No Dirt Crits this week due to a horse race. Next week it’s XC again!
Roadies Reminder…
All members are encouraged to check the road race duty roster please.
If you’ve raced on the road at all over the last few years, you’re probably on it. We rely on all our volunteers taking their turn at race duty to make sure our races go ahead safely and efficiently.
Here’s the link to check the whole season on one page.
Invitation to ride at Mt Buller
Alpine Resorts Victoria would like to invite the Mansfield Mt Buller Cycling Club to an exclusive, pre-season ride day at Mt Buller, on Saturday 25 November.
In concert with our hardworking trail crew, Contour Works will be on site throughout November, revitalising crowd favourite trails ABOM and Gang Gangs. As well as broader reshaping and feature works. We'd love the help and support of your club, to test the new features with us, and ride-in the freshly completed works.
Members will be able to spend the day alongside our trail crew. Using the provided shuttles to access the full gravity network from 10am to 5pm. We have also arranged for the Kooroora Pub to provide a catered sausage sizzle lunch in a dedicated event space in the village plaza from 1pm.
Over lunch Contour Works will provide club members with the inside scoop on the works they will be undertaking over summer. David McCoombe (Danger) will also outline our long-term asset management plans for the trail network and how we intend to keep the trails in tip top shape moving forward. Club members are encouraged to ask as many questions as they’d like during this session.
Members are asked to RSVP using this link. This will help us ensure we have enough snags for lunch and can meet any special dietary needs.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me using this link. I look forward to working more closely with the club in the future and to making sure our broader Mansfield community sees Mt Buller and Mt Stirling as their mountains.
Kind regards,
Amanda Vogt
Head of Visitor Experience | Mt Buller Mt Stirling Resort Management, Alpine Resorts Victoria.
Tim Ross wins Alain’s race
By Allan Gerrans
It was good to see a strong field of 18 riders enter for one of the MMBCC’s longest and most important races. The Alain Guerin Memorial Handicap, held each year in memory of Alain, a respected club member who was tragically killed when hit by a vehicle whilst riding on the Mt Buller Road nine years ago.
The course started at the Botanic Park and out along the Whitfield Road to Sawpit Gully Road then returning to the Barwite Road, over the dreaded Coombesberg and finishing on Graves Road - a total of just over 32km.
The field was split into seven groups with 20 minutes separating first to last starters. Micala Jacobs was first off, followed four minutes later by John Eisner and Dave Jagger who were then followed by Ian Conrick, Steve Curnow and Allan Gerrans another two minutes behind.
Eisner and Jagger were caught by the Conrick group at the Broken River bridge. The new group of five worked well together to catch Jacobs at the turnaround.
It was after the turn that they finally had a good look at the distance to the groups chasing them.
A strong group of four riders, led by Tim Ross, looked likely to catch the leading group of five. But there was still a long gap between the Ross group and the three final three groups of nine riders.
Ross, Tim Hall and Adrian Dowd finally caught the group of five at the Barwite Road intersection. But an acceleration by the two Tims (Ross & Hall) caught the others by surprise and only Curnow and Gerrans were able to go wth them, leaving Jagger, Eisner, Conrick and Dowd behind.
Ross did most of the work along Barwite Road, helped very occasionally by Curnow and Gerrans, and eventually even left Hall behind after the turn onto Old Tolmie Road.
Meanwhile, the three Scratch riders, Jake Lay, Andy Garrett and Ruby Dobson, had worked their way past all the rest of the field, apart from the leading three.
Curnow dropped back on the way up the Coombesberg; Gerrans was dropped near the top. This left Ross to race to the finish alone.
Dobson and Lay deadheated for 4th (with the money for Fastest Time going to Jake because he turned up at the Mansfield Hotel for presentations) followed by Garrett, Ryder Chadd, Bruce Halket, Jagger and Conrick in 10th.
Many thanks to Mel, Janine, Tricia and Bocky for a safe and well-organised race. Thanks too go to John for standing in as Handicapper while Dave recovers - get well soon Dev!
After the race, we rode out to the ‘Ghost Bike’ on Mt Buller Road, marking the location of Alain’s incident, where we were met by Alain’s wife Coral.
Many thanks to Tony Copland for the pics (except the last one of Coral and Tim, thanks to Leonie McLaughlin) and here are the results.
Next week we turn our attention to the rolling hills of Howes Creek Road - entries via Entry Boss and bribes to the Handicapper on the quiet please!
Still Dot-watching Wayne
By Bruce Halket
As mentioned last week, All Terrain Cycles mechanic Wayne Arazny is riding the 2023 Tassie Gift, an 1800km bike-packing race. He’s currently sitting in 20th position, up from 30th (after the broken forks incident) and is almost half way through.
Use this link to check his progress.
Cup Day Gravel
Seven gravel-equipped roadies hit the dirt roads around Mansfield on Tuesday for a pre-cup trundle. We only got momentarily lost once and there was only one little ‘off’. Otherwise, it was bloody great!
We hope to do more rides like this soon - keep an eye out on the club’s WhatsApp group.
Finally…
An oasis of bike-related news in a media desert.
Many long-time readers of MMBCC Latest News will know that Bruce frequently linked to articles on the Cycling Tips website. The demise of Cycling Tips and the poor state of cycling new media generally has made keeping up to date with all things road and cross country mountain biking more difficult than usual of late.
That is until the discarded staff from Cycling Tips started a website called Escape Collective. It covers lots of different aspects of cycling, not just road racing. They’re currently offering membership of $1 for a month, so you can dip your toes in the water.
Use this link, select the Escape Supporter as the membership option, then type in NOVEMBER in the coupon field at the Checkout. You’ll get the first month for $1.
If you decide it’s not for you, cancel after a month and it’ll only cost you a dollar.