Jack Wood Memorial Hcp - Race Report

Northern Combine and Coburg Cycling Club hosted the Jack Wood Memorial Handicap to honour the memory of Jack on the Glenaroua course, just out of Broadford. 

The 16min bunch of 8, started 18min behind limit on 34min in conditions as good as you could hope for at this time of year. By two thirds the way around lap one, we were down to 6, but still rolling strong. Shayne Kirby gave us a time call of 3min to the group in front and 7min to Tom McDonough's 25min bunch. It was deflating to know that we had made no progress on the group of 11 in front of us with a 3min head start, containing some pretty handy riders.

On lap two, Shayne was parked at the top of the Sugarloaf Creek climb and this time the margin was down to one and a half and four to Tom’s group. This time we were in with a shot. We took the left hand turn onto the Broadford-Glenaroua Rd and had the 19min bunch in our sights. We swept them up and a good few of them including Roger Venning, Seb Slezak, Carl Simmons, Stephen Nowicki and Will Hogan contributed to the chase of the bunch in front. 

Meanwhile Kane Fraser from the Beach Rd Cycling Club, who constantly complained about the hills despite riding 8h 18min at 3 Peaks in March this year, continued to drive the pace. As we hit the 3 rollers for the final time, the bunch thinned out until there were only about 10 or 11 of us as we picked up the last remaining front markers. 

Jack Wood Handicap Podiums

Our bunch was now leading the race. With two climbs to go, Kane said "jump on and I'll tow you to the finish", but only 2 riders had the legs left to go with him, Arnav and Ananda. Ultimately it was Arnav Chakravarthy from Blackburn CC, the u19 whippet from the 25min bunch in 1st, Kane 2nd, Ananda Chu (Hawthorn CC) 3rd and Michael Williams (Shepparton CC) 4th. 2 seconds back Will Hogan (Hawthorn CC), Andrew Gannon (grey jersey winner for the first over 60) and myself fought it out for 5th -7th places and forced the judges to go to the video. Thanks to the 16min bunch for leaving it all out there today.

Last 5min of the race

Great work by the handicappers with 12 riders under a minute, 26 under 2 minutes, 36 under 3 minutes, 43 under 5 minutes, from a total of 64 entrants and 54 finishers.

Thanks to the Coburg Cycling Club for hosting the race, to all our commissaires and volunteers, without whom we would not race,

10 Brunswick juniors also raced earlier in the day. 1st Aziz, 2nd Rhett, 3rd Zafran. Well done to all riders.

https://my.raceresult.com/402395/results

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