The return of the Copeton Six Hour was a chance for local Alwyn Miller to finally secure a hat-trick in the mountain bike race last weekend.
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“I finally got my third win!” he said. He was thrilled to finally revisit the endurance challenge, and hoped seeing a local take out the race would inspire the younger riders.
“It did for me when I was young. I’d look up to the Inverell riders to try and achieve what they’d done,” he said.
Around 45 riders from around the region took part in the family-orientated event.
Miller was “a machine” according to organiser and Inverell Mountain Biking Club member Michelle Rees, riding nine laps over the six hours – 99 kilometres.
However, Miller admitted it wasn’t as easy as he made it look.
“It was probably one of the toughest rides I’ve done out there,” he said.
“We’ve changed the track a little, so it felt like it was a little bit more uphill. It wasn’t steep uphill, but it was long drags. By the third hour I was pretty much cramping the whole way. I didn’t enjoy the second half.”
Despite the difficulty, he was impressed by the club members’ hours of work fixing the track for the event, following a two year hiatus and a fire.
“I actually loved the track. It was so flowy, and there wasn’t anything too technical, so it was just fast and flowy.”
His nearest competition was Armidale’s Peter Harris and Stuart Hutton, who came in second and third place respectively.
Having made the trophies for the event, Miller donated his own to the fastest time of the day, which went to local Brent Rees with a time of 30.05 minutes. Tamworth’s Steven Roberts had the second fastest time.
Rees also took out the male pairs as part of ‘Mini Men’ with Peter Horwood, beating Roberts and his partner Chris Shaw, or ‘BC Bikes Duo’ in second.
Rees, along with Armidale’s Holly Harris, was fresh from competing overseas at the world championships.
“It’s great that they can ride at the world stage and then they can come back and ride and support the local events as well,” Michelle Rees said.
“They just love racing, they don’t care where they are, they just want to get out and race.”
Although there were no female soloists, Harris and Inverell’s Jodie Mayled made a mark in the mixed pairs alongside David Harris and Brad Newman, with the Armidale team ‘Faster than Nug & Dawg’ coming in first and the locals, ‘Team Brodie’, second.
Inverell was also well represented in the male team category, with ‘Farmers’, made up of Jack Armstrong, Jesse Smith and James Skehan, winning first and ‘Rough & Ready’, which included Charlie Smith, Colin and Ben Turner, coming in second.
The top under 13 years team, Jude and Ethan Greenhalgh of ‘Greenhalg Gummies’ came all the way from Toowoomba, while local Luke Turner took out the under 15s male category.
‘Bella and The Bin Chickens’, made up of Armidale’s Isabella Hosking, Archie Chick, Justin Roberts and Sam Feltham, were the top under 17 years team. In second place was another Armidale team called ‘Dashing Daschunds’, which included Harry Wooster, Tumi Thorsteinsson, Blake Newman and Olive Tutt.
The Copeton track remains open to the public.