2012 Geelong Club Championships concluded on the weekend with the Road Race held on the Meredith circuit. Combining the results of the previous weekends Time Trial and the 100K road race we would determine the 2012 Club Champion. The B grade (100K), C grade (80K), D grade (64K), U19 & U17 riders all joined there senior counter parts in a field of 50 riders for the mass start event.

After the TT race things were very tight at the top, with only 37 seconds covering the top three riders, Mark Hooper, Tom Paton & Mark Fagg. After an easy 8K neutral start racing begun in earnest and the action warmed up  once the riders turned right into the head and crosswinds the course is renowned for. Not long after the turn into the headwind , Kane Fraser made a break but no one was too concerned as there was no one  willing to join him or take him on. A short time later, everyone was together again and the pace heated up down the back straight, causing a few riders to be shed from the bunch. Club gun Oliver Kent-Spark decided going solo was the way to go breaking away from the pack and building a nice lead. Unfortunately for Ollie a mechanical problem would see him only able to select two gears and this forced him to abandon the race. Lap 2 ended up being very eventful in the treacherous cross and head winds and a crash occurred in the leading bunch bringing down 3-4 riders and ultimately ending Leigh Clifford's race early. After a strong TT the week before Darren Gray's run of bad luck continued in the road race with another flat tyre and an early retirement.
The crash enabled some of the riders in the other bunches to get back in touch with the leading group. We also had an unexpected interaction with nature as we encountered a bunch of kangaroos on the back straight in lap 2 with things becoming very interesting with the pace up around 50-60kph and kangaroos darting across the road in front of the leading riders.

As always the wind was blowing and it was strong enough to cause havoc with the bunch with only the strongest riders surviving the battering. In the finish the top two riders from the previous weeks Time Trial, Tom Paton & Mark Hooper managed to get a slight break on the rest of the field. In what was a fantastic dual to the line, the two strong men raced side by side to the line with Mark only just edging out Tom by just .307 of a second to take the win and also the title of 2012 Club Champion. Lee Burchell finished about 22 seconds back to finish 5th in the race and 3rd in the club championship.

Local gun triathlete Noelene Byrne getting ready for the upcoming season was crowned the women's champion after a very slick TT and strong ride in the road race. World 24 hour MTB champ Jess Douglas was the female winner of the road race.

Young gun Matt Castles crossed the line in first position in the U19 competition with Ryan Burt, Rylan Bird and Zac Dynes taking care of the U17 competition in that order.

Many thanks go to Dan Wilson and Tony Ross for their contribution of the race report

Full results can be found here

Thanks also go to Norm Douglas for his photos which can be found here

Geelong CC took their revenge on Footscray CC out in the hills above Geelong this afternoon with a dominating 35 to 22 point win in the 6th Annual Challenge Cup, with the tally now standing at 3 wins apiece. 

A chilly Southerly and threatening rain made racing a challenge; the A-Grade race being dominated by Geelong Club Champion Tom Paton. With a killer climb and a stomach churning descent to contend with each lap, it was not long before the A-Grade peloton was broken up, with many riders heading for the showers early. In the end it was Tom Paton who took the long and drawn out sprint from a gallant Chris Zucchet, with Nick Squillari coming through for third.

In the B-Grade race, a strong bunch of 20 riders was thinned out to 6 by the end of the first lap; the insane pace seeing B-Grade range up behind A-Grade for a while, with Matt Castles dancing up the hills like he was on an electric bike to take the win from the in-form chiropractor Chris Munro and the equally strong Mark Scouller.

C-Grade winner Ryan Burt led home a Geelong domination of the podium, taking the sprint from fellow club members Rylan Bird and David Rhodes, with D-Grade giving Footscray CC some solace with 17 year old Stephen Liley taking the win from Peter Bloink and Phil Galea. 

Thanks to Mark Macallef from the Footscray Cycling Club for the above report and to Erik Holt Photography for the great photos (see the gallery at the bottom of the page) - It's great to see Erik who recently broke his pelvis up and about and feeling fit enough to put his non-cycling talents to use!

A Grade:

• 1st Tom Paton (G)
• 2nd Chris Zucchet (F)
• 3rd Nick Squillari (G )
• 4th Steven DelGallo (G)
• 5th Jason Costin (F)

B Grade:

• 1st Matt Castles (G) 
• 2nd Chris Munro (F) 
• 3rd Mark Scouller (F)
• 4th Sam Lane (Pt F)
• 5th Tony Ross (G)

C Grade:

• 1st Ryan Burt (G)
• 2nd Rylan Bird (G) 
• 3rd David Rhodes (G) 
• 4th Zac Dynes (G)
• 5th Michael Dam (F)

D Grade:

• 1st Stephen Liley (F)
• 2nd Peter Bloink (F) 
• 3rd Phil Galea (G)

Full Results from all grades can be found here.

A grade race report

A quality field lined up for A grade in the Geelong, Footscray Challenge Cup. Footscray, notorious for their brutal attacks and very high speed were not to be underestimated but with Steve Del Gallo fresh back from the recent Scody Cup Tour, club champion Tom Paton and Nick Squillari, hot off a recent win were all on hand to give Geelong a healthy chance of taking a win. Game on!

First lap was a docile affair, with one Footscray rider even quipping "when does the climb start?" halfway up the Parkers Road climb. All the more amusing given Geelong seems to have a reputation within Footscray of being a club of "hill climbers". Whatever the case, from that point on there was a whole lot less oxygen available for talking as the attacking began in earnest.

First to jump off the front were Tom Paton of Geelong and Chris Zucchet of Footscray, just after the climb was crested for the first of five times. Knowing there was still a lot of racing to go, along with a generous helping of wind, meant the peloton was happy to give them some leash.

Heading up Parkers Road for the second time, Footscray's Dom Dudkiewicz had a slow puncture in his front wheel and knowing his day was over, he made a move to lead out another club mate in an attempt for them to bridge to reah either Matt Lane or Steve Del Gallo. Both of which had jumped off the front trying to join the two leaders.

Nick Squillari, aware of what was occurring, followed the wheels and was able to both make it off the front without the Footscray rider in tow but also pass Matt Lane and bridge to Steve Del Gallo. That move was joined by a solo Mark Hooper, with all three then bridging to the lead pair. Not even two laps completed and the break was stacked in Geelong's favour with four Geelong riders verses only one single Footscray rider.

So with the odds greatly in their favour the Geelong riders back in the bunch left all the chasing up to the remaining Footscray riders which combined with the high horsepower in the break meant the day's winner would come from the front five.

A puncture on lap three ended Hooper's race. And club tactics on the final lap allowed Tom Paton to roll off on the final descent before the climb to take an unassailable lead. The plan for the remaining two GCC riders was for Squillari to lead out Del Gallo for second; however after Steve lost ground on the final climb that plan came unstuck. Squillari didn't have the legs left, after his lead out efforts, to shake Zucchet and was outsprinted to second. However first (Paton) and third (Squillari) would be enough to ensure Geelong Cycling Club would retain the Challenge Cup for another year.

Many thanks go to Nick Squillari for taking the time to share his race day experience.

The running of the 102nd Melbourne to Ballarat Classic was held on Saturday 21/07/2012. There was an excellent showing of GCC members consisting of the following people.

Blake Hose Scr, Steve Del Gallo and Nick Squillari both at 4 minutes, Greg Hosking at 12 minutes, Mark Fagg, Daniel Lamb and Simon Masters all from the 15 minute mark. Matt Castles rode off with the 18 minute bunch and Lee Burchell, Leigh Clifford and Tony Ross all set off with the 21 minute bunch. Last but not least we had Jamie-Leigh Edwards and Paul Rettke heading off with the limit bunch at 34 minutes.

Following is a report kindly compiled by Tony Ross. 

             The day for me started off fine with light winds, cool but cloudy conditions and with a record number of starters totalling 264. Most bunches had 25 to 30 riders, so there should be plenty of bodies on bikes to share the load.

We had 27 in our bunch and we set off at a good tempo with everyone rolling turns and keeping the pace steady, although we had a slight head wind most of the riders were looking and feeling comfortable on the flat roads.

With the arrival of the hills the pace slowed a little so a higher tempo pace was called for, but some riders found the pace a little frantic and a few of the wiser heads in the group  advised that we ease up a little so we could keep most of the bunch together. Alas the words of wisdom and experience fell on the deaf ears of the younger riders with eager legs and the pace did not slow. With the pace still high and riders being dropped the bunch eventually dwindled down until only 10 riders remained by the time we finally arrived on flatter roads.

We were picking up stragglers most of the way and we could see a bunch in front of us but we were finding it difficult to bridge the gap to them as there were not enough riders left who were willing to do the work needed to cross the gap especially with an ever increasing head wind. We settled into some high tempo riding and eventually caught the bunch in front of us but our initial relief turned into dismay as we were informed there was still two more bunches in front of us.

With about 20 km to go we were informed that the limit and second limit bunches had banded together and were still about 3.5 minutes ahead and we knew then that we would not catch them at the pace we were riding, so a steady pace was held until about the 1 km to go mark when the scratch bunch caught us which resulted in some mad scrambling for places as the pace increased and the roads narrowed. Fortunately there were no crashes to report this year as the huge bunch of around 80 riders approached the last two tight left hand corners and sprinted for the finish line 400m in the distance.

Full race results can be found here

Photos of race day can be found here

After a lull in racing over what has seemed to be the winter from hell club racing kicked off again at the weekend with round 1 of CCRS, between Geelong, Ballarat & Colac. A hearty contingent of the GCC members took the drive to Dereel near Rokewood for the race. Cold conditions and lots of strong cross winds were the order of the day over the undulating course.

A grade was a pretty crack field with the likes of Jay Bourke, Pat Shaw BSCC & Zac Shaw Colac lining up. Greg Hosking was the leading GCC rider, although not finishing in the top 5 he showed a strong pair of legs against some good opposition. In B Grade young Matt Castles again showed how it was done taking the victory. He was to be Geelong’s only top 3 place getter for the weekend. Well done to Matt. In C grade Mario del Giudice was the leading Geelong rider in 5th place ahead of Harry Weisinger. Well done to all riders who ventured out representing the club.

Points Table:

BSCC – 29, Colac – 17, GCC – 8.

Round 2 is Saturday week at Meredith. Try and get along to represent the club and help us climb off the bottom of the points table. It is also a chance to check out the course before the club champs Road Race on the 25th of August.