Archived News
  2008
     July
Clasholm First to the Line
09.07.08
Novice rider Alex Bradbury has been improving each week, completing his 10 kilometre ride from the flood bend on the Point Lowly road to the Fitzgerald Bay turn off in 25:33.64 minutes at an average of 23km/hr.
Nearly a minute faster than his previous time over this distance.
In the Junior 20km handicap along the Point Lowly and Fitzgerald Bay roads to the finish at Telecom Tower, Sam Campbell was first off two minutes ahead of Pierce Sutton and four minutes in front of Dylan Starkey and Jai Sutton.
Campbell pulled out of the race before the finish unwell handing the lead to P Sutton and although Starkey and J Sutton tried to reel him in he was able to keep a two minute advantage.
P Sutton extended his lead to almost two minutes forty five seconds as he crossed the finish line.
J Sutton lifted the pace 100 metres from the finish and gained a six metre lead over Starkey however with just 20 metres to go Starkey put in a final burst of energy and caught J Sutton off guard.
J Sutton couldn’t respond quick enough and Starkey beat him to the line to finish in second place.
The gusty north winds added to the challenge of the Seniors 60.7km handicap from the Velodrome to the bottom of the Fitzgerald Bay Hill and return to finish just before the OneSteel lights.
Even with the stiff head wind scratch riders Paul Berkett and Malcolm Clasohm had made up one of the three minutes start gap to Wil Symons and Ron Versteegh as they turned onto the Point Lowly road.
Rhyse Carpenter, Adrian Wilson, Kelvin Rohrlach and Grant Vickery had also made up a minute on Neil Paterson, Darren Anderson, Steve Brown, Nicole Goldring and Nick Hellowell in the first 10kms of the race.
Goldring, on her limited gearing, wasn’t able to match the pace of her bunch after they turned onto the Point Lowly road and lost contact with them.
Brown struggled to stay on the back of his bunch after the flood bend and slipped 20 metres behind and although he couldn’t bridge the gap he maintained this distance.
Darryl Fulton was dropped by Peter Werner just before the turn onto the Fitzgerald Bay road while Hayden Gill maintained his lead to be the first to the turn around at the bottom of Fitzgerald Bay hill.
The sixteen riders made it to the turn around within five minutes with some of the less experienced riders finding the descent quite daunting while most found the climb back to the top very challenging with the stronger riders making up quite a few places.
Hellowell was first to the top of Fitzgerald Bay hill with Carpenter just five seconds behind and joining him before Telecom Tower to try to hold off the rest of the field.
Wilson, Clasohm, Vickery and Anderson were 500 metres behind them at the Black Point turn off and had joined them before the flood bend and although Berkett had them in sight he just couldn’t make any ground on them.
Once onto the Port Augusta Road the strong tail wind meant fast speeds in the race for the finish.
Wilson, Carpenter, Hellowell, Vickery and Clasohm were the first bunch to round the final bend with riders starting to get in what they hoped was the best position for the sprint.
Clasohm proved to be the strongest and was first to the line (also finishing in the fastest time) followed closely by Carpenter, Vickery, Wilson and Hellowell.