The professional discipline of the Bar Dwellers (Houlty, Johnny, Swanny and Kirky) taught the rest of the field a lesson out on Dangarsleigh this afternoon during a damp 30K TTT, rolling home over the undulating course with an average speed just a shade under the magical 40kph. They stayed together throughout (well almost) and look to be gelling as a good unit ahead of the Grafton 100K event next weekend.

The Smooth Operators (Sam Munday, Holly Harris, Dene Bourke and Brendon Cole) also combined effectively as a unit.  It was good to see Holly back on the road and also Sam back from his knee injury demonstrating some nice clean turns and keeping a tight formation in spite of the blustery conditions to record a respectable time of 56:28 across the full 30K course.

So that leaves the Individual Team which also has aspirations for Grafton next weekend. Let’s just say there probably won’t be too many riders losing sleep in the Budget Forklifts team at the possibility of their course record being smashed.  The team had an extra rider which should have helped, and from the start, with Harrison on the front, it looked like they’d have no trouble reeling in the Bar Dwellers who were just 30s up the road. Unfortunately, 40% of the team was having a bit of trouble hanging on to the NRS riders’ wheel and the team was soon spread along about 100M of road on the long drag South of the Monument. While Harrison put the billy on at the top of the hill and had a couple of sandwiches with Greg and Ben, the stragglers regained contact, the group reformed and set off with renewed intent. At the turn, the gap on the leaders was back down to around 30s as they too had (temporarily) lost a rider. Unfortunately the author can’t recount too much more after the turn other than to note that the pace seemed to increase again quite significantly and that the Smooth Operators looked to be enjoying themselves as they rolled towards the half-way mark.

Ultimately the Bar Dwellers won by a comfortable margin of 1m:19s from the first three riders in the Individual Team with that margin extended by a few more minutes by the time Rider #5 made it home – sorry team!

Well done to the winning team and to everyone who turned out and braved the elements for a well-contested and good-humoured event. Thanks particularly to Clint Bourke for putting the signs out, running the race and recording the times. Next week we’re out on Boorolong for RROTY Round 10 and with around 10 riders heading East to Grafton on the Sunday for the Mauri Kautto 100K TTT, there is scope for some radical changes at the top of the league.