That's a Wrap! 2020 99 Bikes Super Series Run And Won.
All photos by Turn 8 Photography - see here for more!
For full results from Saturday's racing (and from the whole series!) you can click here, or head to the 2020 Results tab above.
It was a beautiful day for a bike race on Saturday as we took to the criterium track at Pakapakanthi for the final time this year. Beginning at noon so we could get some of that great evening light for the Elite races at the end of the program, racing got underway with the Juniors before moving through the Category 3, Category 2 and Category 1 grades in the afternoon. The Elite Men too to the course at 6pm, and the Elite Women had the headline spot at 7pm.
Juniors – Racing for points!
In the Junior races these kids were chomping at the bit for a final race in their 2020 Super Series, with the C and D graders having only got three racing opportunities due to the course at Gawler being deemed inappropriate. Coming into the final round, it would be Joel Gooley who led Junior grade and whose second place to newcomer Bodhi Cattonar would be enough to seal the deal and the Series win. Austen Decker rounded out the podium before Henry Brown, and Maya Wellman took out first girl! The C grade race saw Patrick Perry, fresh off some great results at Junior State Track Championships the week before, take the win over Max Freeman and Sebastian Willis-Hell, who also had a great weekend on the boards. Liam Underwood, Luca Schmidtke and Ryan Underwood finished 4th, 5th and 6th on the day which saw them go 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the Series Final Standings.
Junior B Girls saw Ava Wilson complete a perfect run of Series races for a total of 80 points from a possible 80, followed by Ava Schmidtke who had to settle for a perfect run of second places for second in the Series. Third place on the day was taken by newcomer Leani Van Der Berg, and third place for the series was sealed up by Rhiannon Bryant who took 5th in Saturday’s race. Junior B Boys would always come down to line honours with three riders coming into Round 4 with equal points – Darcy Greenwood, Will Brown and James Hand. The three would duke it out along with Nick Gray in a blistering sprint finish down the grandstand straight, and Greenwood just nosed out Brown for the win with Hand taking third place. The three stayed up on the podium for their respective Series placings – exactly the same as the race!
Junior A grade was another perfect 1-2 affair, with local prodigy Wil Holmes taking his fourth win from four races for a perfect 80 points, and Josh Cranage taking home best of the rest honours once again for a Series total of 72 points and second place. Will Mathwin edged out Connor Doyle for third place, but Doyle’s consistency over the Series meant he stayed in 3rd place overall at the final.
Cat 3 – Racing for points!
In the Cat 3 Men’s race it was a real treat to see a two-up breakaway take on the crosswinds and stay hard on the gas early. The rest of the bunch was caught napping as the break of Rob Greenwood and Ben Johncock made their way all the way around the 1.1km criterium track and caught the back of the bunch, with a third rider Ryan Kirby taking on the mammoth task of a solo chase himself, and managing to get back to the main group, too. Young Ben Johncock took line honours over Greenwood and Kirby, with the Series win going to Mr Consistency, Josiah Lim, over Ryan Kirby and Peter Scaife in second and third place overall.
The Cat 3 Women’s race saw Naomi Feder in a fresh Leader’s Jersey after her efforts at the Gawler Kermesse take to the course locked in a battle for GC with Virginia Riches, but it would be Vicki-Lynne Birks who drew first blood, taking the Big Shed Brewing Co Prime Sprint. Feder would eventually take the win over Carly Bryant in second place and Birks in third. The Series would be Feder taking the overall from Bryant in second and Riches in third spot.
Cat 2 – Bonus round, Series already decided.
In the Cat 2 Masters race, a bonus round to celebrate the Series rather than a race for points, it would be Edwin Bohdan from Rokit Racing who lit things up and ended up with a solo break and a 30 second time gap at the race’s finish. Nick Chabrel (ADX Depot) took out a two up sprint with Alasdair Maclellan (PACC) just ahead of the bunch, which still included Port Adelaide CC’s Barnaby Grant in his MAXIMA / SCODY Series Leader’s jersey – never content to just sit in! The Series minor placings went to Alex Jarvis (Norwood CC) and Michael Davies (Rokit Racing), who would also take out the Alpha Box & Dice Over 50 Category. Rokit Racing took out the SCODY Team Classification, and USG Racing’s Phil Bray took out the Big Shed Brewing Co Sprint Classification for the Series.
Category 2 Men had an eventful bonus round, with the Series Classifications all sewn up after the cancelled Unley Criterium. It would be Shaun O’Callaghan (Van D’am Racing) who took the final sprint to the line over individual rider Jarred Clarke, Norwood CC’s Sam Beveridge and VDR teammate Paul Wentrock. This was truly a grade that could have been won by a handful of riders had things gone differently at really any point in the racing, with the 7 rounds of racing going to 6 different race winners in Jude Thursby (VDR), Tom Clarke (LLCC Pedla, and the Series’ only double winner at Moonta and Aldinga), Michael Wellman, Norwood CC Red’s Ryan Beaumont and Max Hardy (at The Bend and Gawler Eastlink), and finally O’Callaghan in this bonus round. The MAXIMA / SCODY GC would be won by Norwood CC Blue’s Tom Rischmueller, the only rider across the entire grade to score points in every round of this year’s Series. LLCC Pedla’s Patrick Sharrad would bring hom eht beers in the Big Shed Brewing Co Sprint Classification, and Jude Thursby won a bike fit with Nashy in the Adelaide Bike Fit Young Rider Classification. Van D’am Racing’s youthful development team took out the SCODY Teams Classification for the second year in a row in this grade.
In the Category 2 Women’s race, it was another bonus round with the Series having been called early. With all of the top 6 riders in the General Classification unable to race on the weekend, it would be an opportunity for the rest of the grade to hit the front, and by the end of the race it was once again the Keystone Cycling Team with two riders in a breakaway, something we’d grown used to seeing in the criteriums in this Series! Norwood’s Penny May would have enough left in the legs to come around Keystone’s Stacey Riedel after the final bend and take the win, and in the last few bike lengths young individual rider Paige Cranage would do the same taking second spot. Riedel would have to settle for third spot on the podium, and breakaway companion Kayla Macsporran (Keystone) would be award the PREPD Most Aggressive award for making the break stick. In the overall, Sueann Woodwiss and Meg Marker of Butterfields Racing would take 3rd and 2nd spot, behind a storming display of power over the course of the Series by Keystone’s Celia Cowan – who also took out the Adelaide Bike Fit Young Rider Classification. Cowan won the first 4 rounds of the Series, only to take second at Aldinga to Meg Marker, and second to Paige Cranage at the hilly Gawler Eastlink Kermesse. Keystone would take out a tight Teams race with Butterfields in a close second, and Butterfields’ Meg Marker would take out the Big Shed Brewing Co Sprint Classification. The Butterfields duo of Gemma Kernich and Sueann Woodwiss would take clear wins in the two Alpha Box & Dice Masters Categories, Over 45 and Over 30 respectively.
Cat 1 – Bonus Round, Series already decided.
The Cat 1 Masters race was a last chance for some of the other teams to get a run at the Series’ runaway leader, Matt Sparnon from USG Racing. Having obliterated the competition in Masters 2 last year, Sparnon made the jump to Masters Cat 1 this year and found himself once again at the top of the pile. This time around it was JP Jacobs (Rokit Racing) who would get up for the top spot, with Team Prochem’s Craig Ingram taking second over Sparnon. The Tonsley Village duo of Cameron Spears and Michael Bryant rounded out the wide-angle podium in 4th and 5th.
In the Series, Sparnon had only stumbled twice on his way to an otherwise perfect run, with a second place to Prochem’s Graeme Moffett at Wallaroo and another to Andrew Friebe of Rokit Racing at the Gawler Eastlink Kermesse. He took out the Series from Friebe and Moffett in second and third, respectively. Moffett would take out the Alpha Box & Dice Over 45 Category for the Series, while the Big Shed Brewing Co Sprint Classification went to Matt Sparnon thanks to a lot of time in breakways (though an honorable mention to Rokit’s Jarrod Currie who put in a concerted effort to pick up sprints all through the series.
ELITES - Points Race, for Series Points!
Elite Men
Come 6pm, it was time for the Elites to take to the track with Series Points up for grabs in an omnium-style Points Race. Riders would be awarded 5, 3, 2 and 1 points for the first four spots over the line each 4 laps of the course, and those points would be awarded as Series points at the end of the race to decide the MAXIMA / SCODY General Classification.
In the Men’s race, it was clear who was the rider to watch – the only entrant from the ACT Men’s Track Endurance Squad, Kell O’Brien. A handful of the Olympic athletes had come back a day early from a training camp to make sure they got to race this final round of the 2020 Super Series, and it proved worth it! An early move from the gun by Kael Thomas (SASI) saw him hold off the bunch to take maximum points in the first sprint, but Kell hit out over Tristan Saunders (Butterfields-Insurance Advisernet) and Justin Gassner (Tonsley Village) for the minor points before asserting his dominance over the second sprint for maximum points and an early lead. After that, O’Brien was unbeatable in sprints 3, 4, 6 and 7 to take a 19-point lead over Saunders into the final sprint, and so he could take a foot off the gas and leave the bunch to fight out the double-points final sprint. Saunders would take line honours at the end for 10 points and to seal up second place Olivers Real Food Racing’s Callum Pearce had been routinely picking up points throughout the race so his 4 points in the final were enough for third place on the day.
In the series, O’Brien’s 29 points was enough to snatch the Series win from teammate Leigh Howard in second place and Cycling Australia Academy rider Cameron Scott who took third place. Scott was unlucky to be caught up in a high-speed crash at a recent round of the National Road Series, and so couldn’t continue his GC bid in this final round. The ACT Mens Track Endurance team took out the Team Classification by a massive 170-point margin, and Leigh Howard took out the Big Shed Brewing Co Sprint Classification after having spent so much time in breakaways for so much of the Series. Tristan Saunders’ result in the final round was enough to slip past an absent Lucas Plapp in the Adelaide Bike Fit Young Rider Classification, by just one point.
Elite Women
The Women’s race was also dominated by the Olympic athletes – but this time it was not just one athlete that the rest of the field had to contend with, but a 5-strong powerhouse of a squad. Team Prochem’s Chloe Moran came into this final round in second place in the MAXIMA / SCODY General Classification but on equal points with first and the leader’s jersey wearer, Cycling Australia’s Annette Edmondson. Ash Ankudinoff took the first sprint with Moran hot on her heels in second, and when Edmondson took the second sprint with Moran in second again, we had three evenly-matched riders just one point apart. Nettie put the hurt on Moran in sprint 3, taking maximum points while Chloe was stuck in traffic in the bunch, and after that it was the Ash Ankudinoff show with the experienced trackie (and by experienced, we mean 4-time World Champion and Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist) taking 4 of the remaining five sprints to take a decisive win. Edmondson made herself the only rider to feature in all 8 sprints of the race to take second spot, and a consistent performance from teammate Maeve Plouffe saw her on the third podium place by the end of the race, despite the best efforts of individual rider Nat Redmond who stayed hot on Ankudinoff’s heels to take second in the final bunch kick in front of Edmondson and Prochem’s Young Rider Chelsea Holmes who took the last of the points for the day.
Chloe Moran took enough points early on to stay on the GC podium, but she was no match for Ankudinoff, who leapfrogged her to second place, and Edmondson who took a solid win in the overall classification. The Cycling Australia Women’s team, not to be outdone by the boys, took out the Teams Classification by a whopping 219 points over Moran’s Prochem team in second spot. In the Adelaide Bike Fit Young Rider Classification, Sophie Edwards and Chelsea Holmes were locked in a battle for this one with Edwards taking a handy lead into the final round. With the two taking equal points in the race it would come down to final position at the finish to decide who took the maximum YR points, and it turned out to be Holmes over Edwards but not enough between them to close down the gap. It was an all-Ankudinoff affair in the remining two categories, with a final-round run over Jenny Macpherson in the Alpha Box & Dice Masters Category to add to her already-sewn-up Big Shed Brewing Co Sprint Classification win.
The Series
In what was perhaps the least normal year of bike racing we’ve ever had, the 2020 99 Bikes Super Series ran through relatively unscathed! We’re grateful to everyone involved in the running of this Series, and special thanks have to go to our sponsors who were able to support us with prizes even in what might be the hardest year some of them have done, ever! A big thanks to Pangkarra Foods, Mischief Brew Coffee, Big Shed Brewing Co, Alpha Box & Dice, Adelaide Bike Fit, The Bend Motorsport Park, Copper Cost Council, City of Onkaparinga, Town Of Gawler, Maxima, SCODY, PREPD, Mojo Beverages, and of course our title sponsor for the 2020 Super Series, 99 Bikes!
We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who volunteer their time to make this racing possible, from corner marshals, traffic controllers, our commissaires, team managers and our set up/pack down/sign on volunteer crew. The racing couldn’t happen without you, and we hope you all enjoy a much-deserved holiday break!
We’re already looking ahead to next year and how it can be even bigger and better than this year – hopefully a little less interrupted for one – and in the meantime, we’re looking forward to a very AusCycling-forward Festival of Cycling early next year!