October News Update
Spring has arrived and a lot of racing is just starting back up. Those of you who have put in the work over winter will be looking forward to showing your stuff, while others it's time drop that excess weight and start building up to that special event.
School round up
A lot of New Zealand's racing was on hold over winter while the temperatures were low and day light hours short. But that was not the case for the Secondary schools racing, with their weekly racing going ahead and the 3 major regional, Island and National events taking place in July, August and September.
The climax to a very successful first season racing under the 'Prutton Training Systems' guidance was the secondary schools National champions run around the Palmerston North area over 3 days in late September. Rangi ruru collage sent a team of 4 riders to compete and the girls excelled. First up getting a bronze medal in the U16 team time trial then with Alice Hay placing 4th in the road race.
The Cuddon Tour took place in Blenheim on the weekend of August 28th and 29th; where schools from all over New Zealand battled it out over 4 stages in 2 days to take honours in the overall classification, sprint classification and king/queen of the mountains.
The whole Rangi ruru collage team performed excellently with many of the girls exceeding their expectations.
Here are some stand out results:
| Charlotte Hand - | 2nd overall in U15 girls |
| 3rd Sprint jersey |
| 3rd Queen of the mountains |
| 2nd in stages 1, 2 and 3rd in stage 3 |
| Gabby Gray - | 3rd in stage 3 of the U15 girls |
| Alice Hay - | 2nd in stage 4 of the U17 girls |
| 3rd Queen of the mountains jersey |
In the south Island championships held a Ruapuna racecourse in Christchurch over 2 days in cold but clear conditions in July.
Charlotte Hand stepped straight up in the first event coming 2nd place by a narrow 2-second gap in the U15 individual time trial.
Later on that day super sub Gabby Gray replaced a injured Amelia Wilson at the last moment to help Alice Hay and Charlotte to a Gold medal in the U16 girls team time trial.
The team would like to thank Andrew Williams and Hayden Sword of Hub cycles for their help over that weekend.
Other Results:
Rangi ruru U16 girl's –Winning the team time trial at the "Amy Dawe Cup"
Tom Kissel – Winning the "Amanda Wilkes trophy", 80km road race
Ben Hopewell – 6th in the Wild west coaster
Tom Kissel – 10th in the Wild west coaster
Round 4 of the Benchmark series was held August 15th on a wet and cold day, starting and finishing near Ladbrooks on the outskirts on Christchurch. It covered 145km including 5 gravel sections totalling 8.6km's with a ford crossing that turned out to have a good foot of water in it, earning it's name "Hell of the south". Two stand outs for the day were Ben Hopewell getting in the early that stayed away for the race and Jason Blake who won the Cat 2 section.
America
For the second year in a row while spending time in the USA racing Marc Prutton from PT SYSTEMS teamed up with Ron Castia from Wensel coaching to run a day long race specific coaching clinic working on everything from cornering, sprint form to race tactic's.
This year a class of 22 riders from all over California and Nevada enrolled for the 5-hour clinic, all keen to hone their skills. Everyone went away happy taking with them new aspects of their riding to work on, drills and skills to help in the coming races.
Coming Races:
22nd October - Single speed world championships in Rotorua
1st November - Tour of Southland
20th November - Source to Sea
27th November - Around Lake Taupo
4/5th December - Armstrong Festival of cycling
11th December - NZ criterium championships
Stop for a coffee at the Cafe with the "Best coffee card in town"
