Manning Valley Cycle Club conducted it’s Graded Road Championships last Saturday on the Challenging Bootawa Dam Road. With no flat terrain at all, the rider is given very little chance to recover from the constant climbing. Glenn Mathiske reaped the benefit of his training regime by attacking early & going solo to take out the A Grade division. A mighty effort with quality riders such as Richard Sewell, Dan Crossingham, Gavin Jackson, Chris Bryan, Beau Harper & Justin Woollard in the field. The race started badly with Beau Harper having problems with his gears, putting him over the handlebars & ultimately out of the race. Very disappointing for Beau after last weeks flat tyre. Two Championship rides & two non finishes, neither of which were his fault. Chris Bryan was another high profile rider who failed to finish, but was having an off day. Richard Sewell powered up the final climb to take second with Dan Crossingham, Justin Woollard & Gavin Jackson finishing in that order. B Grade was totally dominated by Aaron Hayward, breaking away on the first lap. he increased his lead on every lap to leave Ben Barribal & Ian Budden in his wake. Barribal had a good ride for second & Ian Budden was third. C Grade had a good field of riders & no clear favourite for the podium. Steve Thompson was still feeling the effects of his crash a couple of weeks earlier & James Fletcher was away doing an MTB event. Bill Harris, Mike Badcock & Steve Richardson are all good climbers & Greg Walmsley is a veteran of many Grafton to Inverells’ & knows how to get up a hill. Walmsley started out aggressively, but not feeling real well, soon dropped out. Darren Harvey was another early retirement. Bill Harris also was having an off day & was dropped. Veteran rider Jim Ryan also fell off the back of the bunch leaving Thompson, Badcock & Richardson to fight out the finish. Thompson made the move up the final climb, but the wily Badcock sat in his slipstream till the last few metres & powered past to take his first Championship. Steve Thompson took second & Steve Richardson could not stay with them at the finish, still came in third. Jim Ryan still had a great ride to finish fourth & Bill Harris fifth. John Climas had one of his better days to power away to win D Grade. He went clear on the first lap & was never headed despite a spirited chase by Vanessa Croker. Vanessa came in second & Ed Ninham took third place. Our Juniors held their Championships on Thursday night at the Criterium Track. They raced a one lap Time Trial with Alexander Knight-Viale taking the win from Chloe Schubert in second, James Brady third & Melody Brady fourth. After a short break they competed for the Junior Graded Championship. Alexander again took the win with James Brady in second & Chloe Schubert in third. Thanks to Glenn Mathiske & Beau Harper for looking after the Juniors. Also thanks to Glen Rennie & Robert Alley for marshaling & Noel Mathiske for Commissairing. Without our volunteers we would not be able to function as we do. Next Saturday is the second round of the Interclub series with Port Macquarie. The Central Lansdowne course will host the event & it is hoped that we will have a good turn out of riders. 2.00 pm is the start time with sign on from 1.30 pm. See you there.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:11:23 +0000
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