We hadn’t raced at the TEC since the club championships back in July but that didn’t seem to matter yesterday as a dozen of ACC’s finest did battle on the technical circuit in what felt like baking hot conditions. A great spring afternoon with temperatures nudging 20 degrees in full sunshine kept the arthritis away, and ensured some rapid circuits of the 1.2k course. This was particularly the case in A-Grade where our two Grafton to Inverell contenders, Houlty and Swanny, were demonstrating their finely honed ruthless riding technique, deciding to make the climb on the back of the course a flat out sprint on each circuit, much to the disgust of anyone who managed to hang around with them. Mick Sherwood was the only other A-Grade rider who could stay the distance and his younger legs gave Houlty a good work out for the final sprint but in the end he couldn’t quite beat the red missile who looks to be in great form at the moment.

In B-Grade, Richard Wilkinson was also showing the benefits of some pre-Masters training, dragging the bunch around in the early laps along with perennial early charger Wilf. By mid-race things had settled down and Rhys and Phil Thomas seemed to have things under control with few others keen to take up the pace. An attempt was made by this pair to break away shortly afterwards but the pack were wise to their move and it came to nothing meaning it would all boil down to a bunch sprint. Dave Jenner showed great finishing strength in front of the home crowd (and Deb) with Phil 2 bike lengths behind followed by Wilko and Kirky who had spent the afternoon sociably switching between A and B grade.

Thanks Sam Munday for running the race and keeping everyone under control. Next week we have a 20K ITT on Long Swamp before returning to the Road Racer series at the end of the month.

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