The 2017 Armidale Cycling Club, Road Race Club Championships turned out to be an enthralling contest yesterday. Held over 3 laps of the 15km hilly Long Swamp course in cool and windy conditions, 32 competitors battled for 5 separate titles in the mass-start event. Ultimately Sam Jenner claimed the Men’s Division 1 and overall Club Champion title for an incredible 5th successive year.

Holly Harris finished impressively in the second bunch on the road to take the Women’s Division 1 title for the second year running.

Following success in 2016, the single race format was adopted once again and seemed to work well. Dave Jenner positioned himself on the front row and blazed a lead-out trail, stringing riders out from the gun before gracefully pulling to the side after 2km, allowing son Sam to get some slightly more serious racing underway.

By the first turn the race was well and truly on and riders were scrambling to hold wheels following some action at the front. Mick Harris, Dave Munday, Mick Hoult and Josh Denham were locked onto Sam Jenner’s wheel as the National U23 Champion stretched things out on the first ascent of Imbota. It wasn’t too long before these five riders formed a break-away group with others unable to hold the pace on the climb.

By the end of the first lap, the five Men’s D1 front-runners had a 39s gap on the next bunch which took a while to form from those riders shelled from the earlier attacks. Eventually nine riders combined and started to work reasonably well without ever looking like they could regain contact with the leaders. Included in the chasing bunch were Col and Rob from Men’s D2, along with Holly Harris (Women’s D1), riding a typically strong race, and Angus Apps (Junior Men’s) who had all but one of the remaining race categories well covered. A further four or five bunches also formed behind this group but didn’t have the firepower to get back in contention.

Up-front Josh Denham was riding out of his skin but the second climb of Imbota was just too hard for him to stay in contact with the front four who were still testing each other out before settling down. Josh kept lapping at a good pace until the second bunch collected him on the outward leg of the third lap.

At the sharp end of things, the pace stayed high with all three laps of the front bunch faster than the best of the rest. It predictably came down to the final Dump Hill ascent and the younger legs of Sam Jenner and Mick Harris saw the pair pull away on the last section. Mick chased Sam all the way, making him work for his victory, crossing the line in second place with the same time, 1h:08m:37s averaging 39.61kph for the race with Dave Munday holding off Mick Hoult to take third.

There was then a wait of almost three minutes before Josh Denham won the sprint for 5th place from Rob Hale who took the Men’s D2 title in a hard-fought battle with evergreen Col Maciver. Angus Apps finished strongly to win the Junior Men’s title and Holly followed through shortly after to win the Women’s D1. Jo Wauch finished well to come home with the Women’s D2 title to add to her ITT crown for the second year in succession.

Congratulations to Sam Jenner and to all our champions and well done to all riders on the day and also throughout the year. 2017 has been another fantastic season for the club with some stand-out performances from a whole host of riders. Many thanks to Wilf for putting the signs out and setting up the start/finish area along with race officials Peter Wilkinson, Mark Bullen, Andrew Swan, Hugh Munday and everyone else who assisted on the day.

Many thanks also to Andy Robb who’s on-board camera footage is available here for the whole race. Watch out for some edited highlights soon!

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The following championship race categories were used for the event:
Division 1 is based on riders holding Cycling Australia U23, Elite and Masters 1-4 licences
Division 2 is based on riders holding Cycling Australia Masters 5-10 licences
Juniors are classed as riders holding Cycling Australia U15-U19 licences

Full list of Armidale Cycling Club, Club Champions is available here. Please let us know if you’re aware of any additional winners or inaccuracies with this information.