40KM I.T.T. July 6^th. 2011

Nanaimo River Road

This evening, the temperature dropped several degrees and there was a strong, chilly west wind that the riders had to battle to the turn. The 40km course is two laps of the 20km, so they fought the wind twice. Even fast man, Don Gillmore was three minutesslower than his best time and commented about how hard the ride was.

Despite the inclement conditions, the women'srecord was well and truly beaten by Winnipeg visitor, Rennie Benedict, who did 33'30” for the first twenty km and did the second half of the forty km 45 seconds faster to end up with the new course record of 1h 6'15”, Well done Rennie!

Other newcomers this evening were Rennie's husband Roman Matwyczuk and OBB mechanic, Steve Healey, who is more at home downhilling.

Thanksto Rose Houle and Mark Wieler for marshalling and,of course, to Kit for registration.

Starting this Saturday (July 9th.) the club rides will start at 8am. This change to an earlier time means you will be back before 12pm and have the rest of the day for other things. Let us know if this works for you.

Entries close at midnight tonight, so still time to get your top five choices in. Of course you may enter as many times as you like. The first few days of the Tour have adversely affected the chances of more than one of the favourites, with several caught in and behind crashes.

There has been a number of requests to change the start time for the MIVA Saturday club rides. Therefore, from this week on, the rides will start at 8am. Start point is the same - Java Expressions at Bowen and Northfield.

Tonight's event was halted after a tandem truck and trailer like this one deliberately tried to run down the break and actually forced Lionel Space off the course and threatened him! Before the start of the race, the same truck had knocked down a couple of dozen cones. The police were called and, after checking our permit and insurance, interviewed everyone involvedin the incident. Boy, I thought that this only happened in the GTA.

It was decided to split the prize money among the four break members as they were 45 seconds upon the bunch with only 6 laps to go. Points were awarded as follows: the four break members 10 each, all other non lapped riders, 5 each. Lapped riders 2 each, Glenda Harling and Brodie Hay 5, Janna

Gillick 5 (volunteer)

The three primes were won by Warren Muir, Ian Smith and Lionel Space

Thanks to Janna Gillick for marshalling and for summoning the RCMP and to Kit McCaffery forlooking after the registration.