Club Races
O'Brien Continues Winning Streak
Quarry Road Handicap - Monday 10th March 2008

Gerard O'Brien continued his recent return to form with another solid ride last Monday, taking out the 48km Grampians Vets Quarry Road Handicap, held on the Labour Day holiday.

	Gerard O'Brien

O'Brien rode off 2 minutes with fellow second scratchmen Harvey Lang, Drew Heard, Peter Parnaby and Allan Barnett. The group combined extremely well, working smoothly and consistently the whole way.

By the foot of the Sandbar hill, they had the 5 minute bunch in their sights, just disappearing over the top, but knew they would need to keep up the pace to catch them. They passed limit rider Roger Williams and continued to work well until McCrackens Hill when the superior hill climbers O'Brien and Parnaby accidently caused the bunch to split, in their eagerness to close the small remaining gap to the 5 minute bunch. They quickly regrouped at the top of the hill and powered on after the bunch in front.

The 5 minute riders Stuart King, Meg Parnaby, Steve Bell, Tania Walter, Leon Gibson and Tom Eldridge held off the second scratchmen until the first hill on Mt Drummond Road. When caught they could only stay with the second scratchmen briefly, partly due to some riders poor gear selections on the steepest ascent. However, they were not the only ones having trouble. Lang's foot kept exploding out of his pedal nearly causing him grief.

Over the hilly section Peter Parnaby, Gerard O’Brien and Alan Barnett forged to the lead, and headed towards home with a 150m lead. However, the large 5 minute group were able to regroup thanks to King's power down the descents.

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Left to right - Chris Scott, Alan Barnett, Gerard O'Brien, and Leon Gibson

Trying to avoid the unpredictable Lang, the 5 minute group played the catch up game throwing Gibson and Bell back into the sprinting bunch when they caught the 3 breakaway riders with 300m to go. This ended up in a competitive sprint with O'Brien placing first, Gibson second and Barnett third.

The fastest time of 1:09:33 went to Chris Scott who was in the scratch bunch with Frank Kean, Steve Monks and Daryl Elliott. They came in 200 metres behind the sprint bunch at the finish.