“Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There’s something wrong with a society that drives a car to workout in a gym.”
Bill Nye
A warm night of Gravity Dirts Crits
One race course, raced twice, fastest combined timed wins.
1 Archie
2 Elijah
3 Charlie
4 Zac
5 Luke
Great riding from all and thank you to our wonderful club volunteers for organising. Here are the detailed results. See you next week for XC race edition.
Many thanks to Shannon Rademaker for the pics.
Who knew John could sprint?!
By David Jagger
Thursday 1 February saw a perfect summer evening for a bike race, 25 degrees, clear skies and a south-westerly wind. The Howes Creek Road course is a good mix of flat sections and rolling hills; a variation that will suit most riders for some part of the course.
Like most of the club’s road races, this was a handicap race. The slower riders were sent off first and the fastest about fifteen minutes later with the aim that they all cross the finish line at about the same time.
Tony Morris, the statesman of the club was the first to set off. The head wind was quite strong at the start, so he wisely waited for the next riders (John Eisner and David Jagger) to catch him and provide support. Dave Bock joined the group and added valuable strength heading into the wind.
Tim Hall and Ian Conrick were the next group but were caught near the Preston Wool Shed by Craig Wilson, Adrian Dowd and Steve Curnow. This group of five steamed their way to the turnaround at Cummins Road and looked invincible.
Steve Duke, Darren Bakker, Damian Grundy and Tim Ross powered out of the start and set a cracking pace. This proved a little too fast for Tim who was dropped by his group a little earlier than he would have liked.
Andrew Garrett, Ruby Dobson and Chris Miller were making the headwind seem like a gentle breeze as they powered along to the turnaround. From there they seemed that they were sprinting on the way back, now with the wind on their backs.
Fresh from the Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, Talia Appleton was the last to start a further minute back.
The rolling hills took a toll on a few riders and were dropped from their groups, riding solo back to the finish. In the cruel outcome of many handicap races, Andrew, Ruby and Chris overtook many riders in the last few hundred metres.
Meanwhile, the first group of riders managed to just stay ahead, John winning with a short sprint over David. Chris caught Dave Bock on the last hill to finish third.
Chris had the fastest time of the race, but credit must be given to a lone powerhouse: Talia Appleton. She set a blistering pace right from the start, with 25km appearing like a warmup for this amazing girl. She finished the race only 90 seconds slower than Chris who had the assistance of his group for whole race. And Talia was the only one who had to be stopped by a marshal at an intersection due to an oncoming car!
Here are the results and many thanks to Tony Copland for the pics, below.
Thanks to all the helpers on the night to make the race possible. Their sacrifice enabled the race to run. The Mansfield Hotel award went to Dave Empey who is always around to support the MMBCC.
Next week we’re racing on the Whitfield Road, going around the ‘Barwite Loop’ and finishing on Graves Road.