Monday evening’s cycle race from Thornton School had an extremely fast start with the wind coming from a northerly direction, which helped the groups over the first six kilometres to Edgecumbe.

It allowed the scratch bunch of Oliver Christie, Bayley Fredrickson, Jayden Kaempfe, Lilly Collombet and Jacque Collembet to average 46kmh until they turned down Western Drain Road and faced a head wind back to the finish at the school.

This group still managed keep the pace around 40kmh into the head wind.

Albie Hulse started on his own, 9 minutes in front of scratch, which made it very hard for him.

The break bunch of Matt Fredrickson, Dean Sisson, Antone Collembet, Zoe Christie, Corrie Smit and Rob Donald had  a three-minute start on scratch and rode very well together.

They caught Hulse with about 3 kilometres to go, and stayed away from the fast closing scratchies who split up with 3km to go when Oliver Christie and Bayley Fredrickson opened a gap and stayed away till the finish. Christie took out the sprint for fastest time from Fredrickson who was close behind.

The three-minute break bunch stayed away by a small margin, with the sprint going to Matt Fredrickson from the in-form Zoe Christie and Sisson, third.

Thursday’s race was graded into three races around the Te Rahu-Selwyn Road circuit of 4.5km a lap, with each grade doing four laps, with a sprint for points at the completion of every lap.

The points on offer were three for first, two for second and one for third, with the final sprint being double points.

The A grade was won by Bayley Fredrickson from Phil McIlroy-Bisley and Jayden Kaempfe, who missed the start by a couple of minutes.

The B grade was taken out by Loren Hickson who dropped down from the A grade for this race, with second place going to Scott Christie and Lilly Collembet.

The C grade was an easy win for Corrie Smit from Albie Hulse and Kevin McComb in third place.

Thursday’s race will start from Paroa School and go to the south end of Rewatu Road and return, a distance of 27km.