Hi everyone and hope you’re managing to keep warm and dry this week – definitely a bit more wintery with ups and downs!
Definitely plenty in store this week – so we’ll just get into it.
Architecture Unlimited Corporate Pursuit
Due to some teams still trying to finalise entries, the team debrief and track hour allocations event scheduled for tomorrow night, has been deferred a week to Wednesday 16 May at 7pm in the Champions Lounge upstairs. Anyone still considering putting a team in please ensure you let the event manager Sharyon Ralph know as soon as you can thank you. [email protected]
Friday Night Racing
Racing has restarted for all age groups again on Friday nights from 6-8pm with a $10 entry to raise funds for Junior Division travel expenses for representative riders. $5 entry for novice riders. This will be most Fridays with the exception of school holidays and Queen’s Birthday weekend etc. Head on down and join the fields on the boards.
Schools Road Season
A new Southland-Otago schools road series kicks off this Sunday, leading into the South Island School Road Champs being held in Timaru on 7 and 8 July. The series will be held on Sundays at 11.30am and is for students interested in road cycling – no matter what your ability is. The series will include individual time trials, team time trials, school team relays and road racing. This Sunday meet on Tiwai Road at the Bluff end-south side of the bridge. Entry just $2 each week. Any queries, contact Waine Harding [email protected]
Subway Series
Our very own SIT Zero Fees Velodrome will play host to a new Subway National Track Series that is open to U17 through to U23 male and female riders from 1 to 3 June. This three-round series has been developed by Cycling New Zealand and supported by Subway New Zealand to provide a series of track racing opportunities for developing riders in a competitive and supported environment. Check out the details
Junior Division Cheese Roll Fundraiser
With a proud history of supporting riders when they need to travel to participate in cycling events, our Junior Division is hosting a travel fundraiser with cheese roll orders. You can order via parents Facebook posts, or through me in the office, All orders and money need to be in by 29 May. Making and delivery is on Saturday 9 June. Orders are $6 dozen (white or brown) or $25 for five dozen. Get your fix to have with soup this winter!!
Meeting Minutes
Missed the last club meeting in April – check out the minutes here
Future of centres discussion
Reece and Mark will be attending the CNZ and CNZ Road & Track AGMs next week. As part of that meeting a workshop is planned to discuss an idea that’s arisen out of Otago to consider the of the sport’s national governance structure going forward.
Centres provide an administrative link between clubs and the national federation. It should be noted that Cycling Southland is in a unique position in that it is a combined club and centre, so it’s not really clear to us what other centres do on behalf of their clubs because we do everything.
Among the topics for discussion – and please note this is only a discussion document not a proposal – is how to bring the centres up to the level of other more successful ones, whether amalgamation might help, or what more support is required, and how the centres might be tied in to hubs.
Have a look at the centre presentation which can be found here and if you have any thoughts, please email Mark – [email protected]. We don’t have any more information than what is in the document and remember, it’s only a discussion document.
And wow has it been a week of successes so let’s cover those off!
Calder Stewart Elite Race Series
Another stunning day of results for our crew representing teams in the Calder Stewart race series in Timaru during the weekend with Corbin Strong flying back into form after his nasty injury winning the Elite race overall. Also a sensational result for our Masters rep Neil Cleghorn who also took our his division – fantastic results everyone across the board. Check out the results and view the write up. The troops take a break now over winter and resume the series in Nelson on 22 September.
Academy Southland Intake
Huge congratulations to Sophie-Leigh Bloxham and Conor Shearing who are among the 10-strong intake for Academy Southland athlete programme for the next two years - great stuff champs.
Also huge congrats to Gerald Paterson and Laura Thompson have been confirmed for the 2018-2019 coach programme for cycling and para cycling respectively - love your work everyone and enjoy the ride!
CNZ U17 Road Team
Huge congrats to Navarh Brotherston who has been named to represent Cycling New Zealand in the Under 17s at the Goulburn Junior Road Tour in NSW Australian on 27 and 28 May. Great work mate and good luck with the final lead-in to this race.
Grand Tour Call-up
Another outstanding result over the past week was the last-minute call-up Tom “Scud” Scully received to race his second ever Grand Tour race with the EF Education First-Drapac Cannondale team for the Giro d’Italia that started on Friday. It takes the whole concept of being race ready and on standby to a whole new level. Huge congrats Scud and race hard Read the full story
That’s enough for another week, so keep warm and dry and keep the wheels spinning!
Good luck to our 60 Westpac Chopper Qt2Inv riders for their final 10 days of build-up to the 18 May 250km fundraising ride – Don’t forget to support this worthy cause