Tankard Surges Home

Graded Handicap, Merbein Cemetery, Sunday 8 February 2009

Tankard Surges Home

Mildura-Coomealla Cycling Club staged a graded handicap road race at its Merbein Cemetery course on Sunday 8 February. With the mercury finally dropping to a more comfortable temperature, the riders only had to contend with a raging southerly wind blowing straight down the course. The Club welcomed new member Shane Martin (U/19), who came out for his first race.

The twelve junior riders raced under handicap conditions, over a distance of 24 km. Martin and Lachlan Ryan led the field off, with a 7:15 minutes advantage over Tate and Toby Simpson, Bridget Hale, James Burge, Tyler Beruldsen and new rider Shane Martin. This group of six had a 3 minutes advantage over the chopping block trio of Megan Hale, Brodie Athorn and Thomas Henderson. Chasing them all was the lone scratch rider, Alana Hale, who started a further 45 seconds back. The only changes in order by the end of the first lap were Tate and Thomas heading to the rear of the field, the latter because of a puncture.

With the block headwind playing havoc with the groups on the long highway stretch, Alana was quickly making ground on all of the field. A touch of wheels in the second limit group saw Shane go down and take some skin off his left arm. He quickly remounted and the group got going again. By the end of the second lap Alana had caught and passed all of the other riders and she consolidated her lead on the third and final lap, finishing 40 seconds in front of Brodie. Megan came home in third, a further six seconds back, whilst Tyler led Toby and Shane across the line to claim fourth. Alana also claimed fastest time of 48:21 minutes.

The seniors were split into their grades for a 40 km handicap race around the same course. Alison Curry, Jess Butler and Gary Simpson rolled off the line in the limit bunch, 8:30 minutes in front of Greg Scott, Arthur Anderson, Ben Vagnarelli and Adrian Lloyd. Andrew Ryan missed his starting slot with the second limit group by 40 seconds and found himself in no mans land. A puncture three laps later saw his race over for the day. Starting a further 3 minutes back was the chopping block bunch of Tom Athorn, Nathan Langley, Rob Akkermans, Jeff Mitchell and Ian Beruldsen. The scratch trio of Richard Hale, Gary Henderson and Kevin Tankard started at 14 minutes. Apart from Curry losing contact with the other limit riders on lap one, the groups held together and the race order was unchanged by the end of the first lap.

With the windy conditions favouring the scratch riders they were reeling in the chopping block bunch by about 30 seconds per lap. It wasn’t until the fourth lap that the groups started to come together. Butler, the sole leader on the road, was finally caught by Anderson, Vagnarelli and Lloyd early on the penultimate lap. As the chopping block riders closed on the leaders, Beruldsen and Langley jumped off the front of their group and bridged up to the three leaders. The move caught Athorn by surprise and he was left behind by Pitt, Akkermans and Mitchell as they vainly tried to chase down the leaders. As the scratch riders started rounding up the stragglers, Athorn briefly got on but lost contact before the group caught up to Pitt, Akkermans and Mitchell. These three managed to get on but all declined to help out, leaving the scratch riders to do all the chasing.

By the start of the fifth and final lap, Anderson, Lloyd, Beruldsen and Langley had a 30 second lead over Tankard, Henderson and Hale, with only Akkermans hanging onto the back of the chasers, as Pitt and Mitchell had lost contact with the group on the climb up to the start/finish line. The catch was finally made towards the end of the long headwind section on the highway, with the eight leading riders coming together. As the riders climbed up towards the top of the highway Langley launched an attack that saw Lloyd, Akkermans and Anderson get dropped, leaving just five riders. Henderson forced a move on the descent off the highway, setting up an attack from Tankard on the final climb. Tankard held off Beruldsen and Hale to take the win, with Henderson claiming fourth. Tankard’s winning time was 1:02:01 hours.

Thanks to Penny Hale, Julieanne Ryan, Barry Pollock, Trevor Burge, Greg Scott and Jeff Mitchell for helping out. The next scheduled event is an 8 km time trial at Riverside on Tuesday 10 February 2009. Riders should be signed on by no later than 5.45 pm.

Results:

Juniors (24 km handicap):
1. Alana Hale (JW15) 48:21 minutes (Fastest time)
2. Brodie Athorn (U/19) 50:45
3. Megan Hale (JW15) 50:51
4. Tyler Beruldsen (JM13) 53:53
5. Toby Simpson (JM15) 53:53
6. Shane Douglas (U/19) 53:55
7. James Burge (JM15) 54:13
8. Bridget Hale (JW17) 54:35
9. Martin Ryan (JM15) 1:06:37 hours
10. Thomas Henderson (JM15) 57:06 minutes
11. Tate Simpson (JM13) 1:03:55 hours
12. Lachlan Ryan (JM13) 1:11:11

Seniors (40 km graded handicap):

1. Kevin Tankard 1:02:01 hours (Fastest time)
2. Ian Beruldsen 1:04:34
3. Richard Hale 1:02:05
4. Gary Henderson 1:02:07
5. Nathan Langley 1:04:38
6. Adrian Lloyd 1:07:54
7. Rob Akkermans 1:04:54
8. Arthur Anderson 1:08:07
9. Ben Vagnarelli 1:09:29
10. Jeff Mitchell 1:06:31
11. Garry Pitt 1:06:33
12. Tom Athorn 1:08:08
13. Greg Scott 1:12:29
14. Jess Butler 1:21:25
15. Gary Simpson 1:25:41
16. Alison Curry 1:32:29
DNF Andrew Ryan (Withdrew)