It was another busy weekend for the members of Blackburn Cycling Club with 2 major events taking place nearly 180km apart. The Track Club Championships took place at the East Burwood Reserve whilst the Tour of Mansfield was being held over on Mt Buller.

The Saturday program for the Club Champs was to complete the Endurance Championships, with the Individual Pursuit, Scratch Race and Points Race to be contested so that the Endurance Club Champion could be determined. On the Sunday it was all about the sprints with the F200s. ITT, Match Sprints and Kierins were contested to decide the Sprint Champion. They may have been short but they were fast and all the racing during the summer at the Super Sprint series was evident with some real tactical sprints taking place.

With a few exceptions due to other commitments most of the juniors that have been racing all year turned out in force. Each of the age groups and races were hotly contested, but there were a few dominate displays with Jamie Radford (J13) , Tarun Cook (J15s) and well maybe Sam Gallagher, off the back of all of his State Team Training. It was exciting to watch Sam move up to race against Sean Cleary to contest the Elite Kierin and Sprint Derby.

The Masters field was limited due to the Tour of Mansfield with some notable trackies trying their hand at climbing mountains, will they ever learn? It meant that the Masters were mixed in with the J19s, it made for hard racing but the fields were smaller than we would like, next year we will be recruiting Mums and Dads to put down the cameras and get racing, so start practising.

One of the things that is great about days like this at Club Champs is to see all the hard work put in by the coaches and volunteers in all the novice clinics, weekday training sessions, Saturday Track racing and Super Sprint series over the summer coming through the juniors. The new riders looked confident and the seasoned riders raced better. All showed a whole different level of skill, fitness and enjoyment of the sport from when we started back in October.

It’s also great to see the competitiveness on the track being totally put aside once the riders cross back over the fence and sit with their buddies, chatting, playing cards and having a good time all round. Sometimes so much they nearly missed their start times.

Over at the Tour of Mansfield while the Leaper family were competing at BBN Veldrome, Dad, Tom Leaper was competing and winning Masters A Grade. Another great win for Tom, racing with Kosdown, who just totally dominated again taking out another 1-2-3. Other rides of note include Callum Hopkins stepping up the big stage now he is J19 along with the stalwarts of Masters C Grade Vaughn Webber and David Gallagher. Good to see Ross Hamilton competing on the CV stage again.

Track Racing continues for the next 2 weekends on the 25th and 1st of April. The 1st is an end of Track Season carnival with al riders welcome, racing for all levels and a BBQ to celebrate a great season.

The MS Ride with Blackburn MS Cool Riders is on Sunday the 26th March. All details for all of the events are on the Team App.

Keep an eye on your inbox for your Team allocation for the Road TTT in Bendigo on the 23rd of April.

Happy Riding and see you on the road or trackside.