Levi Johns has won the Nowra Velo Club’s 2018 mountain championship on a difficult windy morning on Woodhill Mountain at Berry.
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Johns improved his previous best time by almost 40 seconds to take this win on a day where strong gusty winds were making fast times difficult.
Johns topped the 6 kilometre effort in 17min 16.52sec.
The riders with small light builds were buffeted on the open section of the climb while the bigger strong men were taking the major positions.
Mark Williams was the second fastest rider in 18min 11.50sec and this was also a personal best.
Williams has been racing at the top end of B grade this year and this result shows his improvement over recent months.
Aaron Coghlan placed third in 19min 4.27sec. Coghlan was second in this event last year but long hours at his employment has played havoc with training and Aaron shows fluctuating form.
Gavin Nethery was fourth and his time was a 30 second improvement on his 2017 time where he placed tenth.
Rob Rix finished fifth in 20min 14.55sec with the next four riders all close on time. In sixth position Jason Spence recorded 20min 18.22sec ahead of Jade Colligan (20min 19.87sec), Scott James (20min 20.06sec), Colin Hunt (20min 23.25sec) and Dean Jackson (20 minutes 38.63sec).
Jackson was the highest placed C grade rider, 11 seconds faster than the next placed rider, Henry Wakeford. Michael Thompson followed in 20min 50.96sec with Steve Gendek just outside the 20-minute barrier slipping back by just under two seconds.
In 17th overall position was John Cullity who was the best of the D grade riders with 22min 42.24sec.
Jo Chalain (23:26.77) was second best of D grade and Mark Bagnall (23:41.65) was third.
Of the 32 starters there were four girls in the line-up and they were Jade Colligan (7th), Amy Mottram (28th in 26:22.49), Lynne Vaughan (29th in 27:34.38) and Sara Armstrong (30th in 28:27.16).
The Nowra Velo Club returns to criterium racing on April 29 with round four of the 2018 Optus series being staged on the Albatross Aviation Tech Park.