CharterMason Team – 2nd place

Liam White (riding in the 20min group) was narrowly beaten in the Fred Icke Handicap race on the weekend.  Full report coming soon.  Liam has exams this week so study takes priority and his race report will be coming soon.

Andrew Gent finished just outside the top 10 in his best Open event result ever.  Having never had structured cycle coaching until 6 months ago, and never raced over 100km before, his progress and steady improvement was reflected in his result on the weekend. 

In the junior event, Ashley (riding off 30mins) finished in 8th position, behind the winner, Maddy Cardillo.  Drew, Pierce, Angus and Harry all chased hard but were unable to make contact with the out-markers.  With really strong winds and a hill in the first kilometre, it was a tough course with no-where to hide.

Brief results are:

Junior race – 44km
Ashley Gillespie  (Kelly Cycle Coaching) 8th

Senior race – 131km
Liam White (CharterMason Team)        2nd
Andrew Gent  (Kelly Cycle Coaching)  12th

 

 

 

Fred Icke Report – By Liam White

I started in the 20min bunch with fellow team rider Hayden Eynaud.  Two of my team mates, Aaron Eynaud and Trent Morey were off 8mins, whilst the majority of the other team members, (Bryce Morey, Clement Boydell, Munro Boydell, Will Allen, Michael Hale) were starting in the 12 & 16 minute bunch.  Camden Bush was off 24 minutes. 

We got off to a quick start, sitting on between 25 and 30km/h up the first climb not even 5km into the race. We got to the top of the climb and started working quite well together doing smooth turns on the front..   The ride from Kooroocheang to Smeaton is an undulating one and during this section we had dropped about two riders but also picked up a couple riders from the other bunches up the road.  The first lap was completed with the group working well and few other changes as we headed up the long 4 km climb for the second time. 

Just before going into Smeaton the 16 minute group caught us so we now had a bunch that had grown to about 40 riders. At this stage it was Hayden, Camden and myself working together.   I was sitting comfortably in the middle of the bunch just trying to recover a bit because there were a few people just sitting on the front doing all the work.

Then we came to the bottom of the climb for the 3rd and final time. I was sitting in the middle of the bunch but soon realized  that there were gaps appearing up the front so decided it was time to make a move up the side of the bunch  only to realize that I was in ‘No mans land’.   I was 30 metres out the front of the bunch and 70 metres away from Charles Martin a fellow Ballarat rider. It was all or nothing now. For about 1km I was by myself chasing then I finally latched on to Charlie’s wheel. We got together and worked to catch the two riders, Liam Dove and David Kelly who had broken away. We were doing solid turns on the front going into Newlyn.   Continuing to work hard I managed to bridge the gap but unfortunately Charlie was not with me. 

I was now in a bunch of 3, working turns slowly making our way to the group of  riders 2 minutes ahead.   By Smeaton we were only 40 seconds and a final effort up the hill towards the Kingston turn meant we finally latched on at Allendale.

By this time my legs were shot.  I just sat in for a while to conserve my energy for as long as I could. With about 3km to go I started to feel a little better, meaning that I could go with all of the attacks off the front in the final kilometre. Then 500m from the end I sat second wheel back and kicked with 150m to go. I gave it everything but  just got edged out for second about 10m from the finish line.   A good effort by all of our team who completed the race, it is a tough one.

Personally I think this would have to be the hardest race I have had to date. 

By Liam White