Road: Round 2 of the Tri Series - Cape Clear

July 31 2010

Round 2 of the 3-round Tri Series of road races was held today at Cape Clear. John MacLachlan's dominant win in B grade was the highlight for BSCC, amongst a number of strong performances.

Click HERE to see a large album of Kate Grigg's photos from the day's racing.  Username (email) is ballaratsebascycling@gmail.com, password ballaratcycling.  Thanks Kate!  (You'll also see albums by Tara Hossack from BSCC mountain bike events.) 

A, B and C grades each raced over two laps of the tough Cape Clear circuit.  The circuit is rolling throughout, exposed to the wind for about one third of its distance, and features passages through three steep ravines each lap.  The third and hardest, known as Devil's Kitchen, has a high-speed set of bumpy chicanes at the bottom, on which riders have come to grief in previous editions of this race.  We're pleased to report that we know of no crashes in today's event.  The race was conducted in milder conditions than last week's race at Meredith, but with a significantly stronger wind, behind the riders on the last leg of the course. 

In A grade, BSCC's solo winner from last week, Andrew Weightman, was absent, as was last week's "captain on the road" Phil Orr (marshalling this week).  John Polkinghorne and Doug Garley were also absent, but Stuart Grigg and James Crafter joined Tony Mirabella, Scott Keating and Damien Keirl.  BSCC's bid for a second win got off to a shaky start when Keirl discovered shortly before race start that his cycling shoes were at home.  The level-headed Keirl kept this quiet, taped the running shoes he was wearing to his pedals, and concealed the evidence with shoe covers.  His Geelong and Colac rivals were none the wiser until after the race. 

The field split going through the ravines on the first lap, as expected, and gun climber Crafter launched himself off the front with Geelong's Richard Jerimah.  Crafter slugged it out through the headwind with Jerimah until well into the second lap, where he dropped back to the main bunch.  The field had Jerimah, the solo leader, in sight on the last climb out of Devil's Kitchen, and attacks from Grigg and Mirabella brought them tantalizingly close, but in the end Jerimah prevailed, in an impressive ride.  Mirabella's bid for the win took him out of contention for the sprint for second place, in which Keirl did a great job, despite the significant loss of power from his non-optimum footwear and a course much hillier than he prefers, to take 5th place. BSCC took most of the remaining top ten places

BSCC's representatives in B grade included MacLachlan, Thayne Turley, Charles Martin and Jonathan Lacey from last week, with Charlie Stebbing, Stuart Brien, Tavis Baker and Jarrod Boyd replacing Aaron Blomeley.  The BSCC riders went into the race determined to work more closely together than last week and improve their performance against Geelong.  After a cautious start, the field splintered on the first two ravines, under the pressure of an explosive attack from last week's winner, Simon Masters of Geelong.  After the first ravine, the front group included MacLachlan, Masters, fellow Geelong riders Daniel Standen and Steve Vander Bruggen, and BSCC's Stebbing and Turley.  There was a re-shuffle on the second ravine, which followed soon after the first, with Stebbing and Turley dropping back and Charles Martin bolting across the gap.  At this point Lacey, BSCC's self-appointed captain, made the first of the poor tactical decisions that almost certainly resulted in fewer BSCC riders in the top five than their form might have allowed.  He ordered the BSCC riders in the second group to stop chasing.  Geelong, with three strong riders out of five in the lead group, made the same decision.  Colac had no riders in the front two groups, so it was a two-team race.  After five minutes or so, the gap between the first and second groups grew to almost a minute.  It took this long for Lacey to realize that Martin, a powerfully-built track specialist, was not certain to survive in the lead group on this tough course.  In response, Lacey and Boyd set out to cross to the lead group to bolster BSCC's numbers.  Lacey's second tactical mistake was to leave strong man Turley out of this pursuit.  As it was, the duo rode at full power and got to within 15 seconds of the leaders at the start of the Devil's Kitchen climb.  Here Lacey made his third and perhaps most telling mistake.  Forgetting that the tailwind section after the climb is 6 km long - long enough to give the flying Boyd a fighting chance of crossing the remaining gap on his own before the headwind - he asked Boyd, the far superior climber, to wait for him on the steep section.  Sure enough, the gap was back beyond 30 seconds as the second lap started. 

BSCC's fortunes went from bad to worse when the exhausted Martin, dropped by the leaders, was caught and passed by Boyd and Lacey.  Soon afterwards, Boyd took the only remaining option and left Lacey behind on the ravines.  Boyd got very close to the leaders, but the wind was too much.  Thankfully for BSCC, and no thanks to their captain, MacLachlan was flying in the front group. He and Masters rode away from the other two before Devil's Kitchen the last time.  The in-form Masters, a far more accomplished sprinter, hung on, but MacLachlan smashed his way to a strong win. 

Further back, the pursuers - Stebbing, Brien, Baker and Turley, with Geelong's Anthony Reyntjes riding shotgun and Lacey hanging on for dear life - caught Boyd as they crested Devil's Kitchen for the last time.  A surge from Turley took himself, Stebbing and Boyd away from the other four and put Boyd in 5th place.  Without the handicap of the poor tactics imposed on them, Boyd, Stebbing and Turley might have been fighting for the win. 

A full C grade report will follow.  The race ended in a bunch finish, with last week's winner, BSCC's rising Lewis Picccoli, in 4th place. 

Many thanks to chief marshal Col Smith, and marshals Trevor Snibson, Jason Haire, Matt Albiston, Kylie Zelley, Peter Canny, Scott Bilney and Phil Orr.  

Tri Series Round Two, Cape Clear: Results

A Grade

1st Richard Jerimah - GCC

2nd Steve Del Galo - GCC

3rd Mathew McDonough – GCC

4th Tom Paton - GCC

5th Damien Keirl - BSCC

6th Stuart Grigg - BSCC

7th Scott Keating - BSCC

8th Daryl Suter - GCC

9th James Crafter - BSCC

10 Tony Mirbella – BSCC

 

B Grade

1st John MacLachlan – BSCC

2nd Simon Masters - GCC

3rd Daniel Standen - GCC

4th Steve Vander Bruggen - GCC

5th Thayne Turley - BSCC

6th Charlie Stebbing - BSCC

7th Jarrod Boyd - BSCC

8th Stuart Brien - BSCC

9th Anthony Reyntjes – GCC

10th Jonathan Lacey – BSCC

 

C Grade

1st Tim Van der Schans - CCC

2nd Mario Del Giudice - GCC

3rd Ben Andrews - GCC

4th Lewis Piccoli - BSCC

5th Phillip Spark - GCC

6th David Rhodes – GCC

7th Darryl Tonkin - GCC

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Round 2 of the 3-round Tri Series of road races is on this Saturday at 1 PM at Cape Clear.  Geelong CC did a bang-up job of running Round 1 at Meredith last Saturday.  BSCC is running this round, so we want to bring out all our available talent and turn on a fun race.  And this week we'd like to bring home A and C grades, as we did last week, and B-grade too! 

All the details of the start location and course are on the on-line calendar (thanks again Phil Orr, the Google map master).  See you there. 

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