BikeManawatu Newsletter 19 Jan 2012

Tonights Pedal Pushers ride was a an opportunity for the cycling friends of Dave Bennett to pay their respects. 

From the Stuff Website: More than 100 cyclists gathered in Palmerston North tonight to pay their respects to the late Dave Bennett with a memorial ride in his honour.  Read more

Being realistic in their expectations will be a point of focus for the small number of Bike Manawatu riders who will compete in the NZ cycle classic next week as a part of Team Massey.  Bike Manawatu riders will form the nucleus of Team Massey that includes ex professional cyclist Steve Stannard, who now heads Massey’s School of Sport and Exercise and up and coming U23 riders Matiu Kaihau and Max Annear-Henderson.  According to Steve, as the team’s leader, their primary objective will be to get someone on the podium during the stage races.  “Based on the quality of the field the competition will be stiff, especially in the U23 category where Michael Vink and Josh Aitken have dominated recently”, he said. “We are unlikely to win the tour but for us this is more about developing our junior riders in a competition with world class national and international riders”.

Once again the Hawkes Bay Ramblers Cycling Club held another very successful HUB tour in Hastings on 13-15 January 2012. 

The Hawkes Bay weather turned on a beautiful hot weekend but the winds were a test of courage and commitment to most as the prologue started on Friday night with very strong north westerly gusts. 

There were many riders winning top ten positions in the 6km prologue (or time trial), but with the win of over 40 seconds to Kate Stewart in the U17 girls race was the most impressive win of the night. Coming in close behind was Ruby Perry finishing 3rd in the U17 girls prologue. George Roberts also finished exceptionally well in the prologue coming 7th in the U17 boys grade, with Matiu Kaihau finished 13th in his first A-Grade prologue. Kelsi Eccles was in great form over the weekend winning two stages of the B-Grade Women's races earning the huge privilege of wearing the yellow jersey.

Photos thanks to Kirsty Kaihau

Details of the WCNI Open Track Championships...  

The WCNI Selectors Trevor Gudsell, Jeremy Cottam and Luke McCarthy will be looking to select athletes and combinations of athletes for the New Zealand Track Cycling Championships being held in Invercargill who are most capable of producing medal winning performances.

The majority of selection weighting for the Track Team will be based on results achieved at the 2012 West Coast North Island Track Championships.

Tuesday nights racing fell victim to the wet summer and racing was called off so the Thursday was used as reserve day. An email was sent to the club on Wednesday morning asking for the Thursday night option to be advertised on the clubs website but as most sane people are on holiday at this time of the year, the request was not able to be actioned. Fortunately a wise group of eleven remembered the reserve day option and arrived for racing at the normal 5.45pm. While the numbers may have been down the talent clearly wasn’t as a number of records were either set or broken on the mild calm and overcast night.

A time trial is a good test of a cyclist’s ability.  It is you racing the clock.  No hiding in a bunch, no sharing the work to get to the finish.  It is an honest event where very often success is measured by personal bests rather than winning events.
A 40 km time trial is a kind of gold standard for time trialists.  The distance is a genuine challenge and riding close to or under an hour is a significant achievement for most riders.
Upcoming time trials within reasonable driving distance that I am aware over the summer months are listed below.  Most of the 40km time trials are run by the Wellington Veterans Cycling Club, but I note that BikeManawatu has snuck one in as well.  The events attract a small entry fee.  Several riders from the Manawatu ride the Wellington events each season.
The time trials programmed for this year are: