32 riders contested the 50km Lookout Hill Handicap this morning under fine skies and initially very light winds. With only the 1 A grader they were added to the B grade pack.
The large D grade bunch didn’t work quite as well together as imagined and were caught by a rampaging C grade at about the 18km in point. Some of them managed to tack on the back for a hard ride of hanging on.
At the half-way point both the C grade bunch (with remnants of D) and the B grade bunch a few minutes later had exactly halved their handicap to E grade who despite dropping from 5 riders to 3 were still working well together. It was about this time that the Westerly steadily built to provide a very solid tailwind on the return leg.
The hard headwind slog tired out the E graders and they were caught and passed in the last few km by both C and B grade setting up what promised to be a close finish between these two bunches.
In the end it was tantalisingly close, with B only 15 seconds from catching the back of C and 30 seconds behind a charging Matt Robertson who took the win with his arms raised in triumph.
