Armidale Cycling Club

Brent “Best” Weston and Harrison “H” Munday shout out a big “Hey, Suckers!” and smash a criterium.  Not so young gun “Evil” Ash Saint keeps ‘em on the run in C grade.

C Grade

Jack Parker, Adam Bourke, “Evil” Ash Saint, Bob Murison, Chicka Russell, Jo “JWow” Wauch and Fast Freya Weston were joined by Georgie Harwood for a slow starting 25+2 lap crit.  The bunch stayed together tightly until around the 10 minute mark where JWow and Jack were detached from the back by Fast Freya surging at the head of the pack as her turn rolled around.  The pack then consolidated until the final lap where Freya put in a final surge up the little climb that the pack struggled to counter, with “Evil” Ash dragging out one final effort to chase her down.  Ash made his run with perfect timing, leaving Freya behind in a frenzied sprint that betrayed his secret training at lunchtime.

B Grade

Participating were Dave “Fingers” Ruggendyke, Ice Cold Billy Mara, Pat Macmillan, Lachie McPhie, Brent “Best” Weston (astride a very fancy looking new bike), Harrison “H” Munday, Britt Sisson, Dene Bourke and Pete “Captain Dropout” Creagan.  Britt was either very brave or brainwashed by an absent Wilko into trying the faster bunch.

Pat Macmillan insisted he was in no shape to race A grade, so it was hastily renamed just for him.  Harrison “H” Munday shot off from the gun leaving nothing but dust - the pack were forced to chase hard for the first lap and a half just to form up to race.  Pounding surges from Pat during the race saw him almost make a break at the 15 minute mark but he was reeled back in by a determined bunch, although the surging race eventually detached Britt at the 20 minute mark.  Brent and Harrison took turns at hurting the riders with savage riding until finally making a break together in the dying laps of the race.  As Dene related afterwards, “when we were going down the straight, it was 40 something kays, when Brent or Harrison was on the front, it was 50 something!”.  The two young riders crossed the line together in a show of solidarity for equal first, with the (ahem) older riders eventually sprinting for the scraps - Captain Creagan emerging victorious after doing a power of work during the race to try to close to gaps.

George Michael once sang,”Last Christmas I gave you my heart”, these two young riders reached right into the chest cavities of their pursuers and ripped their hearts right out.   If ya gotta do it, do it right!

Young Guns (Go For It!)

(see that, we all actually used to look like that!  Except Ice Cold Billy Mara who was much too cool for those kinds of shenanigans)