After the usual Winter hiatus from racing, allowing Mother Nature to give Mansfield many millimetres of rain, Mansfield Mt Buller Cycling Club held its first club race of the season on Thursday evening.
Conditions were perfect with the rain holding out all day allowing the roads to be safe and dry. A light NE breeze gave the riders just enough of a headwind for the first half of the race on the Mansfield-Whitfield Road to sort out who’d been doing their pre-season training and who’d been in a good paddock.
With entries opening up from Monday to Wednesday for racing Thursday, not knowing if if it was going to be wet or dry, numbers were modest, made up mostly of weathered die-hards and one new comer.
The 15 riders for the evening were sent out in the staggered format of the handicap - sent out at 16, 14, 8, 4 minutes and Scratch. First to go was Tony Morris at 16 minutes. The first bunch made up by John Eisner, David Jagger, Micala Jacobs and Ryder Chadd turned out to be the perfect introduction to Road Racing that anyone could ask for, with John taking Ryder under his wing with tips and hints to keep him and his fellow riders safe and fast to the turnaround before sending Ryder in his way. Micala and David were dropped to complete their ‘timed social ride’ without incident.
Craig Wilson, Ian Conrick and Jason Parker made up the next group, sent out at 8 minutes. Darren Bakker, Mick Pearce, Janine Appleton and Rob Skinner followed not so closely at 4 minutes and the final 3 fastest riders, Steve Brown, Steve Duke and Dave Moore were off Scratch.
The field did their time into the headwind out to the turn-around point at Sawpit Gully Road with groups starting to catch up to others around the 3/4 mark of about 18kms.
You know the handicapper has done a decent job when the majority of the field finishes within a few minutes of each other. The exception was Ryder who finished well clear. A gaggle of riders then finished within 3 minutes of each other with Bakker (2nd) and Skinner (3rd) rounding out the podium. Fastest for the evening was Steve Duke at 42m49sec.
In a change of club communication policy, from now on second place each week will be given the ‘honour’ of writing the week’s race round up. But as Ryder won so easily, the policy change was postponed for a week as a ‘reward’.
As always, a big thank you to our volunteer marshals and commissaires and to the Mansfield Hotel for donations and hosting presentations.
Here are the results.
Next week’s race will be around the Barwite Loop; online entries open on Monday morning and close Wednesday night - go to www.mmbcc.org.au for more details.
Dirt Crits is back this week!
The first night of Dirt Crits will be this coming Tuesday 11 October. It starts with XC racing at Rifle Butts MTB Park at 6pm - get there a bit early so we can start on time.
The full 2022/2023 Dirt Crits schedule is on the Events Calendar now.
Dirt Critters is back too!
Want your primary school kids to develop bike skills and confidence in an informal setting?
It all starts this coming Tuesday at Rifle Butts MTB Park, kicking off at 4.30pm, with Tim Ross and Luke Vivash - plus a few guest instructors from time to time. There will be a mix of skills development, timed rides, a couple of rides at other venues and plenty of ‘just riding for fun’.
There is NO COST to attend each week - the only requirement is that all riders must have an AusCycling membership. Click here to go to the Join Now page and follow the AusCycling links. An AusCycling membership is valid for 12 months and costs $60 for 7yo and under; $85 for 8 to 12yo. For those who haven’t previously had a membership, a free, four-week ‘come and try’ membership is available. It will run for about 45 minutes each week until mid-December (and then again in term 1 next year.)
The schedule for term 4 is on the Events Calendar now.
Contact dirtcrits@gmail.com or call Luke on 0455 604 785 for more information.
Missing numbers
We seem to be missing a lot of our road race numbers. Got a road race number at home? Could you return it please?