After a hiatus through the summer school holidays, Mount Gambier Cycling Club members were keen to begin racing again.
The first race back was held over the familiar 25km course on Caves Road, with enough junior riders signing on for a 10km race.
Five young riders, mainly introduced to cycling through the Limestone Coast Regional Track Cycling Academy, greeted the commissaire and signed on to race along a 10km out and back route.
They were each assigned a chaperone and set off in one minute intervals, with Molly Opperman leading proceedings followed by Xavier Farmilo, Glenn Tye, Sean Tye and Jesse Tull.
With the focus on getting each rider familiar with road racing, the racers were allowed to swap turns with their chaperone until they were either caught by, or caught another rider.
At the finish line, Xavier had caught and passed Molly, with Sean and Jesse following ahead of Glenn and it was great to see the parents and supporters with their young chargers on the sidelines.
Following the junior race, 17 riders were assigned into their handicap groupings and began their race.
First away were Jason Buckland and Dianne Major, followed five minutes later by Jen Buckland, Ainsley Curtis and Michael Dethmore.
After a further four minutes had elapsed, David Tye, Spek Peake and Bruce McLaughlin were allowed to start their chase with Mike Bakker and Dean Zeven setting off down the road another minute later.
Young guns Elmer Buckland, Paddy Langsmith and Riley Hill allowed another three minutes to elapse before they began chase, with the final grouping of Jami Buckley, Matthew Opperman, Dave Bryant and Gerard Coote waiting a further three minutes for their chance to chase down everyone ahead of them.
With the wind coming from the south-east, riders worked hard into the wind for the first 12.5km before enjoying a faster run towards the finish line.
A flat tyre 7km into the race unfortunately ended Di Major’s stint early, with Jason carrying on alone at the front of the race until the turnaround point of the course.
McLaughlin was dropped from his group during the outward leg but was able to latch onto the following group and catch up with his riding partners later in the race.
The same could not be said for Coote, who was unfortunately dropped from the scratch bunch and faced the long and lonely race to the end.
Speeds picked up as the riders turned around and headed back toward the finish line and with 6km to go Jason was caught and passed by Curtis and Jen.
Opperman, Bryant and Jami were racing hard to catch the riders ahead of them and caught the closest bunch with 7km to go.
Langsmith, Hill and Elmer kept pace with them for most of the rest of the race as they passed each rider ahead of them.
As they crested the final hill and could see the finish line, they had caught all ahead of them and in the sprint to the line it was Jami Buckley who arrived first and fastest, followed by Opperman and Bryant ahead of Langsmith, Elmer Buckland, Hill, Tye, Peake, Zeven, Bakker, Jen Buckland, Curtis, McLaughlin, Jason Buckland, Dethmore and Coote.
The next race in the Summer Series will be a 25km race along Attamurra Road on Sunday February 5.
