The extended distance of 40km on Dangarsleigh Road today was met with a good level of enthusiasm despite yet another Saturday with strong cross-winds and therefore yet another challenging race for the 19 riders.

Jo solo’d off with a gap of 3 minutes on PC, Clint and Dave Jenner who was then seen heading home in the lead well before the turn. Either Dave dropped his group on the hills and powered past Jo, or he turned early. We’d love you to prove us wrong Dave but we’ll put you down as a DNF for the time being.

Houlty had been given the handicappers keys from Col for the day and there was a lot of detailed analysis and conversation before the start order was announced, met with great enthusiasm from Kirky although quite why remains unclear, particularly given his subsequent performance. Some smaller groups rolled off before a bigger bunch of five riders left at 9m:30s, followed three minutes later by another five in Scratch.

The extra distance took in two bigger climbs and at the turn Scratch were within 30s of the bunch ahead which had swelled in size having picked up some earlier stragglers. It looked like the catch would soon be made but the Block riders recognised they didn’t want to get caught on the climb out of Salisbury Waters so got a move on and made good progress, retaining a decent margin over the chasers. Unfortunately not all riders could cope with this pace and a few were shelled off the back on the climb.

At this point at the back of the race Dave Munday decided the pace needed picking up and attacked his group mid-climb. David Cook went straight across to him with apparent ease but Rob and Houlty had to pace themselves across over several hundred metres while Kirky didn’t make the jump.

Then it was straight onto the big bunch ahead and despite hitting them reasonably hard, Scratch didn’t get the better of them. The large bunch then rolled on and off for a few kilometres with the odd charge off the front which came to nothing. With no one willing to make the running, they rolled up Monument pretty steadily until near the top when a couple of attacks split the groups. Dave Munday and David Cook got over the top first and had about 50m on Houlty, Rob, Dave Harris, Josh and Peter Hosking with  the main bunch further back. Despite the five chasing riders working together, they couldn’t close the gap on the lead pair and if anything the two Dave’s increased their margin as the finish approached.

The finish video shows Dave Munday winning the downhill sprint by a comfortable distance with David Cook topping another excellent ride just four seconds behind. Sixteen seconds later Josh Denham won the sprint for third. It was another one and a half minutes before the remains of the main bunch came in with Col Maciver winning a sprint for 8th place.

Well done to Dave Munday who also picked up fastest time and thanks to Ben Harris for running the race, popping up all over the place to keep an eye on things and clearly reveling in the pain being endured by his fellow club mates.

At the top of the RROTY League Dave Munday has closed the gap still further to leader Richard Wilkinson who is now just 6 points to the good. Houlty now slips up into third place a further 5 points behind. David Cook continues to march up the table moving from 17th to 13th on the back of only 6 races.

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