Mills wins in perfect conditions

Warm temperatures and sunshine greeted the Peel District Cycling riders at Saturday’s Wandi road race.

The junior race was even closer than usual with Lowen Ferry narrowly winning from Jake Brown with Todd Brown third.

After last week’s aggressive race, A-grade was a more conservative race.

There were a number of unsuccessful attacks with two laps to go — the newly promoted Peter Mills and visitor James Lambert went off the front and stayed away until the finish.

With Mills taking the win from Lambert, Doug Stewart led the bunch home for third.

B-grade was not as frantic as last week, with 15 of the 16 riders contesting the bunch sprint, which was won by Mimmo Gerace with John Bouwknegt second and Nigel Stella third.

C-grade was similar. Speed was fast enough to deter attackers and slow enough not to drop riders, resulting in another bunch sprint, which was won by Adam Farrell from Nigel Brockman second and Mark Crowther third.

The D-grade race, however, did not follow suit.

The attacks started halfway through the first lap, before Jordan Dawson dropped his breakaway companion and was solo off the front, but was chased by four riders.

John Taylor bridged across the group with a lap to go. Dawson outsprinted Taylor for the win, with Rob Mold leading the chasers home for third.

The E-grade race was another tight finish with the camera used to decide the winner — Tony Van Merwyk, with Jackie Lovegrove second and Zoe Stolton third.

Sunday’s time trials at Hopelands received similar weather.