The SUVelo Racing Men’s and Women’s race teams recently competed in the Sam Miranda Tour of the King Valley, held on 21 – 23 August 2015. A part of the Subaru National Road Series, the tour consisted of four stages:
Stage 1 – Individual Time Trial (9km)
Stage 2 – Criterium (39km)
Stage 3 – Road Race (115km)
Stage 4 – Road Race (88km)
The Men’s team was comprised of Mark Keeffe, Ethan Dean Doughty, Rhys J. O’Shea, Shaun MacWilliam, Georg Bienert and a guest rider Daniel Paine. The Women’s team saw Gina Ricardo, Abby Sneddon, Josephine Meldgaard, and Georgia Catterick riding. SUVelo member Lisa Antill was also racing with the Boss Team.
The first stage of the Tour, while a short ITT at 9km, was fast. The average speeds of the winning riders were 47.7km/h and 40.8km/h for the men and women respectively. Mark Keeffe set the best time for the men’s squad, Josephine Meldgaard for the women’s.
Stage 2, the 39km criterium, was raced later the same day. The criterium was Georgia Catterick’s first, who recalls,
The pace was fast right from the gun. I found the first few laps the hardest but once I was used to the fast pace it was a lot of fun! I tried to move up with a few laps to go but in the end I lost a few seconds as I got caught behind a crash. I am pretty happy to get 19th for my first criterium.
Stage 3 was the Tour’s Queen stage. The course featured 15km of gravel road which included a punishing 6km climb. Of the men’s race, Ethan Dean Doughty said,
The gravel was the closest experience to racing Paris-Roubaix without going to France. The race was completely blown apart through these sections. For most of us, finishing felt like winning.
Concerns over the safety of the course saw the last two sections of gravel cut from the women’s race. The pace was fast with a mass sprint by riders eager to gain a good position ahead of each gravel section. Josephine Meldgaard rode well, finishing 11th on the difficult stage. Unfortunately Georgia Catterick crashed during the stage and retired from the race. She didn’t suffer any injuries though; good news ahead of her upcoming UCI Worlds racing.
Stage 4 would be cut short for the men just after the first intermediate sprint point. With the peloton averaging about 50km/h, a touch of wheels resulted in a massive crash. Lots of riders went down as did two motorbikes. The race was neutralised and the stage eventually abandoned.
The women’s race was thankfully less eventful, though Josephine Meldgaard did crash. She continued on to finish the stage.
Strong riding by Abby Sneddon saw her make the final selection. She finished in the bunch three seconds behind the stage winner and 20th in the overall GC classification.
Congratulations to all our riders who competed and a huge thank you to their support team. For more information about this year’s race, you can watch highlights of every stage on Cycling Australia’s YouTube channel and view all the results on the NRS website.
