Lively events challenge senior riders

The St Andrews Cycling Club held two senior handicap races recently, the first on Thursday evening over 16km.

Forty riders were handicapped into six bunches.

The first group to leave proved to be the hardest to catch and at the turn still held a one-minute advantage.

At the approach to the finish line, Robert Jackson sprinted well to win from John Philip and Gail Burtenshaw.

Just five seconds later a combination of the next three bunches was led in by Dave Hawkey from Trevor Karton and Phil Roulston.

Twenty one seconds later the scratch bunch crossed to take the fastest time honours – Dylan Kennett led in Andrew Collins, Wayne Begg and James Archbold in 23min 22sec.

Saturday's race over the 42km from Pareora River road to the Maungati Golf Club and return was contested by 47 riders.

At the turnaround, the front bunch of Shannell Rae, Paul Blackgrove, Gail Burtenshaw, Neville Orford and Tony Giles were lapping hard and still had a handy lead but with five kilometres to ride they were caught by the six chasers.

This group surged along to the finish where Andrew Hinton proved altogether too strong, winning comfortably in 64min 37sec from Peter Sutton, Gary Burtenshaw, Rae Blackgrove, Phil Roulston, Burtenshaw, Colin Teahan, Orford and Graeme Gliddon.

A popular fastest time victory went to Darren Cuthbertson in 56min 52sec from Ian Kirkman and Bill Gibb.

16km: R Jackson 29.56 1; J Philip 2; G Burtenshaw 3. Fastest time, D Kennett 23.22 1, A Collins 2, W Begg 3

42km Beban Cup: A Hinton 1.04.37 1; P Sutton 2, G Burtenshaw 3. Fastest time, D Cuthbertson 56.46; I Kirkman 2, B Gibb 3

- © Fairfax NZ News