Masters, In this week’s Bleat
- Next Crit Race – Summer Series Evening Criterium Tuesday 16 January 5.50 PM
- NARRABUNDAH TRACK RACING – THURSDAY 18 JANUARY, 5.30 PM
- Crits Race Report 09 January
- Membership Message
- Race calendar can be found here for other race dates needing Officials
RACING – Summer Series Evening Criterium Tuesday 16 January
| Grade | Time | Race Duration [ sunset @ 8:17 ] |
| B/D | 5:50 | B 45mins + 2 laps; D 40mins + 2 laps |
| E/F/G | 6:40 | 30mins + 2 laps |
| A/C | 7:15 | A 45mins + 2 laps; C 40mins + 2 laps |
Race registration is 3:50pm. You need to register by looking up the calendar entry in the RMS https://rms.crmcc.org.au/calendar
You must wear your CRMCC assigned race number to race. Late registrations will be assessed by race.committee@actvets.cc and if allowed, a late fee of $10 will be applied.
If you are unregistered and show up to the crit track, you must convince a committee member (not the Race Director) of your club member financial status for insurance purposes, before allowed to participate.
**Lights needed if riding home from crits**
NARRABUNDAH TRACK RACING – THURSDAY 18 JANUARY, 5.30 PM
The Program for Thursday is as follows:
5.30pm – 6.00pm: Warm-up and free practice.
6.00pm – 6.20pm: 8-lap graded scratch race.
6.20pm – 7.00pm: 20-lap graded points race.
7.00pm – 7.20pm: Italian pursuit.
Please register and pay $10 for this session by looking up the calendar entry in the RMS
https://rms.crmcc.org.au/calendar
As we have moved to online registration and payment, we no longer accept cash on the day.
CRITS RACE REPORT TUESDAY 09 JANUARY
Quite frankly, rolling out, the weather looked super nice. In fact it was 32OC heading up Stromlo before a few pre’s. Sure there were extremely ominous forecasts but absolutely nothing on the radar…until about 20 mins before the first race.
The Bureau obviously frightened quite a few off with zero entrants for F or G grade, leaving E grade to race alone for 30 + 2. Only 4 registered with a late (post printing) entrant from 530 Charles Black…who apparently hadn’t raced in 5+ years and “fella’s I’m racing down a grade so definitely won’t contest the finish”. All in all it was a fairly steady and sedentary affair, taking turns rolling laps as the breeze came up slightly and the storm approached. Literally nothing happened to enliven the spectators until at 26 minutes in when Ross made the move followed by Rico. Then all back together with 2 laps to go…until of course the last lap when Charlie’s “I won’t contest the finish” race pedigree suddenly came to the fore and he attacked down the final straight for the victory. 2nd was Rico Fitch (by the thickness of a 40mm rim) and 3rd Mick Donaldson…and therefore if you don’t count Charlie it was everyone else up a place and 272, Bruce Griffin in 3rd. We’ll let the race committee and handicapper sort out that red hot mess!
Next up was A & C for 45 +2. It was very dark and certainly wasn’t raining when the race started. All clear for the 13 enrolled and the only race of the night where all entrants actually started. It was a VERY different situation by race end. A cheer went out as the Race Director called the roll and we saw the return of mighty Matthew “Rip It” Rizzuto. Jason Irwin attacked early and went out to a solid full length of the straight. He was solo for around 3 laps. In those early stages Rizzo was dangling at last wheel. The regroup started just as the storm rolled through and it as the heaviest downpour Tuesday night racing had ever seen. Water over the track was deeper than rims. The RD nearly called the race but there was sun to the south west and the storm was moving extremely fast. Ben Morrison pushed up the back straight to close the gap to Jason, nearly splitting the bunch and very nearly dropping Ross G. Jason was caught again after five minutes and promptly dropped, although he may report it was self-selection/preservation due to the overly wet conditions that viciously ensued and he promptly left the track. The rain was so hard, you couldn’t see the far end of the track and so what with dodging kangaroos, ducks and rivers of ground water, DNFs (9 of them within the next 4 minutes) were aplenty. Stu attacked in the torrential rain as the only remaining four persevered. Then there were 10 minutes of just trying to see before a stunning effort from Stu who soloed the last 20 minutes for the victory. There was eager anticipation from the soaking and now freezing gallery to see if Crispy would attack his teamie and drag the others including the stoic Rizzo. Lucky for both of them it wasn’t to be with Stu 1st by nearly a lap, Tobias 2nd and Crispy 3rd…Rizzo taking home the choccy gong.
C grade (3 DNS) endured the same horrific conditions with another 8 DNFs and the first 3 chaps off the track mumbling something about brakes not working but if I remember correctly, Robbie McEwan clearly said “you don’t win races using your braking”. C grade were pretty controlled and all together after five minutes of racing. The marshals were out all over the track controlling animals and despite Robbie, brakes were indeed required on a number of kangaroo occasions. The reminder of C were all together to the finish with 266 Paul Claire 1st (with a fabulous throw taking it by half a wheel), Terry Danaher 2nd and Simon Porombka 3rd. By far, these 2 races were the toughest of the night.
By the time B & D grade stepped up for 40+2 laps, the storm had broken and there were glimpses of sun. Even a delightful rainbow to the East. B grade started fairly aggressively with Darren & Mick establishing the early break. All back together after 16 minutes. However, there were then multiple attacks off the front with Simon having the next dig. He was joined fairly quickly by Rowan and Luke who dug in hard to bridge the gap. A second group of four split out of the peloton to chase about ½ way through the race with Dale off the back doing solo laps. Paul Scherl tried to bridge fairly late but was stuck in no man’s land halfway between the pelo and the now five man break. With 4 laps to go, the excitement of the evening proved too much, what with dodging animals, weather and each other…and the peloton exploded into various pieces. By that stage, only four were left in the break with Bob having popped. It all came down to the sprint with 45 Mick Rose 1st, Rowan McMurray 2nd, and Simon Costello 3rd about four bike lengths back.
D grade were DESTORYED by fear of mother nature’s torment only 40 minutes prior. Wait, let me rephrase: perhaps have some of the smartest club members with 11 DNS!! Furthermore, to their credit, all 9 starters actually finished. I’m afraid there wasn’t too much to report, staying tightly packed until about seven minutes to go when things started to break up. It was fairly close in the end with the downhill sprint going to 191 Lance Purdon 1st, John Stokman 2nd and David Gunther in 3rd.
Jez GW
TRACK RACING REPORT- THURSDAY 11 JANUARY
Thursday 11 January was the first track session for 2024, as the previous session (4 January) was
washed out. Conditions were warm with a strong headwind in the front straight. Attendance was
encouraging with 12 riders, 7 in A grade and 5 in B grade.
The 8-lap A grade scratch race was led out at an easy pace by John Paul De Sousa. John Paul handed
off to Steve Jones at half lap and Steve, in turn, handed off to Martin Graham at a further half lap. Martin
upped the pace a little and the pack settled into orderly, one lap turns. Conan Liu and Wayne Benham
each upped the pace during their turns on the front. Shortly after Wayne had upped the pace on lap 6,
Martin Graham surged past for an early attack. By lap 7 Martin had a 10 metre lead on the bunch and
looked a good bet for the win. However, John Paul De Sousa, Steve Jones and Conan Liu soon stirred
into action with a furious pursuit. The finish was quite exciting with Steve Jones and Conan Liu surging
past Martin locked in combat. Steve just took the win over Conan by barely a tire width. Martin hung on
for third against a fast closing John Paul De Sousa.
The 8 lap B grade scratch was a little more orderly with riders doing one lap turns up until the entry to lap
7 when the whole bunch surged forward. As the bell lap approached, the race became more tactical with
a hesitation in the pace as riders looked for good positions on the banking. The pace slowed only
momentarily before the pack launched into the final lap at top speed. The sprint was a close contest with
Kerry Knowler just holding out Sarah Stephens for the win. Alison Hale was just behind in third place.
The evenings second event was a 1-lap standing start time trial. This event was made a little more
challenging by the need to accelerate into a headwind. However, the times were good with John Paul De
Sousa posting the best time in A1 grade at 29.60s and Warwick Wilson posting a best time of 30.85s in B
grade. The overall standout time was 29.03s posted by Sarah Stephen in B grade. Sarah looked quick
and appeared to have a great technique for this event.
The evenings third event was a 2-lap handicap. This was another exciting event and quite pleasing for
the handicapper as the whole bunch seemed to coalesce at the finish. Fortunately, the standard of riding
was exemplary, with Warwick Wilson taking a close win from John Paul De Sousa and Wayne Benham in
that order.
The session’s final event was the usual Italian pursuit with teams of 6 riders nominated for the contest.
This event had more than the normal drama. Initially, Wayne Benham from Team 1 had mechanical
problems on the start line. Wayne tried valiantly to fix the problem during a short delay, but ultimately had
to abandon the team. Conan Liu and Martin Graham decided they would compensate for the loss of a
rider by each leading for 1.5 laps in lieu of the normal 1 lap. After the race started, the contest looked
close with both teams putting in disciplined efforts. By the latter part of the race Team 2 had gained a
small lead. With solid final efforts by Martin Graham and Conan Liu, Team 1 looked like it would wipe out
the small deficit. Conan, in particular, accelerated savagely over the last lap and looked likely to catch
Steve Jones who anchored for Team 2. However, disaster struck Team 1 when Conan became
disoriented by the 1.5 lap turns and eased off the engine half a lap early. This handed Team 2 an easy
win. Fortunately, the Team 1 riders were happy with their effort and took the loss philosophically.
Major place getters were as follows:
8-Lap Scratch: (A1 grade) Steve Jones Conan Liu, Martin Graham (A2 grade) Craig Kentwell, Warwick
Wilson (B grade) Kerry Knowler, Sarah Stephens, Alison Hale.
1-Lap SS TT: (A1 Grade) John Paul De Sousa (29.60s), Steve Jones (29.94s), Wayne Benham (30.38s),
(A2 Grade) Warwick Wilson (30.85s), Craig Kentwell (31.61s) (B Grade) Sarah Stephens (29.06s), Ed
Garnett (31.45s), Kerry Knowler (31.62s).
2-Lap Handicap: (A&B grades) Warwick Wilson, John Paul De Sousa, Wayne Benham.
Italian Pursuit: Winner Team 2 (John Paul De Sousa, Steve Jones, Craig Kentwell, Warwick Wilson,
Alison Hale, Ed Garnett)
Season Point Score Update:
Conan Liu (168), John Paul De Sousa (165), Alison Hale (113), Graeme O’Neill (102), Craig Kentwell
(90), Warwick Wilson (85), Hamish Anderson (75), Steve Jones (74), Wayne Benham (73), Martin
Graham (72), Sarah Stephens (68), Ed Garnett (65), Kerry Knowler (50), Phil Coulton (57), Ben Davis
(47), Ian Drayton (45).
Membership Message
Dear Members
First and foremost, I’d like to issue a safety alert as I am aware of 2 reports that safety pins have caused punctures during criterium races over the past 3 months. Please note that you can prevent potential injuries and hospital admissions by removing any rusty safety pins that you are using, and replacing them new ones, or better still, replace them with clipless pins. The club purchased a batch of the white clipless pins and these are available in filing cabinet in the equipment room at SFP. I can speak from personal experience that a simple rogue safety pin on collarbone corner can cause a catastrophic loss of tyre pressure resulting in 5 broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Thank you to the 176+ members who have renewed with us for the 2024 calendar year.
Thanks to the 150 of you who used the same first name, last name and DOB for your membership record as you had previously used in the older now defunct SportsTG system and which is listed in our RMS online.
To the other 26+ plus members who didn’t follow suit, you generally made things difficult for us to manually reconcile your membership record in our system.
Whether these were deliberate acts of ‘RMS sovereign citizenship’ or not, please note that our efforts are founded on volunteerism, so please try to conform to processes so as not to be a complete pain.
I’d like to thank in particular, former CRMCC member Ian McVay for spending much of his valuable holiday time developing software code to transfer records across from one database to another.
If you have yet to sign up for this 2024 year of racing, please renew your financial membership early and ahead of the criterium deadline, to allow enough time for me to move your information across manually.
Once transferred across and active in the RMS, you can check your own status in the results section, and look up either your name or race number https://rms.crmcc.org.au/index
If you appear as ‘active’ and ‘financial’, then you know you can proceed to register for a race.
Please see below the instructions to renew your racing membership for 2024 with the Capital Region Masters Cycling Club of the Australian Veteran Cycling Council Inc.
As previously stated, the annual racing licence for 2024 is $140, comprising $120 for the national component, and $20 club component for running races.
• To start the $140 race licence process click here https://amc.helloclub.com/register?membership=657ed9ff637993bde7bcf446. This is for both new and renewing members.
• If you would like to help the club with a CRCMCC $5 licence for officials (e.g. first aid, events management) please contact membership@actvets.cc for more information and a link to this type of membership.
• For either licence, the membership system has moved to Hello Club from SportsTG, and your previous account credentials will not work with this system. You will need to create a new membership account, irrespective of how many years you have been a member of the club.
• Do NOT sign in using a previous AVCC account, click CONTINUE.
• Read and agree to the terms and conditions.
• Sign up with email, Google or Facebook. Follow the prompts to enter your contact details and emergency contact details.
• Pay $140 via credit card.
• If successful, you will receive an email from ‘Australian Veteran Cycling Council reply+australian-veteran-cycling-council@helloclub.com’ to inform you that your registration has been completed.
• Contact membership@actvets.cc if you have questions or if you encounter any issues.
Thanks
Conan Liu
CRMCC Club Membership Officer
The 30th Anniversary Bleat has been posted on the Club Website.
Please see the following link:
The Bleat
If you would like to contribute to the Club and put the Bleat together each week, please reach our to us!
