by Glenys Taylor | Dec 23, 2011 | Event Reports
It is Sunday 18 December and a depleted field of 29 riders is setting off one at a time to tackle the formidable Waihi Midsummer Madness Time Trial. This is the toughest road time trial event in New Zealand. I make it 127km with about 1300 vertical metres of climbing. There is some great scenery…but I have to admit it is hard to fully appreciate that during the ride.
There were 47 names on the start sheet, but only 29 started. The sensible ones figured the riders would face not midsummer conditions, but something more akin to midwinter conditions and decided not to start. They were right. Last year the little black box on my handlebars recorded an average temperature of 26.8C. This year it was 9.5C.
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by Vaughan Hunt | Dec 15, 2011 | Event Reports
A small bunch of around 20 riders started in A-grade; not many but a pretty good field which included two Pure Black riders (seemingly doing their last race in that team…), USA-based pro Jeremy Vennell, the Wheel-Works team, and a few from the Sth Island. In contrast, there were over 50 riders in B grade and 22 in C grade. The women’s race had only nine, but good quality riders.
I’ve done this race once before – running 6th in 2006 when Mike Torckler won – and thoroughly enjoyed the (very) hilly course.
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by Glenys Taylor | Dec 13, 2011 | Event Reports
The Tuesday night was called off due to rain with the weather forecast tipping Thursday as a suitable replacement. Fortunately the forecast was correct and we had a great night with a light westerly that died off as the night went on to provide near perfect conditions for one lap record attempts later in the evening.
The nights programme included age graded 5 lap scratch races followed by 2 lap handicap races then in a departure from the routine we had all of the riders take part in team sprints. The wind eased and the light was plentiful so the riders were invited to have a go at breaking track records for the 1 lap standing start and then the evening concluded with longer age graded handicap races.
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by Matthijs van Wagtendonk | Dec 11, 2011 | Event Reports
The last club race in 2011 was held at the mild undulating 9 km Tutaki circuit. A Small group of riders dropped the preparations for the festive season and came to race in windy conditions. Beacause of the low numbers A and B grade was combined to one field of 8 riders. They put on a good race. With attacks and break aways what finally resulted in a group of 4 riders sprinting for line honours. In this group it was Max Annaer just beating Steve Glasgow second and Eric 
d’Arbois 3rd. During the race one rider decided to place an attack at the wrong side of the road what led to his disqualification. (We have to remember the playing field of our club races is the left hand side of the road)
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by Glenys Taylor | Dec 9, 2011 | Event Reports
Click here for results
by Glenys Taylor | Dec 9, 2011 | Event Reports
Final night and unfortunately a lot of people were away as it clashed with school prizegivings.
At the end of the racing we all headed back to the Kairanga hall for nibbles and the series prizegiving.
People had commented that the results from the previuos week had not been posted on the web but that was a ploy so that the riders did not know the final standings as the points for those people that had attended every night were very close.
Overall there was only 4points between 1st place and 13th place. And a total of 13 people received prizemoney.
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