Race Report
July 9th
Gravel Race
With temperature of 12 degrees and a cold WSW breeze of 16kp/h, conditions for the second gravel race of the season could’nt have been any better. A turnout of just six riders resulted in a GRAVEL ITT, which turned out for the best given Wilfried’s rather erratic handicapping. Although, 4 out of 5 riders finished within 2m24s, and nos 2 – 4 finished within 14s of each other.
The parcourse was changed from the previous iteration of this iconic race: riders turned right into Simmons them left into Nobs to hurdle DOWN the hill for a risky left turn into Dangarsleigh and back to turn left in to Simmons. Two laps of this were followed by a U-turn at the bottom of Nobs Hill (ably marshalled by PC and Richard Wilkinson making a welcome return to the club) and a climb UP the road, with a fast charge down Simmons, then left turn into Dangarsleigh and a final charge on the bitumen to Kingdom Hall; a total of 29km.
Pete Wilko was still feeling effects of holidays and sickness (NOT COVID!) and headed off before the race start to just put a bit of dirt on his gravel machine.
Jo started on GO and made a mockery of this by staying on the front until overtaken by Pat half-way up Nobs on the final climb, 52 minutes into the race.
Dene was next on 3 minutes. The only rider on a MTB, he was cruelly handicapped out of the race – sorry, Dene.
On 6 minutes, Christian took off, followed 2 minutes later by Phil Thomas.
Pat started 12 minutes behind and was obviously still fuelled by “magic” fluid intake from previous night, followed 30 sec behind by Toby on mission impossible.
Thanks to all racers, and to Wilf for the race report and running the race.