Michael Hoynes and Jason Blanch followed Miller home, both had completed 11 laps, which brought it down to individual times for second and third place. Hoynes rode 5:57:28, which was good enough for second place in front of Blanch’s 6:23:49.

It was a good day for Miller though, he also took out the Open Solo Fastest Time Lap after having produced a lap time of 24:24.

Hoynes is not only a competitor in the event he is also an organiser of the event and he said he is very pleased with both those roles this year.

“We were very happy with the turnout and the results, considering the pretty warm weather out there, yeah, it was very good,” Hoynes said.

“We ended up with about 60 start so we were very happy with that response. Last year I think we had about 80 start, then again, considering the temperature, a lot of people were concerned about participating in that sort of temperature range, so… No we were very happy with it.

“Normally we run the event in March when it’s a bit cooler, but this year due to a very congested calendar we decided to move it forward to where there’s not so much on and to try something different.”

Hoynes said some of the competitors felt the conditions after the first few laps.

“The good guys continued to ride fast, but those who didn’t weather the heat so well slowed a little bit,” Hoynes said.

“It was pretty tough on the individuals, but the team guys seemed to roll through pretty well. Individual competitors suffered pretty well.

“The riding this year was every bit as good as last year, particularly with the two man teams, and I think Alwyn Miller’s ride was every bit as good as the winner’s last year, and there was a couple of people we were missing from the pointy end of it this year.”

The overall winners of the team events were Tony Williamson and Shane Edmonds from Inverell who rode 15 laps in 6:16:20 to come in ahead of two teams from Armidale.