Ash Gillespi’s comment about the weekend
“The best part of the weekend for me was the handicap race because I came home in the top ten. Even though I started off limit, I put my head down and kept peddling into the strong headwind. The hills weren’t that hard during the handicap race.
I enjoyed seeing other boys I knew and talking with them gave me something to do between races.”

Here is what Drew Morey had to say about his weekend…..
The Leongatha race is held over two days, with the first day having several different races being the TT, Sprint, Crit and the Scratch Race, all are very short sharp raced. I was put in the “Race 2” or ‘B’ race for the first day which resulted in a second in the crit and a 3rd in the Scratch race. I enjoyed the crit and scratch races, even though they didn’t really suit me. The crit was a 14 minute race around the 700 meter circuit. I attacked early and broke away with Jordan Stannus, who worked with me to the finish. We ended up finishing placed 1st and 2nd. I attempted to the same in the scratch race, by breaking away early and staying away. It worked similarly except one other person caught up to me and Jordan.
 
The races on the second day were much more suited to how I ride. There was a 33km handicapp race in the afternoon and the State Hill Climbing Championship in the Morning. The hill was around 3km and average of close to 7%. The race started slow, until I did a dummy attack to see how the rest of the field was feeling. After that the pace was enough to have the field strung out without too much pressure. That all changed after a extremely strong attack by Breaden King. I attempted to hold his wheel but was unable to cope with the acceleration. With 1km left Breaden was 10-15 meters ahead of me and i was 15-20 meters ahead of the rest of the chasing field. It stayed like that to the finish giving me a second place.
 
The Handicapp saw me in the ‘5 minute’ group, with 4 others. For the second day in a row I and Jordan found our self working together, but along with several others this time. Our whole group got organised quickly, and stayed working well most of the way to the finish. We caught all the people ahead of us, except one rider. Our group was sprinting for second place onwards. Jordan took out second place and I got third. Our group also got fastest time, which was a surprise.
 
Over the weekend I enjoyed the Hill Climb the most.
Thanks Drew.

Here is what Angus Lyon had to say about his weekend…..
“I went to Leongatha as a test run to see how close I was to race level fitness after five months of basically being off the bike. On top of this I ended up being sick on Saturday so that put me off a bit as well. Saturdays racing is not really my favourite, the longest race being 14km long coming middle to end of A grade in all races.  Day 2 and I felt worse [sicker] but did the racing anyway.  Bad positioning meant the loss of contact with the breakaway and being sprinted on the line by two riders I had pulled up the hill with me (can’t remember their names, was just thinking about staying upright and breathing). Came fifth, not the result I was looking for but not too bad.”

Here is Ben Andrews report…..
Sunday 1 May was looking good for a great day of racing at Leongatha as it was about 16 degrees and a little cloudy. The day started with a briefing in the morning like always before the races got underway.
The first event for that day was the State Hill Climb. It was approximately 2.5 km for the J13 and J15. I warmed up for about 40 min before the race. I did some quick spinning efforts making sure I was feeling warm and ready to go for the race. 

It was a quick race with most of the bunch dropping off before the 1 km mark leaving just six of us. An attack by one other rider followed by my attack dropped two more riders, leaving just four of us in the leading bunch. In the end it came down to a close sprint finish, and I was fourth. 

The handicap was held a little over one hour after the Hill Climb which meant a quick eat and back onto the wind trainer for the warm up. I did some hard 30 second efforts to get my blood pumping again. I headed down to the line to find out that we had to wait 20 minutes to the start of the event so I pulled out the trainer and kept my legs moving. 

I was put 4 minutes off scratch as I was only able to do one event on the Saturday. I started with 6 other riders, including the winner of the Hill Climb. About 2 km down the road we had already dropped 2 riders but the four of us put our heads down and worked hard on the 10 km to the turn around.

On the way back we dropped another rider, leaving 3 of us to push back into the wind. We still had to catch 6 riders. We caught them all and had one jump on the back but he was not able to work turns. It all came down to a sprint with me sitting 3rd wheel. I passed one rider and contested the other to the line but was not able to beat him. In the end our group came in with the fastest time by about 1 min 40 seconds. It was a good day’s racing.

I want to thank Bob and Helen for their helpful training.
Ben Andrews.