Gravity Wrap
By Dave Empey
Another perfect evening for gravity racing at Rifle Butts MTB Park with a huge turn out of racers. We had 26 people race. Not bad for an evening’s racing.
Racing appears to be getting tighter across the board.
A new winner this week: Ryder Chadd. He had the fastest lap just pipping Rueben Bateup for the hot lap by 1 sec.
The top five this week were Ryder Chad closely followed by Thing 1 and Thing 2 (the matching Bateups) on the same second with Ant getting the honours on a count back.
The All Terrain Cycles Cup was taken out by Shannon finishing 4th just ahead of Archie Smith, who is washing bikes for the week.
As said earlier times were tight all the way through the results sheet. Dan Friday may have done better but a pre-run mechanical had his trusty or not so trusty Banshee not performing optimally.
Tim Ross should undertake a course in bike maintenance as a slow leak will only usually get you to the top of the hill. Although I don’t think Tim’s pumped up tyres would have been enough for him to catch Ben.
Nicole Hoebergen took her first win over the very speedy Sienna Vivash with Ariel rounding out the women’s field.
It’s great to see big turn outs, so well done everyone. Here are the results.
On the last Gravity Enduro of the year there will be gear available to anyone who wants it. It will include tyres, Camelbaks, helmets and some clothing. If anyone has some stuff they don’t want bring it along and get it re-purposed.
The Heat Is On!
By Micala Jacobs
Mansfield Mt Buller Cycling Club came together for its first hot evening of racing on Thursday. In line with what seems to be the warm Spring season it’s turned out to be.
This week saw the racers line up for the 23 km Course 2 - an out and back starting at the Mansfield Commercial Complex, turning around in the dip between Hearns and Buttercup Roads and finishing on the Mansfield-Woods Point Road about halfway up the airstrip.
At 6pm when the flag dropped it was still a solid 30 degrees. Any wind throughout the day had dropped to a gentle 9kmph WNW which I feel had dropped to nothing by the time we were out near Glenroy Road.
Of the 19 starters we were set off at various times that represent our levels and abilities. The handicapper has an immense job of determining this but it is not an exact science as external factors such as non-starters, bad days and just ‘not feeling it in this heat’ take their toll on the race outcome. Each group had good numbers allowing everyone to do a bit of work on the front.
Di Condie, Micala Jacobs and Judi Duke were able to stay away until the turn around. The steady long incline up to Hearns Road either offered the chance for some stronger riders to ‘blow up’ their fellow contenders while others worked together to overcome the gaps and catch the little taillight glowing in front. It’s all racing!
Coming back in from Hearns Road riders engaged the big gears, got in ‘the drops’ and turned the legs hard to try and make up for the slower accent. Many riders dug deep.
You know the handicapper is doing a good job when the time gap between the first and last rider has the entire field crossing the finishing line in a 4 and half minute window. Andy Garrett (Euroa) who got sent off solo as Scratch, 12min and 30 secs after the first riders were set off, was able to lay down the fastest time of the evening of 36 minutes and 51 seconds.
Craig Wilson was able to bridge the gap to Di and Micala and took them all the way to the finish line, in that order, in a time of 42min 35 seconds. That’s two in a row for Wil!
The top 10 across the finish line looked like this:
1. Craig Wilson
2. Di Condie
3. Micala Jacobs
4. Oliver Hall
5. Adrian Dowd
6. Janine Appleton
7. Steve Curnow
8. Ryder Chadd
9. Dave Bock
10. Jarrod Appleton
Here are the detailed results and see you all next week for the Rob Curtis Memorial Handicap.