ACT Veterans Weekly Bleat, Monday 20th August, 2018

Hello Vets,

In this week’s Bleat;

• 25th Anniversary
• Indoor Training
• Final Event Traffic Controller course for 2018
• Racing this Week
• Race Report

Please send me your contributions at: TheBleat@actvets.cc

Ian Morton

25th Anniversary

Tomorrow, 21st August, marks the 25th Anniversary of the first “Official” Race of the ACTVets Cycling Club.

You can read up on the history of the Club in the following post that was put together to mark our 20th Birthday Celebrations;

http://club.actvets.cc/webarchive/news2013/z12420thanniversarycommemorativemessage

Indoor Training

This weeks indoor training will feature anaerobic capacity with 30 second to 3 minute efforts.

Bruce Griffin

Final Event Traffic Controller course for 2018

Please enrol for the next Event Traffic Controller course on 8 September!

We currently only have about 25 ETCs from a club of over 300 members. Members need to share the burden of helping to run races. Having enough traffic controllers available in the club is critical to our ability to run races in the ACT and it is likely we will need to have ETCs for NSW races in the future. ETCs are eligible for reimbursement of $100 for marshalling at ACT road races.

Course details are available on Cycling ACT’s web site http://www.act.cycling.org.au/Road/News/2018-cycling-event-traffic-controllers-course-dates-confirmed. Members previously accredited as ATCs will need to do the updated training course to get ETC accreditation. Please register for a place on the course ASAP as numbers are limited.

Ian McVay
Race Committee

RACING THIS WEEK:

No scheduled race this weekend.

The next scheduled race will be at Uriarra Homestead on the 1st September.

Upcoming Marshal Roster

Thank you to those who volunteered to help (noted below in black) at the races to September. The nominees (in blue) have been selected based on results from the previous summer race season and the period since they last helped at a race. Please advise your availability or unavailability to the race committee (race.committee@actvets.cc) as soon as possible.

We still need at few of race directors for Summer series races to the end of the year. Crit races are at Stromlo Forest Park on Tuesdays and road races are on Sunday mornings.

* denotes ETC required for ACT races.

Ian McVay
Race Committee

RACE REPORTS:

Old Federal Highway – 18th August

Rain, wind, sunshine & possibly sleet was all on display on Saturday afternoon out on the Old Federal Highway. It was so cold that even our Sports med in Simon Whitehead (who is normally found wearing a tshirt in blizzard conditions) was wearing a jacket! 15 mins before start time, there were a lot of people standing around all rugged up. In order to identify who was racing versus marshals we have to get the riders to all stand on one side, After a headcount we had 13 brave souls ready to race.

The race itself was modified to a mass start secret handicap. With some generous handicaps and Steve Crispin on scratch it was going to be interesting. We also welcomed a new rider in Andrew Harrold who decided to give racing a try. Trust us Andrew, this was one of the worst days to race on, so it can only get better from here.

From the get go, Steve Crispin decided to best way to warm up was to fly out of the gate. So much so that even the lead car had to overtake him. With a strong tailwind out to the lake, he completed the first lap in just 20 minutes. By lap 1 he was clear by 1 min over a chase group of 5 riders.

By the end of lap 2, Steve very consistent clocking a 2nd lap time that was marginally slower than his first lap. The chase group was still intact, but had now dropped behind Steve by a few minutes.

Lap 3 for Steve was a repeat of the previous 2 and he came in at 12 seconds past the hour. 20 minute laps in those conditions and the fact he is recovering from illness was an outstanding effort. 5 mins later the chase group came in with Seymour Savell-Boss outsprinting Rob Langridge, the tandem in Don Mankewich & Ashley Carruthers with Owain Tilley right next to them. However being a secret handicap, the question was who was the eventual winner? After careful calculation, Steve Crispin scraped home by just 7 seconds in front of Adam Potts with Rob Langridge in 3rd place.

Thank you to all the marshals (Michael Brice, Michael Hanbury, Matt Hinchcliffe, Ian Morton, Steve Simms and Simon Wells) who had the brave the freezing conditions. You certainly earned marshal of the year in that weather. The ever reliable Graham Hendrie with van duties, time keeping and of course the well received hot cuppa and biscuits at the end and Simon Whitehead our Sports med who ensured no-one had any medical issues on the day….apart from a little bit of hypothermia!

Ben Davis