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St Kilda CC MTB Club Champ's

Phil Anderson's farm, Apollo Bay, April 24, 2004

Phil's Hills

The St Kilda Cycling Club cracked a pearler for their inaugural MTB championships, with the event being held at Phil Anderson's property located on the Great Ocean Road, a small but keen crowd raced the hill climb and a two-lap cross country event.

The hillclimb was a 1.1k course that climbed 170 metres. From a mass start, Dave Olle hit out hard but was quickly caught by Aaron Lee. Both of them looked pretty good till the lactic acid kicked in and shortly after both of these riders were rapidly reversing through the peloton (not unlike they do every morning on the North Rd ride).

Cameron Lester took the lead at the halfway mark, with 'Downhill' Tom not far behind (running just one chain ring!); it was shortly after this that a bit of experience came into play and Phil Anderson hit the front, accelerating away to take the win in just over five minutes.

While Anderson had feigned disinterest in the lead-up to the first race on his property, it only became obvious during the post-race analysis that he had been practicing the driveway hillclimb when he expressed disappointment at not breaking the five minute mark.

Saturday afternoon the XC kicked off around a figure-eight 6k loop, that included cowtrails, fresh single track, the dreaded driveway (1.5 times per lap), off-camber switchbacks, electric fences and 300m of vertical ascent. Allowing for the same amount of descent, it made the course an average of 1 in 10... and some parts were flat(ish), so you can imagine what the steep parts were like.

The women had just one lap to complete for their championship, and while Emma Colson was first back, Philippa Read, riding her first MTB race ever, took the title as first SKCC member home.

Phil Anderson led the men's race early, but late arrival Alex Randall attacked after the first half of the first lap, with fresher legs not having copped the driveway in the first race, and thereafter added one minute per half-lap-loop running out nearly four minutes clear of Anderson, with Cameron Lester in third and Carl Moroni in fourth.

Post-race analysis included a beer and chat with Phil, a photo opportunity for the winners with one of Phil's Giro trophies and a tour of his bike shed. It was quite a treat to become this informal with Australia's greatest cycling legend, as normally to get this close you would have to be on one of his tours to the Tour de France, not to mention the opportunity to line up on the start line with him. It was very special indeed.

N.B. Simon Meagher was heard to comment (on one of the latter of his seven trips up Phil's driveway for the day) that next year he thought he could nominate his driveway back in St Kilda for the club champ's.

Results

Hillclimb, Phil's Hills
 
1 Phil Anderson                           5.01
2 Cameron Lester                          1.27
3 Tom Pietkiewicz                         2.04
4 Emma Colson                             2.06
5 Kel Macculloch                          2.19
6 David Olle                              2.27
7 Zeth Romanis                            2.48
8 Aaron Lee                               3.05
9 Simon Meagher                           3.22
10 Philippa Read                          5.20
 
XC results, SKCC MTB Champs, Phil's Hills
 
Men
 
1 Alex Randall                           45.58
2 Phil Anderson                           3.27
3 Cam Lester                              5.57
4 Carl Moroni                            10.37
5 Tom Pietkiewicz                        11.40
 
Women
 
1 Philippa Read                          27.07 

Local results 2004

January	February	March
April	May	June
July	August	September
October	November	December