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Fifteen Randwick Botany riders (detailed right), were entered in this year's 47th "Ken Dinnerville Memorial " 90km. Handicap on Sunday 25 May, 2003.  In spite of the atrocious weather, 12 of us started.  We will forgive Shaun Higgerson for not starting as he was in Perth competing in the prestigious Tour de Perth.  I will confirm details as they come to hand but I understand that Shaun placed second in stage two (road race) and combined with a good result in the prologue, he went into stage three wearing the yellow jersey.  He had a good placing in the final criterium which saw him gain third overall in the GC.  Congratulations Shaun !!  I will place exact details of Shaun's fantastic achievement when further details come to hand.  For now though, back to the Ken Dinnerville.  I will also excuse Dale for not starting as well as one of our riders (who shall remain nameless) left his riding shoes at home and Dale graciously gave up his ride in the howling wind and torrential rain, and lent his shoes and pedals to that rider.  On behalf of that rider, Dale, thanks very much. Commiserations to Roger Crawford, who had been, for three days prior to the event, on painkillers and anti-inflammatorys for an extremely bad back.  Showing enormous courage, Roger started the race despite still suffering from some back spasm and was very instrumental in keeping the pace high on the first lap, doing a lot of work on the front of the bunch.  The back got the better of him about the 30km mark however and Roger unfortunately had to withdraw.  Roger really helped his team mates however for the time he was there.  Congratulations Roger and better luck next time. 

INGRAM, Brendan

LUCAS, Matthew

PRACHAR, Marek

CATER, Robert

JENKINS, Christopher

MURDOCH, Michael

GRAY, Will

HIGGERSON, Shaun

RICE, Scott

ROBERTSON, Mark

CRAWFORD, Roger

JACKSON, David

BUCKTON, John

MORRIS, Neil

ROCKELL, Dale

Dave Jackson was also plagued with a bad back a few days prior to the event and elected not to ride.  Although I reckon we could have really done with you Dave driving our bunch, it is probably good that you elected to give your back a little more rest. I must indicate that both riders threw their backs out during activity unrelated to bicycle riding.   It will be interesting to see how big Roger presents after his one lap of the course.  I know from personal past experience that this course is not really conducive to bad backs.

Well to cut to the chase, lets go straight to the bunch sprint and I am happy to tell you that we had 5 Randwick Botany riders in the front group, including Will Gray, Robbie Cater, Mark Robertson, Michael Murdoch and myself and three managed of us managed to gain places.  Congratulations to Will Gray who came third outright and first U23 rider home, Mark "Slapper" Robertson who came fourth and Mick "Big Bird" Murdoch who placed 5th.  We were lucky with the handicapping in terms of team mates.  Limit was 32 minutes.  I was off 22 minutes with Roger Crawford, Marek Prachar, Will Gray, Scott Rice and Neil Morris.  As well as us, there were many Heffron regulars with our old mate Roger Shakleton from Waratah Vets and a couple of Sydney riders including Tim Rice.  So we had a really good working group.  Roger Crawford went out of the blocks and got the pace happening really early.  When the pace started to slow a little about the 20 kilometre mark, Will Gray went to the front and did an awesome turn picking up the pace between 40 to 45 kph and holding the front for about 5 kilometres.  I think that this momentum was what kept our bunch really travelling well for the whole race. The handicappers were pretty kind to our old mate "The Slapper", Mark was off 25 minutes, three minutes ahead of us.  By the first 30 kilometre circuit we had caught all the bunches except Slappers bunch but by lap 2 we had them in sight. Slapper told me later that no one wanted to work in his bunch and he was there alone given that Dale had pulled out.  We picked Slappers bunch up on lap 2, and spat many of them out the back.  Even though Slapper had used a fair bit of energy doing most of the work in his bunch, he then launched an attack on his new bunch and managed to get out some 100 to 150 metres off the front.  The RBCC connection then stopped coming through for turns as we weren't going to assist in bringing back our club mate.  However I heard Roger Shakleton screaming to the rest of them to come through and roll over.  Roger got them going again and alas poor Slapper was reeled in.

Our other team mates did not get such a great deal on the handicapping especially Chris "Spongie" Jenkins and Brendon Ingram.  Chris was the only RBCC rider in his bunch and was off on 6 minutes.  Brendon fared slightly better off on 9 minutes and paying for his 8th place in the recent Cootamundra Open, his first ever open meeting.  Then we had Mathew Lucas, Robbie Cater and Aaron Castles off 12 minutes.  I saw Spongie a few times during the race as we passed them going the other way and I thought he looked very comfortable.  Apparently though it was the hill on the third and final climb that got him.  It has got me the last two years and it also got Matthew and Aaron.  Apparently Robbie drove their bunch fairly hard up the 3rd ascent and both Matthew and Aaron were not quite able to stay in contact with about half dozen (including Robbie) who got away over the top.  After the ascent, there is a long downhill where you can really stretch out in the big ring and if you are not with them over the top you are never going to close the gap.  Likewise Marek, Neil and Scott all lost contact with our bunch up the last climb and were unable to bridge back on.  It would have been especially hard given that Robbie and about half dozen of the 9 minute bunch had joined our bunch and we were all working really hard, initially trying to nurse Robbie to a large extent who looked a little tired.  Every time I saw him during the race he was on the front driving the 12 minute bunch.  Boy, he did some work.  To me Spongee looked very relaxed at the times that I saw him during the race but he too apparently fell victim to the final ascent of the demon hill.  In Spongee's defence, he is not quite what you would call his normal level of fitness having missed many training sessions of late due to higher school certificate commitments.  Brendon looked fabulous and did a fantastic job in the 9 minute bunch.  I saw him after the race huddled up trying to get warm and devouring a sausage sandwich.  Watch out club A grade at Heffron, you have some trouble coming your way.

Well that's the way I saw this year's Ken Dinnerville.  We now have a second place in 2002 (Aaron Castles) and a third, fourth and fifth in 2003.  It would be nice to actually get a first next year.  Let's work on it anyway.

Cheers

John Buckton

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