Geoff Blake took over junior watch duties guiding daughter Haleigh, son Jaymie and young Jimmy Luff on a lap of the shorter course set by Peter. The longer course took riders well up into the heights of the wind blown park – it will be so good to get some respite from these persistent puffs.
Geoff managed to get a lap of his own in after returning the juniors to the start/finish area for play time.
There were nineteen riders on the start line with several notable absentees. There are lots of bugs going around and mountain bikers are not immune. So it was Ollie Radford showing the way with a lap of some 16 minutes leading Aaron Bleakley by around a minute and Matt Squire a further minute back in third.
Young Hugo Kennington was making fast progress on the shorter course and was unchallenged throughout the evening. Brother George was contesting the longer lap with fellow junior Zahkhan Beamsley. These two completed three laps, as did most of the rest with the exception being Ollie, who managed to start lap 4 before the 50 minute deadline. Aaron was best of the three lappers despite the wind blowing out a contact lens on lap two. Aaron timed his laps at 17, 19 and 21 minutes. For everyone else lap times will remain a mystery as the timing computer ground to a sticky halt after just 31 minutes. CPR and all other efforts failed to revive the machine and all recorded times were lost forever.
Other casualties were Jim Luff who blew a spoke on lap 2, Matt Squire blew up on lap 3, Brent Thompson punctured on lap 2 and newcomer Nigel Pettigrew lost his chain twice and also had two ugly dismounts on lap 1. Better luck next week Nigel.
Jason Harris, Sharn Davies and Matt Mitchell circulated in close formation and kept each other honest and Tristan Claridge was ahead of this trio claiming third place behind Ollie and Aaron. Peter Webster completed three laps while admiring the new direction arrows kindly provided by Aaron (www.fortrin.net).
Alana was the only grown up lady present, she enjoyed the climbing nature of the course and completed two laps.
So it is same time same place next week and hopefully the timing issue will be resolved. Come along and try out the bikes on display.