The Great
It’s been a pretty full on start to the year.
Sliding out from the shadows of covid restrictions we were able to run a very successful mid week twilight road race series.
This tied in with an ITT series and Woolworths handicap race which was a cracker.
All these races are designed to ready our riders for the WCNI ITT and Road races which Bike Manawatu were proud to host again this year.
This in turn gave a stepping stone for 13 of our riders to head to Hokitika for the Age Group Road Nationals held on Anzac weekend.
A huge shout out to all of our riders who made the Journey, you did yourselves and the club proud. Thanks also to Cheryl Murphy on being our manager for the weekend.
With the Age group racing out of the way we now look forward to Interclub Graded races.
Whilst staying loyal and true to our WCNI history, we are reaching out to other clubs in the lower north island (and further afield) to join our interclub racing.
Over the last few months we have had communications from Hawkes Bay, Wellington, PNP etc on expanding our catchments.
Bike Manawatu will always stay a WCNI club, but all clubs see the importance of running regional invitational graded events. This is a great step forward for Road cycling (Click here to register)
Track this year has been highlighted as a year of the Masters.
There’s been a huge increase in participation of the older riders which encourages the steady increase and improvement of the Juniors.
Plans are in place for groups, junior and senior, to head to Cambridge for training and racing over the winter/spring months.
The board are going through lists of riders and volunteers for merit awards for 2021 at our prizegiving.
For road awards it’s on a calendar year so we intend having a Road Function in December 2022 to award this years prizes.
Track merit awards are decided at the end of the track racing season, March/April
There’s been a postponement of dates with a crammed schedule of the AGM and prizegiving….see the website.
The Average
It was an incredibly hard decision to cancel the Manfeild 6 hour this year.
Declining numbers of school riders, nervous times around Covid which is still in our community, crammed schedules are all factors that played a part.
In the end the decision was made with the prospect of low numbers, a historically challenging day weather wise, a small field was going to make an event to forget.
With riders out there potentially not being able to get into a working peloton all day it would not make it an enjoyable day out.
We believe the event still has a very important place in our calendar and we will revisit it in 2023.
Over February and March our club was part of a process asked of us by CNZ.
A remit was presented to take the voting power away from Centres (WCNI, BOP etc) and give the vote to the clubs.
BM went with the status quo, in our minds a change would further dilute the importance of WCNI and other centres.
We were out voted and so now CNZ will get feedback from all the clubs individually.
Decision made, however we feel Centres still and always has been an important stepping stone for riders and even more so for clubs to operate efficiently.
As mentioned before, BM will always hold on to and persevere with our place in WCNI.
The Scary
Last Saturday one of our riders was involved with a incident involving a car, following a difference of opinion with the vehicles driver.
Sadly we see this all the time, and we must remember that we need to be seen, and how we are seen.
There is a percentage to the population that do not care about other human beings, their property, or the implications.
If, at any time on any ride, someone hurls abuse to you ….please just throw an apologetic wave and smile. It’s just not worth it.
Stay safe,
Tim