News on all three of our weekly events below…
Dirt Critters
Tim gives the ‘troups’ a pre-ride briefing. Probably no accident that Luke’s new bike gets in the pic too!
An unexpectedly large group of twenty four primary schoolers turned up for the second week of Dirt Critters on Tuesday night.
Explore Rifle Butts was the theme for the day. An older group led by Luke ventured to the top taking in the entire XC Loop plus some other runs.
The younger group led by Tim did a couple of laps of Bogans Beginnings before braving the bridge to finish with Critters.
Dirt Critters exists for primary school age kids to build confidence and skills on their bikes in a fun environment.
This coming week is a Skills Night at Rifle Butts Reserve. Call Luke on 0455 604 785 for more details.
Dirt Crits
Another big night of ‘handicap’ Cross Country racing at Rifle Butts with 20 entrants for the Zac Empey designed XC course.
Even though there weren’t as may laps required as last week under the tutelage of his sadistic father, Zac still required most riders to do 7 or 8 laps, with the ‘honour’ of hardest handicap going to Ruby Dobson who was set 9 laps.
The jury is still out on whether it was pure coincidence that the winner was Zac’s older brother Matthew.
2nd went to this week’s Most Improved, Elijah McGuigan. Ant Bateup, Archie Smith and Ryder Chadd completed the podium.
Here are the results.
Many thanks to Mel and Zac for officiating and to Elijah for the entertainment of landing so badly on the jumps afterwards!
Ryder does it again!
By Janine Appleton
Low wind and low 20's made for perfect conditions for the start of our second race. To minimise danger, our Commissionaire, Bruce Halket, forwarded our start line past the Owen's Creek bridge, dropping 1.5km off the course, a marginal reduction to the original 25km handicapped race. With two riders from Seymour, Andrew Garrett and Jake Lay in Scratch and Block, the locals were keen to show our visitors a good time with friendly bunch racing.
Due to my solo ride in the first race, finishing 10 minutes behind the leader, I was fortunate to start in the largest group of the night, with four others: Jason Parker, Justin Berry, Ryder Chadd and Craig Wilson, two minutes behind Ian Conrick and John Eisner and seven minutes behind Micala Jacobs. My priority was to keep Ryder safe, reinforcing good group riding skills such as bike positioning and communicating when there are cars behind/in front or road dangers.
At the turn around at Cummins Road, our group were leading the race and our chances were promising with about two minutes lead on the group of Darren Bakker, Michael Pearce and Ant Bateup, with the last two bunches another minute or two further behind. The approaching rolling hills always have the effect of sorting out the group with heart rates climbing and legs weakening. I knew the adolescent legs of Ryder had a higher muscle mass than mine and he had been at the back of the group for the final 3km. The more unknown was what did Jason and Justin had left.
When Ryder stood up and accelerated over 10 pedal strokes with 300 metres to go, all I could do is get into his slipstream and stay tucked while at my full speed. Jason, Justin and Craig were close behind in 3rd, 4th and 5th with Steve Brown leading the next group including Jake Lay, Ant Bateup, and Steve Duke 45 seconds behind. Josh Hopwood inched out Andrew Garrett for the fastest time.
Many thanks to our volunteers for marshaling on corners to stop riders, lead and tail cars, and at start/finish lines. Our highest priority is to make our events safe for our participants and other road users, choosing courses that then need to be approved for a permit by Victoria Police, Vic Roads, and our local council.
Results can be found here.
Every week, we should also be thanking all the other road users in Mansfield for their patience and courteous behaviour when encountering any cyclist out on the road, a single cyclist or a group of two or more on any day. We thank you for giving us 1.5 metres on roads in excess of 60 km/hr when passing. We thank you for slowing down for a few hundred metres until it is safe to pass. We thank you for looking out for us at intersections. We ride for our physical and mental health, being members of the Mansfield community - we could be your tradie, your child's primary school teacher, your pharmacist, or your firefighter.
If you think you would like to do a bit more cycling, would like to know a bit more about the club that is “the social club with a cycling problem" or want to give racing a go with a free 4-week trial membership, please send an email to mmbcc.info@gmail.com