Club Races
O'Brien Continues Winning Streak
Quarry Road Handicap
- Monday 10th March 2008
Gerard O'Brien continued his recent return to form
with another solid ride last Monday, taking out the
48km Grampians Vets Quarry Road Handicap, held on the
Labour Day holiday.
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Gerard
O'Brien |
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O'Brien rode off 2 minutes with fellow
second scratchmen Harvey Lang, Drew Heard, Peter Parnaby
and Allan Barnett. The group combined extremely well,
working smoothly and consistently the whole way.
By
the foot of the Sandbar hill, they had the 5 minute
bunch in their sights, just disappearing over the top,
but knew they would need to keep up the pace to catch
them. They passed limit rider Roger Williams and continued
to work well until McCrackens Hill when the superior
hill climbers O'Brien and Parnaby accidently caused
the bunch to split, in their eagerness to close the
small remaining gap to the 5 minute bunch. They quickly
regrouped at the top of the hill and powered on after
the bunch in front.
The 5 minute riders Stuart King,
Meg Parnaby, Steve Bell, Tania Walter, Leon Gibson
and Tom Eldridge held off the second scratchmen until
the first hill on Mt Drummond Road. When caught they
could only stay with the second scratchmen briefly,
partly due to some riders poor gear selections on
the steepest ascent. However, they were not the
only ones having trouble. Lang's foot kept exploding
out of his pedal nearly causing him grief.
Over the hilly section
Peter Parnaby, Gerard O’Brien and
Alan Barnett forged to the lead, and headed towards
home with a 150m lead. However, the large 5 minute
group were able to regroup thanks to King's power down
the descents.
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Left to right
- Chris Scott, Alan Barnett, Gerard O'Brien,
and
Leon Gibson |
Trying to avoid the unpredictable
Lang, the 5 minute group played the catch up game throwing
Gibson and Bell back into the sprinting bunch when
they caught the 3 breakaway riders with 300m to go.
This ended up in a competitive sprint with O'Brien
placing first, Gibson second and Barnett third.
The fastest time of 1:09:33 went to Chris Scott who
was in the scratch bunch with Frank Kean, Steve Monks
and Daryl Elliott. They came in 200 metres behind the
sprint bunch at the finish.
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