With a good number of riders escaping the Armidale winter over the weekend, just 11 contenders were blown to the top of Dump Hill on Saturday afternoon for Round 10 of the 2015 Road Racer of the Year competition, a 30K handicap on the Long Swamp Course.  Due to some technology issues (Rob didn’t charge the Go Pro before giving to Holly – Doh!) we didn’t have video timing this week so can only report on places but we do of course have the all-important RROTY points well and truly captured.

The racing was split into 3 groups with David Cook now becoming a regular feature in Senior racing, joining Jo, Jim and Richard Wilko in the Go group. Five minutes behind them were Alex Thomas, Billy Mara, the Bourkes and Col Maciver, followed a further four minutes back by the scratch trio of Kirky, Paul Williams and Houlty.

As your author was not actually present at the race, and has no video to call upon for inspiration, there is a risk of this post being even more inaccurate than the usual write-up. However in the interests of maintaining Armidale Cycling at the pinnacle of Australian sporting journalism, we shall continue.

There definitely was a strong NW wind, very much in evidence at the start and Strava tells us that Houlty and his scratch mates averaged 47kph for the first outward leg which the groups ahead could not have achieved. Then, once they turned into the wind, the stronger riders again had the advantage and continued to close down the gaps on those ahead. The Strava Flyby of the race helps even more by showing that the groups did stay apart until the first return leg when Clint, suffering post-beach-holiday-legs, was snaffled up on the long flat straight before the climb up Dump Hill. Up ahead, David Cook and presumably Dene and Wilko were charging on and still had a decent lead at the half-way point. The mighty Scratch trio caught Jo on the reverse climb of Imbota but still had some work to do to latch onto the five-minute group with just a quarter of the race remaining. Sure enough, they got them on Imbota and from then on it was all about hanging on for Dene and David. It looks like Bourkey managed to survive a little bit longer but ultimately the top 3 places went to Scratch with Houlty outsprinting a strong looking Paul Williams for first, with Kirky piling in a few seconds later. Congratulations guys and well done also to Dene Bourke and David Cook for finishing off the bonus RROTY points in 4th and 5th respectively.

Thanks Holly for running a great race and resorting to old school pen and paper to get all the places recorded. At the top of the RROTY league, Dene and Kirky have climbed up to third and fourth place respectively, just 4 points behind Lone Wolf Wilf. Next week is Senior Club Championships, at both Long Swamp (ITT and Scratch Road Race), and the TEC (Criterium).  More details on our separate post.  See you all then.

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