Post date: Jul 12, 2013 11:29:25 PM
Bonjour Vets,
Welcome to this week’s issue of Le Bêlement in honour of Le Tour. Not much to report this week;
· Racing cette semaine –Gunning Secret Handicap
· Directeur de Course’s report – Lookout Hill
Please send me your contributions at: TheBleat@actvets.cc
Ian Morton.
Where: Gunning, summit of hill about 1.5 km NE of the town.
When: 1:30pm
Sign on: 15 mins before scheduled start time wearing your registered number.
Race Description:
Gunning – Bredalbane (48km).
Race Director: Mick Donaldson
Contact: Email mdonaldson@netspeed.com.au Ph 0418486367 or 62418294
Help Needed on Sunday: Mick will require 1 turn marshal, lead and trail car drivers and some helpers at the finish line. Please contact him before the weekend if you can assist.
On a cool Saturday afternoon 69 riders contested a breezy Tharwa-Pt Hut course.
Grades A, B, C & D did 3 laps (~50km) of the shortened course, whilst E, F and G opted for 2 laps. Despite the smiles on the start line for the shorter course and the welcome removal of the hills on Tidbinbilla Rd by many rider, the gentle breeze was to play havoc with all grades. Each grade had at least one DNF - with most muttering about the conditions. Almost 15 per cent of the field retired due to the conditions.
First home were E grade riders - generally coming in in 1's and 2s, led home by Chris Dean, followed (in the loosest sense of the word) by Tony Beasley and Terry Danaher.
Several women from G Grade took the race to themselves and stuck together for most of the event. Jing Huang gapped Edda Douglas and Clare D'Arcy in the wind-up for the sprint however. The remainder of G grade solo'd in over the next 5 minutes.
Graham Hendrie didn't let the lack of a warm up (being involved with the race set-up as always) showed E grade the way to ride the wind and leading them home.
A grade - with one lap more - were not far behind E grade and were challenged by the tandem. The field was usually split up on the return leg from Point Hut - but the downhill run from the Start/Finish to the turn-around at Tharwa saw the tandem bringing everyone back together. Steve Crispin jumped away in the final few kilometers to put 25 seconds into the rest of the field, with David Rae leading home Christophe Barbaret and the rest of the bunch.
B grade stayed together for much of the race - and managed the smallest gap from first to last rider across the line - just a little over 2 minutes. Dom Rideaux was seen to gapping the field everytime up the hill past the Start/Finish line - and the practice paid off as he also led home on the third time up the hill in a close sprint with 8 other riders. Reinhard, pleading illness, was allowed to ride B grade...and somehow managed 3rd. I'm sure the handicapper has noticed his ailing condition and will see to it next week.
Both C and D grades had only 7 starters - the smallest fields of the day. And this proved a challenge. C grade was soon reduced to 4 riders with Dale Kleeman outsprinting Alain Arbaut on the line followed by Eddie O'Farrell a little later. D grade had the largest split from 1st to last - almost 13 minutes. This grade decided an ITT was a better option than a graded scratch race. Obviously getting in some hard training for later in the year.
Thanks to Chris Short for race refereeing.
The race report last week neglected to include thanks to Ross Robinson for his assistance at the Dairy Rd Criterium.