04/05/2013

By Rob Monk

Warragul and Latrobe City Cycling Club combined for a race at Willow Grove on Saturday. Forty nine riders turned out in great conditions.

A grade had the largest field of the day with 14 starters. The race was delayed as a replacement bike arrived for Brenton Jones as he stripped one on his cranks on his ride to the race. The rest of the field should have started without him. Jones was too good in the sprint and took the money in a tight contest. 1st Brenton Jones (WCC), 2nd Will Livesay, 3rd Darren Spiteri (LCCC)

B Grade had 10 starters and Paul Yeatman was on a mission from the start taking off down the hill. Yeatman is obsessed with training data and his TSB number was perfect. If he raced so his heart rate and power output were within his acceptable tolerances he would win. Even after setting the pace for nearly the entire length of Old Sale Road on lap 2, after being dropped on the hills after Tanjil South on lap 2 and chasing down a late break by Rolan Elison, he did.  Rob Monk lead the charge up the last hill and over the top, Peter Whelan intiated an early sprint and seeing a gap on the inside with 400m to go, Yeatman took off to win by 5 lengths. 1st Paul Yeatman, 2nd Pete Finlayson, 3rd George Tambassis.

The 10 starters in C grade stayed together well for their one lap. Col Brown is in a rare vein of form and took the win again. It was a combine so Col has still not won a WCC C grade race. 1st Colin Brown, 2nd Graeme Patrick, 3rd Bruce Staben.

D grade had five starters and the girls sat on Col Manintveld for most of the race then sprinted by in in the finish. 1st Lou Clark, 2nd Michele Scurr, 3rd Colin Manintveld.

Racing returns to Shady Creek next Saturday at 2.00pm.

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Tags: combine, latrobe city cc, scratch, willow grove

07/10/2012

By Neil Walker

Teams Racing @ Darnum

Warragul cycling club had a busy weekend of racing starting with a team’s race on Saturday at the Darnum circuit. The expected rain front arrived just in time for the start of racing: however that did not deter 26 hardy souls from fronting up to the start line. 4 teams based on colours contested the race. Red was led by Cyrus Monk, orange by Peter Finlayson, green by Neil Walker and blue by Shane Stiles. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ grade group would complete 7 laps of the 8km circuit, with the ‘C’ and ‘D’ grade group leaving 1 minute later and completing 6 laps.

Matt Malacarne from the orange team was the main instigator of the initial attacks, however all these moves were well covered by members of the other teams. The format of teams racing differs from normal scratch racing or handicap racing and some members of the red team had to be reminded by their captain not to chase their own team members down. In the C and D grade group, Andrew Gordon had grown tired of the steady pace and decided to up the ante with a big attack off the front. This instantly put the group under pressure with some of the inexperienced riders struggling to hang on.

The green team was down a rider after Brett Rollinson punctured which meant Neil Walker and Graeme Parker just followed any moves without contributing to the pace making. With 3 laps remaining, an attack by the orange team resulted in a split of the A and B group. With all teams represented the second group decided not to chase. The C and D grade group had not been caught by the end of the race which meant that their finishing order would be crucial to the overall team’s results. Peter Sorenson, a relative new comer to racing, took out the overall win. Shane Stiles was the winner from the A and B grade group. The end results were as follows; Orange team 4th, Blue team 3rd, Green team 2nd, with the Red team winning by 1 point.

Morwell to Glenmaggie Handicap

On the Sunday the annual Morwell to Glenmaggie Handicap race was held by the Latrobe City Cycling Club (LCCC), an event which Warragul Cycling Club (WCC) has not won since the early 1990′s! A serious assault was launched on the title, with 26 riders heading to Morwell.

With a favourable wind, racing was sure to be fast and furious. Each handicap group was well represented with WCC riders. The out markers were given a 23 minute head start on the scratch group, and the rest of the handicap groups spread between these two. Most groups on the road were reeling in the groups in front of them, however the pace set by some in the out marker group caused a few of their riders to be dropped. About a kilometer out o Glengarry , Rob Monk who had been marshalling the group, clipped a wheel in front of him and fell heavily; the first casualty of the day.

With only a few km’s to race it was obvious the scratch group were not going to get up and it was left up to one of the remaining groups to reel in the out markers, however they managed to hold on by 100m with Ray York taking out the win from Paul Kennedy. WCC, 1st and 2nd with Rachael Dawson 4th and 1st women over the line (five of the six women were from warragul). It is the first time a women has finished in the front group. Cyrus Monk took out the fastest time, bettering the previous record of 1.28.00 by 0.44secs (set by Shane Stiles in 2006).

On the return ride to Morwell Geoff Thomson had a structural failure with his bike and crashed. Both he and Rob Monk from the earlier crash were admitted to hospital, Rob with a fractured pelvis and Thomo with head injuries. They are both in a stable condition and we wish them a speedy recovery and hope to see them on the bike soon.

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Tags: darnum, handicap, latrobe city cc, scratch

04/10/2009

A large Warragul contingent saw 44 riders in total contest LCCC’s annual Morwell to Glenmaggie Handicap. Four Warragul riders were on the chopping block of four minutes ahead of scratch. This bunch of eleven took time out of scratch and Thommo took second place behind Dave Gaffa with Jayman Prestidge came 4th. Tristian Marut and Paul Yeatman also finished in the top ten.

Yesterday’s winner, Cyrus Monk rode well and did a turn with the big boys after being caught. Bunch organization fell apart once everyone was caught. This enabled the large group of riders to stay together until 1-2km from the finish.

From the LCCC site:

RESULTS 32nd Edition October 4, 2009

Local LCCC rider Danny Gafa first and fastest time in the Grand Junction Hotel Morwell to Glenmaggie (World Championship Handicap) on Sunday morning from a record field of 44 riders. Times and place getters came from the second and third scratch bunches, with second scratch taking fastest time when they pulled 1 minute and 05 second out of the scratch bunch of 7 riders that consisted of top Gippsland riders. The second scratch bunch of 11 riders started 4 minutes in front of the scratch bunch group that started at 26 minutes. Then 3 minutes earlier a bunch of 6 started, two minutes earlier than that a bunch of 5 set off to chase a fairly strong group of 7 starting 6 minutes in front of them but were blown apart when several riders missed the turn at the bottom of chook hill and were left by bunch and then later being involved in a crash that took two of them out of the race. They in turn were chasing a group of 4 riders that had started 5 minute before hand with the limit bunch a further 6 minutes up the road in front of them.

At around Cowwarr bunches 4, 5 and 6 came together to form a very large bunch of around 25 riders with a good number all working hard to keep the scratch bunch at bay.

With around 5 km to go a small bunch of 7 or 8 riders broke clear and held on to take the major places.

Danny Gafa (22mins) busted out of the bunch close to the finish to take the win from Warragul CC veteran Geoff Thompson 2nd (22mins) with Latrobe City CC rider Joe Makowski 3rd (19mins).

The work by the second scratch bunch from which the winner came from also netted fastest time ( 1.37.20) after starting 4 minutes in front of scratch and taking 1.05 out of them. The scratch bunch led home by Shane Stiles 26mins) crossed the line some 5 minute 05 seconds later to record a time of 1.38.15.

The first unplaced female was Wellington CC junior Olivia Verey, first unplaced junior went Warragul CC to Cyrus Monk and the Lantern Rouge (last rider home) went to Wellington CC John Bodey (he did have a taillight – just in case I suspect).

Another great event put on by the Latrobe City CC and sponsor The Grand Junction Hotel, Traralgon.

Oct 4 2009 – Morwell to Glenmaggie Handicap

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Tags: combine, handicap, latrobe city cc

08/06/2009

A Grade Results

1st: Brenton Jones, 2nd: Patrick Lane, 3rd: Andy McNab

KOM: Patrick Lane, Sprint King Nick Aitken

Nick Aitken won race in 6:42:06

How B grade unfolded (told from webmaster’s perspective).

60.28km / 1:34:57 / 38.1kph

1st: Ben Dowsett, 2nd: David Shanahan, 3rd: Jim Timmer-Arends

KOM: Eamonn Feely (23rd overall), Sprint King: Michael O’Connor (9th overall)

Jim Timmer-Arends won race in 5:17:43 (37.1kph overall with time bonuses)

The race began fast and got faster when we took out first left. I was the only rider on the correct side of the road for much of the trip along  Boolara Churchill Road and Hazelwood Estate Road. This left me exposed in the wind so I spent much of the race tail ending (good that I could keep up basically riding on my own, bad I was wasting energy and had no trouble keeping up when in the bunch when they were on the correct side of the road). No energy for the KOM’s or sprints.

On lap two along Callan Barker took off after the sprint and was caught by the turn into Boolara Road.  Pre-race the plan was to go with him.  Along Hazelwood Estate Road there were lots of shenanigans with riders launching attacks only to ram their brakes on shortly thereafter.  Dangerous.

I got dropped on final hill though I clawed my way back by the second corner after the KOM point – according to my computer I also hit my top speed at this point.

A group of 3 (including the overall winner, Jim Timmer-Arends) took off about halfway along Hazelwood Estate Road and no one seriously chased.  I took off with 800m to go but died with about 200m to go (I was not expecting to stay away, but you never know).

At the end of the race I was in 6th place.  Heading into the tour the plan was to finish top five. CURSES!

How C grade unfolded

1st: Rob Monk, 2nd: Jake Laine, 3rd: Paul Taranto

KOM: Simon Baxter, Sprint King: Rob Monk

Rob Monk won race on 40 points

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Tags: 3 day tour, latrobe city cc

31/05/2009

The LCCC held this event up Mount Tassie on Sunday 31st May.  Kane Walker came 2nd in a time of 0: 52:37.  This was six seconds behind the winner Nick Aitken.  Callan Barker came 11th in 0:58:23, Simon Baxter came 16th in 1:01:29.  Karen Munroe took out the women’s gold in a time of 1:08:55.

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Tags: championships, hills, latrobe city cc

20/09/2008

A bunch of die hard cyclists contested the Shady Creek course on what was to be a damp and windy day. Lap two was especially ‘fun’ with pouring rain and lovely sunshine greeting competitors up the climb.

Racing consisted of 2 to 3 laps of the regular Shady Creek course with the finish at the top of the Shady Creek hill. A grade began with five riders: Shane Stiles, Thommo, Thomas Sander, Callan Barker and Paul Yeatman. There was plenty of attacking up the main hill which saw Yeatman get further and further off the back until lap 3 where he was dropped. Sander ran through a pothole on lap two along the Darnum Shady Creek Road which resulted in a race ending puncture. Up the hill on lap three, a large attack dropped Yeatman and had Thommo and Barker chasing down Stiles. In the closing kilometres of the race, Barker blew up which allowed Yeatman to catch him at the bottom of the climb. By this stage, Stiles had already finished and would soon be followed by Thommo.

B and C grade rode a combined race which saw an improving Rob Monk try to dish it out to the more frisky hill climbers. James Lalor took out the race.

On Sunday, Yeatman, Lalor and Barker competed at Yinnar with the LCCC in a 40km handicap. Lalor secured third place off the limit of  15 minutes. Yeatman and Barker (off 5 minutes) were not so lucky with Callan dropping behind on lap one and Yeatman’s remaining group of three being caught (as usual!) with 3/4 of the race completed.

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Tags: handicap, latrobe city cc, scratch, shady creek