC) we need to implement the Traffic Management Plans. This year we were lucky enough to enlist the help of the SES to help keep costs down. But we can’t expect them to be available every year.
So, the club is talking to Cycling Victoria about organising a QTC course some time in the next few months. The aim is to get about 10 volunteers qualified to help out next March for Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.
But we need non-MMBCC members, as MMBCC members will be busy organising the race itself, as most of you were this year.
Do you know anyone associated with another community group (Scouts, Apex, Tennis Club, Football & Netball Club, etc.) who’d be prepared to help out? We’ll not only pay them for their time at the Tour, we’ll also donate to their community group. Plus, they’ll get a qualification they can use to earn a good wage!
If you do, please get them to contact Bruce.
And don’t forget…
One of the races of the pro season tonight - the Tour of Flanders. Live on SBS Viceland from 9.30pm.