Brunswick Cycling Club

While many of Brunswick’s juniors hit the hills of Eildon on the weekend, Nikolaj Thomas and Riley Hart missed the turn off on the Hume and ended up in Canberra. It’s a shame these two junior tours clash as both are terrific; but when entries showed there were 19 under-11s in Canberra vs. six in Eildon, the decision was easy…

Nikolaj and his dad arrived early enough on Friday to reccy the course – and they liked what they saw! For those who haven’t been to the Stromlo Forrest Park set-up, it is first class. A 1.2km criterium track that is as smooth and wide and close to perfect as you’d find anywhere; surrounding roads that are full of bumps and were closed for the road racing; plus catering, seating and parking for all. As well as the added bonus of some awesome Mt Bike tracks (Riley and I bought our Mt Bikes up!).

Under-11’s had come from Tassie, Western Australia, NSW and the ACT – with Nikolaj and Riley representing Brunswick (and flying the Victorian flag).

So, to the racing…

Stage one of the J11’s was a 7.2km “road race” that was effectively six laps of the full crit track. The pace was hot from the start with a group of about eight riders stringing out the ever reducing peloton. An early attack from Illawarra’s Natasha Mullany was brought back and with two to go, it looked like it would come down to a sprint… that was until Nikolaj took matters into his own hands with a stinging attack on the first hill of last lap. Nikolaj put 10m into his competitors in a flash and tried to go looooong. His bold move was just cut short with two boys getting over the top of him close to home. So Nikolaj third, with Riley winning a sprint for fourth.

Stage two was a criterium (that formed the ACT Criterium Championship) on bottom-half of the crit track. It was only six-minutes + two-laps and it was fast and furious from the get-go. The stage one winner (Lachlan Scott) was setting a cracking pace with repeated attacks coming out of corner two to string out the peloton. The first four-laps pretty much mirrored this move which didn’t give anyone else a chance of getting to the front.

With two to go Riley made a move from mid-field to the front soon after the tough bottom section that was straight into a stiffening head wind. It turned out to be a good move with Riley and Lachlan battling for the win with Lachlan coming off his wheel to just pip him on the line. Nikolaj finished fifth just four-seconds back. It was certainly close racing.

After a trip to the National War Memorial for Riley and some petrol Go-Karting for Nikolaj (who drew the short straw there!) the two caught up for a pasta dinner in Manuka to talk tactics for day two, while the dad’s enjoyed a couple of quiet ales.

Like the first day, riders were met with clear blue skies and chilly morning conditions. Stage three was an 8.5km road race (making up the ACT Road Race Championships) over some serious bumps (six hills including a big one before a 2k descent and a finish on the crit track). The first hill made some sort of selection with nine of the 19 riders surviving to suffer some more. The first big hill saw Nikolaj attack but there was no one there with him when he swung out to rotate a turn on the front. Nikolaj’s repeated attacks saw the nine, become seven, become five, becoming three. Riley was dropped on the last hill, but some fearless descending saw him hanging grimly on to the back of the led three by the time they got to the entry gate.

Nikolaj was still leading and looking strong and if it wasn’t for this break-away having to stop at the entry gate to let the Under-17 Road Race through (think railway crossing in Paris Roubaix!) they surely would have fought out the finish. The unlucky halt saw the original nine back together and changed the race dramatically. Nikolaj led into the crit circuit and still led into the tricky bottom section before all his work on the hills caught up with him. It looked like a sprint between Riley and Lachlan before young Tom Cornish powered up the outside for the win – Lachlan second, Riley third and Nikolaj a close-up fifth (vomiting as he crossed the line – his father was so proud!). At least that’s how most people saw the results…

Some further controversy (aside from the wait at the gate) when the official “results” came out it put the sixth placed rider into third? Questions were asked, no answers were really given… oh well, I guess that’s junior racing.

So to the final stage, a shortened 2.6km ITT (it was meant to be 4.5km – not sure why the change): Riley was sitting in third place, Nikolaj fifth (should have been fourth but for the mess up with stage three placings). Lachlan was pretty much home for the GC, but Riley and Nikolaj could still move up the standings with strong rides.

Nikolaj was fourth last off wearing a new kit like a badge of honour (due to the stage-three finishing spew), with Riley right behind him. When asked how he was going to ride the time trial Riley’s reply was “I’m going to monster it like Fabian Cancellara did last night.” And monster it he did to pip Nikolaj by just 3-seconds for a Brunswick one-two and 10-points to move up to second in the GC, just four points out of first. Nikolaj consolidated fourth, just seven points back.

The presentations were sadly postponed due to problems with the timing equipment so we didn’t see the two Brunswick boys on the top two steps of the podium, but everyone left having had a great experience and learned a lot being up against the best J11s in the country.

Event website

This entry was posted by H. Hart on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 11:49 am and is filed under Reports, Road.