Mersey Valley Tour – 16-17 April 2011

Check out all the photos from Mersey Valley.  A special thanks to Jim Morey (photographer) who provided the following photos of all the action.  Alan Hale also provided some great action photos.

Kelly Cycle Coaching would like to thank several parents for their support during the Mersey Valley tour.  Firstly, thanks to Julie Hale who organised all the food, prepared sandwichs and race food and generally kept the boys well ‘fed and watered’.  Also, thanks to Alan and Julie Hale for the use of their Winterbago during the weekend.

Thanks to Mark Cummings, Trevor Gent, Grant Boydell, David Eynaud and Jim Morey for doing airport pickups and drop offs, driving in the race convoy, feeding athletes, transporting athletes to/from stages and generally running around as required.  It takes the assistance of many to get 12 riders to the start line each day and ready to race, so your assistance was greatly appreciated.

For those interested in reading how our riders performed please click below to see all the results from the Mersey Valley Tour.

Day 1

Day 2 – U19 results

Day 2 – Elite results

Bryce Morey had a very good time trial result, competing as a 16 year old against riders almost two years older than himself (in both physical strength and experience).  Here is what Bryce wrote about in regards to his time trial.

On the 16th of April, the first two stages of the Tour of Mersey Valley were run, the first being a 24km time-trial on an out-and-back course starting in Forth. As we were in Tasmania, the morning was colder than what i’m used to, but this did not turn out to be an issue, as it soon warmed up to more bareable temperature.

After riding the short distance between our weekends accomodation and the racestart in Forth, we set up our trainers and other gear in preparation for the mornings time-trial. I did not exactly have the ideal month preperation before this race, partly due to illness, but I still rode the course well, and posted a time that would earn me 40th place in a field of nearly 70 from around the country.

The undulating course started a few hundred meters out form Forth, and travelled up the river valley, up and over a number of rolling hills, before reaching the turning point 12 kms form the start. The next fasted finnishers form the the Macdonald Shaw team were Michael Hale in 42nd, Liam White in 46th, Will Allen in 49th, with the others not too far behind.

Thanks for reading. 
Bryce