Riders on tour

With our mini tour coming up this weekend, one rider to watch will be Sam Jenner, who has been competing in a number of events of this type over the last few weeks.

Since his win in the Tamworth Junior Tour in June, Sam has competed in the Canberra Junior Tour, followed by the Queensland Junior time trial, road race and criterium championships. Up against a number of second year under 15’s Sam performed very well in these events, finishing mid-field against excellent competition.

Last weekend Sam and the family traveled to Sydney where he won a bronze medal in the NSW country road race championship. On the Sunday he was again successful in the Southern Cross open, with a 4th place in the road race and 2nd in the criterium.

All this will undoubtedly stand him in good stead for the Inverell Junior Tour coming up on the last weekend in July.

Another rider who has been working hard is Mitch Bullen, who represented NSW at a track cycling Grand Prix in Adelaide. His best result was a 4th place in the keiran.

On the local scene, club racing on the weekend featured a criterium, with A grade won convincingly by John Bentley. B grade was an excellent race with Mark Haydon driving the pace hard throughout, whittling the field down to a group of four including himself, Chicka Russell, Nick Myhill and Peter Creagan. Nick attacked with three laps to go and looked for a while like he would stay away. But the race came together with a half a lap to go, with Chicka winning from Nick in second and Haydo third, and only half a wheel between them.

C grade riders enjoyed a relaxing race with John Scott-Hamilton recording his second win in a fortnight with Andrew Kirk second and Brent Weston third.

Meanwhile in France, Ole Mikkelsen’s valiant attempt to pace Cadel Evans up the Col de la Madelaine in stage 10 of le Tour ended in spectacular failure, with Ole poorly hydrated after running out of beer the night before the stage. This was a great disappointment after the progress he made with his climbing ability while in Armidale.