Where’s the year gone?
This is the age old question at this time of the year. All of a sudden the days are shorter, the rides colder and we all need to pucker up a bit more courage to get on the bike.
In a very busy period for Bike Manawatu, that stretches way back to August last year, we have run 12 club races, a criterium series, 3 ITT series, 2 Novice Junior tours, the recent 6 hour, the AGM and Prizegiving.
The 2019 Novice Tour made it 3 editions of the event in 15 months, which now puts us in line with our fellow junior tours in CHB and TA to form part of a Junior series acknowledged by Cycling NZ.
The track season was a great success with a busy committee assisting Ian Gray nurture some amazing up and coming track stars. Many junior records were broken over the season as junior riders see the benefit of the crossover of disciplines.
The newly formed Greasy Chain Charitable Trust organised the Gravel and Tar in January which was a fantastic event. With the new course starting in Feilding and finishing in Palmerston North it was the best and toughest course yet. What an incredible event that Steve Stannard has come up with. More to come in 2020.
2018 saw a Bike Manawatu team enter in Jorge Sandoval’s Trust House series in Masters 2 category. Entering was the easy bit, the racing was great but as hard as you’d expect. Eketahuna seemed a good place to stop on the way home for a “cuppa”
There was many stand out performances from our Junior Riders at Elite Road Nationals in January with Libby Arbuckle 3rd in the ITT, Michaela Drummond with a 3rdin the road race. Solid 5th in the ITT and 4th in the Road Race for Joel Yates.
Top ten results for Carne Groube, Emily Sherman over the weekend with Madi Hartley Brown and Connie O’Brien just out of the ten.
A group of 13 riders travelled to Age Group Nationals at the end of April to represent our club and although there were no podiums, Glenn Kirk achieved top 5 results in both the ITT and Road Race. Tyler Mumby was 8th in both disciplines in the U15 boys. Rosie Obrien was 7th in the Road Race.
In a sprint finish Michael Richmond was 6th with our adopted son Kyle Hoskin 7th in the U19 Road Race which saw solid performances from Jack Pronk and Ethan Craine.
Top ten ITT for Ellen Twiss and Nigel Doyle
AGRN Results can be found HERE
What’s up next?
It never stops, but it slows down just a little over winter.
Manawatu Schools Cycling is in full swing, and because that requires our traffic management assets our winter racing will be predominately Saturday afternoons.
A calendar will be out in the next 10 days that will take us right through till next year with all our club racing and events.
Our focus is on cycling, health and well-being…and racing. Our aim is to cater for racing of all ages, Female and Male.
The courses we have will be varied but fundamentally beginning Flat courses and building up.
The new timing system is fantastic, and with an aim of improving live results via monitor in the van, it will continue to improve.
Back to the Trust House series…BM has got a team entry for Masters 2 (45-55)…take a look at the Trust House series website for dates and courses and anyone who would like to join the team to race please email secretary@bikemanawatu.co.nz
We already have half the required 10 showing interest so be quick. Glenn Kirk has entered a strong team in the same grade and with Lonestar, our BM team will make up 3 of the10 teams in the grade.
WCNI.
The West Coast North Island series of events is something that BM is keen to see grow is stature.
BM had a great group head up to Taranaki recently and also Whanganui 2 weeks ago and the racing was great.
These are Licensed events but we hope that as the racing grows in our club we will have more riders able to complete regionally.
Our own round of the WCNI Road Race series is at Halcombe on June 29th..details on our website.
Before then on June 9th Levin is running an ITT and Crit event on the same day…details also on our website
Who’s doing what?
With the amazing group of Young talent that has grown up in our region it’s great to see a huge group of them competing overseas over our winter.
We will get progress and results to you in the upcoming newsletters but just heads up on who’s in other parts of the world living the dream.
Robert Stannard…World tour…enough said
Joel Yates USA
Madi Hartley Browne and Dylan Simpson…left this week to USA
Connie O’Brien and Libby Arbuckle…left this week to Switzerland
Campbell Stewart Belgium
Also overseas are Emily Sherman, and heading away soon Carne Groube.
Recent Club member Deborah Paine, after a strong age group Nationals got a late call up to the states.
And there’s probably more…Will get back to you with details.
Stay upright….Ride hard
Tim