Grades marked ahead of class

EUREKA Cycling Club staged friendly criteriums on Friday, 21 January in sun drenched conditions at Victoria Park.

The evening event proved popular with close to 30 riders participating in warm and windy conditions.

Registration was quite busy with trial riders, new Eureka members and returning faces giving handicapper Graeme Parker some extra consideration as he set the fields for each graded division.

The club was able to provide mentoring to new riders in both Division 3 and Division 4.

James Knipe took on the coach role for Division 3 and soon had his riders attacking and chasing each other down, as he taught them race tactics.

The less experienced riders in Division 4 were under pressure from the start, with the wind splitting it into two groups.

Nonetheless, all riders were able to get something out of the evening and had fun latching onto faster bunches at times.

Division 2 was the largest field for the evening and was quite animated at times.

A daring solo attack mid-race by Shaun Martin had riders in two minds about chasing or letting him go.

Steven Crowe eventually crossed to the leader and went on to win the ‘friendly’, further cementing his elevation in the ranks.

Division 1 was even more combative with Shane Clarke, Jarrod King and Jason Shipcott putting the field to the sword early.

Lapped riders jumped back into the fold during the event – each rider getting his money’s worth in the free club event.

Thank yous to Mal Rock for setting the race circuit up, performing corner marshal duty and packing the equipment away, to Bill Goldfinch for performing chief commissaire duty, and Graeme Parker for handicapping the event.

The official Eureka Cycling Club 2022 racing season commences on Sunday, 30 January with graded division racing on an undulating 42-kilometre course at Learmonth.

– BY DEAN WELLS