A big weekend of cycling, here’s the latest MMBCC News… make sure you subscribe on the website so you don’t miss out.
New road numbers
With so many of the ‘new’ road numbers missing, we’ve ordered ‘newer’ numbers. They’ve arrived; so we’ll use them in next week’s race, at Jamieson. (We’ll lash out and buy new pins as well!)
And we’ll go back to the traditional way of using them: the Handicapper will allocate all racers a number each week, you get to pin it on and use it for the race, then return it to the race trailer after the race.
No more taking numbers home… they go missing that way!
Lightning Beats Dirt Critters
No Dirt Critters Update this week as the weather was doing its weird start-of-summer thing again, forcing cancellation. Hopefully the weather will behave itself for next week.
Dirt Crits Irish Handicap
By Damian Grundy
Let me be brief! Vini Vidi Vici! “I came, I saw, I conquered!”
Or So Julius Caesar is alleged to have said in a letter soon after a conclusive victory over some poor European nation.
One might suspect that if Rylan Fox was a classically educated young man, he might have said something similar after the race at Rifle Butts on Tuesday 28 November. He took full advantage of a generous handicap and absolutely dominated the race, finishing almost 2 minutes clear of Archie Smith.
Tom MacMunn was on a single-speed blinder and rode super fast to finish in 3rd place.There is a rumour that a crowd funding page is being set up to try to generate some funds to help him put some gears on his bike!
Reuben Bateup and Cruz Archibald fought out a close tussle to round out the podium in 4th and 5th places respectively.
And once again Ant Bateup was fastest on the night but only by a whisker over Tom MacMunn, who as previously mentioned, was riding with only the one gear.
Here are the detailed results - gravity race next week.
Rob Curtis Memorial Handicap Road Race
By Ruby Dobson (with a little assistance from Cam Dobson)
This weeks race was the Rob Curtis Memorial. Rob was a legend in the world of winter sports, a very handy bike rider (particularly going up hill) and a long-term (and missed) member of MMBCC. The course departs the Botanic Garden heads out on the Whitfield Road, turning around at Rob’s house with a finish in town in front of the Showgrounds; total length 30.4 km.
Ably handicapped by Dave (Mr. Spreadsheet) Moore the field of 14 was split into 7 groups, with Tony Morris punching the breeze out front, with the muscly entourage of Jake Lay and Andrew Garret departing @ 15:30.
Tony got away with very little fuss and very little briefing, other than to watch out for potholes, gravel and cars (not necessarily in that order). The rest of the crew got away in short (prescribed) order with similar treatment and very little delay from light traffic.
Shane and Ruby (riding off ‘Block) were on the road @ 13:30 with a mission to keep away from Scratch and to round up as much as the field as possible. They managed to catch Darren Bakker, Michael Pierce and Damian Grundy at the turnaround point; Scratch were about a minute behind at this point, which got Shane and Ruby a bit focused.
I know that a focused Ruby is quite a thing (I haven’t met Shane before but he seems to be similar) and they proceeded to pull the finger out and got stuck in. Damian and Micheal lost contact after a surge up one of the rises back towards town while Darren gritted his teeth, pulled on both his fingers and joined in. The run home was completed at an average somewhere north of 39km/h, with the trio of Shane, Ruby and Darren working together until Dead Horse Lane, where Darren died after one last attack from Ruby.
This was ultimately the winning move of the race, with Ruby winning by a half wheel after a vocal negotiation process on Mt Battery Road. Winning (race) time was 46:34 @ 39.2km/h.
Scratch rider Jake Lay demonstrated again just how fast he can be, coming in third (pipping Darren by 2 seconds) with fastest time 44:35 @40.9km/h.
Thanks to all the riders, marshals and Commissaires.
Some of the events described above may have been embellished.Times, speeds quoted are based on what played out on Thursday night, but could be significant under/over estimates depending on your view of the truth and whether you were actually there.
Next week we’re off to Jamieson for a handicap on just about everyone’s favourite course.
Here are the results and many thanks to Tony Copland for a really great set of pics this week.
Some Weekend Results
Tour of Bright
A special congratulations to the MMBCC’s own Talia Appleton for 19th place overall in the highly competitive Women’s A grade.
Jake Lay (who comes over from Seymour Broadford CC and races here most Thursdays) came in a very impressive 8th place in the almost as competitive Men’s B.
Shayne Kirby (another Thursday night regular from Seymour Broadford CC) came in 27th in Master’s C.
And Chris McKnight (who works for Tourism North East, used to work at Mt Buller and races here occasionally) came in 42nd in Master’s C.
Congratulations to all of you. Here are the Tour of Bright results.
VIC MTB Series - taking the chocolates
Ruby Dobson won Elite Women at round 3 of the Vic Champs Series at Buxton on Saturday and doubled up by winning again at Eildon for round 4 on Sunday, taking the chocolates, literally!
Special mentions to Bruce Halket and Tim Ross who raced Masters 7. On Saturday at Buxton, Bruce finished 2nd, Tim 4th; then on Sunday at Eildon they each moved up a place, to both get on the podium and… bring home the chocolates!
