Date: Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Posted by: Cycling Southland

A small but enthusiastic field turned out to race on ANZAC day at the Rimu circuit. Two laps of the 30km circuit saw plenty of opportunities to blow the field apart due to the strong winds - fast and furious down wind and a real drag into it.

Cross winds took their toll and it saw the A and B fields blown apart as the stronger riders put the others to the sword! The A grade finally got whittled down to Brendan Ackeroyd and Tom Sexton lining up for a sprint finish with Brendan rolling Tom to win by a half wheel.

Time was 1hr 29min with an impressive 40.5k average - great for the wind. B grade once again started with the biggest field. The riders stuck together for the first three quarters of the race with numerous failed attacks.

Derek Tan, after spending his time at the back of the field, produced a race-winning break driving hard into the wind with 12km to go. Only Aaron Sinclair managed to go with him but this saw Derek produce numerous attacks to try and ditch him before the finish. Not wanting to get into a sprint finish with Aaron he finally cracked him in the last 1km and won by 10 seconds in a time of 1hr 33min.

Alistair Burnett finished well back for 3rd as the rest of the field came in in dribs and drabs. The C grade field managed to primarily stay together and it came down to a sprint finish of the remaining six riders. Grant Colbran managed to hold out the fast finishing Alan Milne followed in by Pete Leighton - all finishing in the same time at 1hr 45min.

It was a tough day out with the wind seeing quite a few shattered riders cross the line.

Thanks to all that helped - Crigs as usual and it was nice to see we had good cover for the marshalling.

Last race for the season is this weekend Saturday 2nd May - let’s see a big turn out before hibernating for a couple of months!

Report courtesy of Manager Neil Familton

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