The Nowra Velo Club returned to racing on Sunday after a month recess due to the Greater Sydney lockdown and Josh Ludman took the win.
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The event was a 42-kilometre handicap on Braidwood Road at Yerriyong and was round eight of the 2021 Optus Series.
Ludman (Hanlon Windows) crossed the line a length ahead of Nathan Crump (Access Storage), Curtis Trkulja (NVC), Ben Wallis (Access), Coffeeliscious trio Mike Berriman, Tony Patton and Phil Rice and Mitch Cunningham (NVC).
These riders made up the front group to contest the finish with a 25-second margin over the next group of riders.
Doug Gray (Access) was ninth, ahead of Lynne Vaughan (Access), Ben ter Huurne (Hanlon), Ned Grootenboer (NVC), Bill Stahlhut (Hanlon), Harry Ludman (Hanlon), Adrian McMillan (Coffeeliscious) and Rob Pickard (Coffeeliscious).
Ludman and Trkulja had started this event on the back handicap with a two-minute gap to the next group that included Wallis, Crump and Cunningham.
Another eight groups were spread out ahead at 90-second intervals for a field of 30 riders.
Once the two back groups combined, they stormed their way through the field to take the lead with 10 kilometres remaining.
The constant pace saw the lead group reduced to eight riders for the finish.
While the Coffeeliscious team did not place a rider higher than fifth over the line they were consistent enough with finish positions to win the team award for this race.
Coffeeliscious were just five points better than Access with Hanlon Windows just a mere three points back in third position.
Allen Price and Scarratts were the rostered officials team for this event and in the overall team classification, they have slipped to third.
Access Storage lead with 280 points, Coffeeliscious has 260 and APS is on 250 points.
Hanlon Windows has started a move up the classification and have 190 points.
The overall individual points have Ben Wallis and Mark Williams sharing the lead with 134 points.
They are followed by Josh Henry (126), Josh Ludman (125), Trent Wiseman (119), Jo Chalain (108) and Dave Gray (102).
Local racing continues next Sunday with round nine of the Optus Series as criteriums on the Albatross Aviation Tech Park circuit with an 8.30am start.
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