Every March Long weekend, the Southern Forests region around Pemberton gets inundated with cyclists. Although the bushfires this year forced the cancellation of the Karri MTB cup, the Pemberton Classic was able to proceed.

Saturday afternoon’s criterium literally stops traffic. It is the hardest criterium course of the year, a punishing circuit that goes up over the main street again and again. Unfortunately, a few SPR riders came off a little worse for wear. Poor Andre was involved in an incident with (run over by) a car during his warm up. Both he and the bike were OK, it rattled him just before his C grade attempt. Rising star Matt Howlett pushed himself so far into the red in A grade, he landed in hospital and had to withdraw from the road race. I tried a long range attempt to snatch the B grade victory from the bunch but got swamped at the last corner. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A new day brings a new race and with that a new road race season! The main feature is usually the Pump Hill climb, a three minute 7% gradient heart starter that is early in each lap. This year there was also a sprint prime on the first lap and a nasty crosswind on the course to keep everyone honest.

The B grade race was steady for the first 2 laps. Andrew Ballam thought it was “just like a Main 2 ride”, which I thought was a little disrespectful to Main 2! I attacked up Pump Hill the last time with one other rider and managed to stay away for most of the last lap before tiring into the headwind. The frantic downhill finish ended in controversy with the first 4 riders being (appropriately) disqualified for crossing the double white line as we were coming into town. I ended up 8^th, with Andrew Ballam and Toby Brown wisely staying out of trouble.

The SPR boys in A grade also had a tough day at the office. The defining break happened in the crosswind and without the big teams interested in a chase, Brian Sing had to be content with finishing in the bunch. Jonno Bolton was, as usual, the best placed SPR member in 12^th. In C grade, 2014’s most improved rider, Ben Jackson finished strongly in 5^th place while Troy Blizard couldn’t contain his emotion on getting a podium position for the first time. Well done Troy!

The SPR Chicks, in strong contrast to the men, had fantastic results. Maybe these women’s fast group rides are doing something? In A grade, Amanda Nabi was just off the podium at 4^th and Dianne McAuliffe, without the support of a team and riding in SPR colours, finished a fantastic 6^th. But the biggest congratulations go to Natalie Britz who won the B grade road race and came 2^nd in the criterium. Well done and don’t forget to write us a postcard from A grade!

Club Championship Point Ladder – Names in bold were wearing SPR club kit. Please refer to the earlier post for scoring details.

Mens

Adam Roberts  – 14 Points

Troy Blizard – 8 points

David Manners & Ben Jackson – both 6 points

Patrick Quinlan – 1 point

Womens

Amanda Nabi – 21 points

Natalie Britz – 20 points

Dianne McAuliffe – 15 points

Lorna Henson – 14 points

Sarah Duffield – 12 points

Mollie O’Connor – 2 points

For those who were not in club kit because you were waiting for your SPR kit to arrive, your Pemberton points will count for the SPR kit club champs should you win further points during the year when riding in the kit.

Congratulations to everyone involved. The next race in the SPR Road Race Club Champs is the Midland 100 on Sunday April 12. Entries are open!