STRONGBUILD Berry Criterium
Saturday afternoon saw FFi riders Mick Troy and Owen Macphillamy make their way to Mick's home town of Berry on the South Coast of NSW to race in a state level criterium presented by the Nowra Velo Club.
(Photo: Robert Crawford, South Coast Register 17.11.2010)
The problem with living in the Central West and then heading to the coast for a November afternoon race is that you are very unacclimatised to the humidity on the coast. And to make matters worse, the region had been having some rain and a storm brewing made it a very muggy afternoon racing.
(Photo: Robert Crawford, South Coast Register 17.11.2010)
The boys lined up on the start line of the State A Grade Strongbuild Berry Criterium at 4pm after several other grades along with 16 other riders including defending champion and international rider Aaron Donnelly (Jayco Skins) and many other riders that had made the trip down from such clubs as Sydney, Golburn and Illawarra.
The start was fast and hard with a hot dog circuit facing the riders with a 700m straight between the turns, and a false flat uphill in one direction, making a quick return in the other direction. Macphillamy made the most of some recent form being aggressive from the start in the hope of making it easier for Troy to sit in and have an easy ride not having to work.
(Photo: Robert Crawford, South Coast Register 17.11.2010)
This was working for a bit until Macphillamy started to struggle with his breathing, but unfortunately for Troy this was the same case for him. Both the boys said they were riding the crit "With half a Lung".
(Photo: Robert Crawford, South Coast Register 17.11.2010)
With the crit going for 40min plus 3 laps, Macphillamy found himself off the back with 10 min to go and decided to pull the pin and watch the rest of the crit from the sideline.
With a breakaway of three formed earlier in the race, Troy found himself in the bunch sprinting for fourth so kept working away, being honest in the bunch even though he was suffering with his breathing. With one lap to go a surge was made on the outside of the bunch and when Mick jumped to chase found himself cramping in both legs. Thinking that was the end of his race, he just tried to recover. Recovered, Mick got back into his rhythm and chased back onto the bunch and made up the 150m gap that had formed by the top hair pin, leaving 700m left in the race. On the back of the bunch, he edged his way up the inside of the bunch and was sitting in 4th wheel when the sprint opened up a long way to go. Troy tried to kick and go with the sprint but a rider swung wide in the bunch, not holding his line in the sprint which forced Troy wide to the right and that was the end of his race and rolled across the line in 7th after a very hard crit.
(Photo: Robert Crawford, South Coast Register 17.11.2010)
Report from Nowra Velo Club website; www.nowravelo.com
The winner of last years Strongbuild Berry Criterium in the first division had returned to defend his number one saddle cloth. Aaron Donnelly lined up as the rider on the top of the list for division one and there were some quality riders around him to make racing hard and fast for the 2010 event. Entries for the main event came from Illawarra CC, Macarthur CC, Goulburn, Orange, Manly Warringah, Southern Cross, St. George, Sydney and Sutherland. Former NVC rider and Berry resident, Michael Troy made the trip from Orange along with a team mate to add more local interest to the event. By now the afternoon was hot and humid and the roads had dried out but the racing was on from the start. The lead positions ebbed and flowed and the attacks were launched and were chased down and the field split apart and recovered. Over the last three laps Donnelly had joined in a break with Kolbach (Macarthur) and Jared Mills (Sutherland) but Kolbach had the fastest legs at the end to take the winners cheque from Mills and Donnelly. Sydney youngster Luke Davison was next over the line ahead of Brodie Talbot (Macarthur).
Many thanks to Robert Crawford of the South Coast Register for the photographs above.
