Manawatu riders had another great day out in Sunday’s race in the North Island Trusthouse Series.
Yesterdays race was the ‘queen stage’ with a hilltop finish.
Race organisers made the decision to remove two riders from CAT2, meaning WCNI’s Sam Wade got the honour of wearing the leaders jersey as he was the next best placed rider in that category.
Philipp Vranek from WCNI was off the front with the eventual race winner and unfortunately he punctured at the 80km mark leaving him out of contention for a podium spot.
We got to see the CAT2 riders on the final climb, and there were 2 riders off the front, and still a relatively large bunch at the halfway mark of the climb. WCNI had a strong presence in the top 15 with Josh Mulcahy 2nd place, Sam Wade 5th, Charlie Studd 7th, Wiremu Kaihau 8th, Cliff Hughes and Jaro Olearnik 13th and 14th. Sam Wade retained the leaders jersey for this category and the team finished 2nd in the team points and retain their lead.
In CAT3, the Bike Manawatu JT coaching team had a great day out. The plan was to have 2 guys in the day’s break but they ended up with 3, which was a bonus. Carl Dickason and James Buchanan broke away at the 45km mark and 4 other guys soon rode over to them. Chris Harris wanted to be part of the action so he jumped to join the front group. The front group worked well together and the chase was disorganised. This meant the had a 1:40 lead starting the climb. Chris waited patiently to take the win. James and Carl both finished in 6th and 7th place with Andy Richardson in 10 place. Awesome team effort today with each one of the members playing a part. Chris is now sitting in 2nd place overall, the team also earned maximum team points
The CAT4 race stayed together for the first part of the race, with riders gradually being dropped after the turn at the 30km mark. A few small attempts to make breaks were made, but none of them stuck, and the remaining riders in the bunch stayed as a group until the bottom of the climb. Kapiti again took the line honours with all 3 podium spots and maximum team points, Blair Christian, Patrick Johnstone and Logan Mulcahy from Palmfeild Motors Bike Manawatu were 4th, 6th and 7th respectively and Toshi from Storage Manawatu in 10th place.
The Palmfeild Motors Bike Manawatu team finished 2nd in the team points and Storage Manawatu 3rd, this holds the Palmfeilds team in 2nd place and Pedal Project in 3rd place in the team points.
Full results are available here https://cyclingseriesnz.co.nz/information/results
A big well done to everyone that raced yesterday, and thank you to all of our supporters – it’s great to see so much support for the Manawatu riders.
We have 2 races left in the series, the first is this Sunday, 20 November which is the rescheduled Race 2, and the last is on Sunday 4 December.
Photo Credit: Kirsty Kaihau
