Welcome to the Oceania Championships Road Race 2014 - a tough 140km hilly parcour will make for a thrilling battle and we're looking forward to who will take this title from last year's champion Cameron Meyer.

Some of the very best puncheurs from the NRS will be amongst the favorites today: Earle, Haig (Huon), Anderson (Budget), O'Brien (Euride), Walker (Drapac) and of course NRS-champion Neil Van der Ploeg (search2)! Other top-favorites should be WT-participants like Jack Bauer (Garmin) or Jay McCarthy (Orica).


5 riders made it into the break of the day and they established a decent gap quickly:

Pearson (Orbea)
Bissaker (Bianchi)
Jones (Lightsview)
Spurrell (African Wildlife)
M. Gassner (Veneziano)


The peloton - led by Budget and Huon - started to chase halfway through the race and with now 43km remaining and the field already entering the finish-loop - the gap is down to 2'20".

And we see the first attacks out of the pack: Trent Carman (Downer EDI) and Jake Sutherland (Austal) try to escape!


TT-champion Jack Anderson (Budget) is the first of the top-favorites to jump behind those two, we have still more than 30km to go!

A few seconds behind, a group with Haig, Neil Van der Ploeg, Walker and Semple also tries to join this maybe crucial moves. Earle is another group behind!


But it's only Haig, who manages to catch up to a super-strong powering Anderson! The two bridged the gap to the early escape easily and also dropped Carman and Sutherland.

With 16km to go, Haig and Anderson also drop the last two of the early escapees (Gassner, Spurrell) and take the race-lead!


One lap later, we're in the final loop, and the leading duo looks in total control of the race, with the early escapees still in the mix for a great result:

E1 (2)/ Anderson, Haig

E2 (2)/ Gassner, Spurrell at 0.36

E3 (3)/ Jones, Bissaker, Pearson at 1.13

E4 (6)/ O'Brien, Hucker, Van der Ploeg, Semple, Melville, Elliott at 1.52

E6 (4)/ Earle, Horgan, Carman, Sutherland at 3.39

So the first chasing group of favorites (picture above) with Van der Ploeg and O'Brien is almost two minutes in arrears with only 7km remaining!

Biggest disappointment: Earle, who clearly missed the decisive moves, being more than three minutes behind the leading group!


3.5km remaining and the leading duo is working well together, keeping the first chasing group with Gassner and Spurrell on distance: 41 seconds.

So it's going to be a thrilling finish between two of the NRS' most promising riders in 2014!


Haig and Anderson go head to head into the final km!


They're still shoulder to shoulder with the finish line approaching..


A very close one, but Jack Haig takes out the Oceania Road Championships Road's title! So no "double" for Anderson, who still looks like one of the very best in Australia right now. Same goes for Haig, of course!


Jack Haig celebrates a nice victory and the young gun keeps proving his outstanding talent.

Tyler Spurrell completes the podium, a great achievement for the escapee and his team African Wildlife Safaris! His break of they companions also managed to finish ahead of the other favorites:

Hucker (Drapac) as 8th, Melville (GPM) and Neil Van der Ploeg complete the Top-10 with more than two minutes behind Haig.

Semple (12th), O'Brien (13th) and especially Earle (17th, + 8.10) couldn't fullfil their high expectations.

Info - I won't have time for a next update before monday evening, i guess. So there will be a short break now, but stay tuned for the next pre-NRS-season event: the tough Mt Baw Baw Classic! Will Earle be on the startlist to defend his win from 2013? Or will we see a new Baw Baw-champion? Stay tuned for this and maybe a short Victorian Road Series-preview as well!

Cool yourself on a warm day, Mr Mustache!

(Steven Waite, African Wildlife - who retired from cycling in my story. If I had known this picture before, I might have kept him in the NRS.. but who knows, maybe he'll appear as a guest rider.)

Mt Baw Baw Alpine Ressort Classic

The first race of the Victoria State Road Series 2014 and (again) the first chance for some promising NRS-riders to prove their shape: Nathan Earle (Huon Salmon), Matthew Clark (Drapac) or Mark O'Brien (Euride) took the chance to take part and should be mentioned as the top-favorites.

Earle, who took his 4th Baw Baw-victory ahead of Karl Evans (Budget) and Darren Lapthorne (Drapac) last season, will aim for his fifth win, but faces some very tough competition in two of the best climbers in the NRS: Clark and of course O'Brien!

The access road to the resort, the Mount Baw Baw tourist road, features what is usually regarded as the toughest climb accessible by road bicycles in Australia. The final climb of 6.2 kilometres rises 718 metres at an average grade of 11.5%, maxing out at 20.3%. The race length is 102km.

The Favorites/

Mark O'Brien (Euride)	Matthew Clark (Drapac)
Nathan Earle (Huon)	Marc Williams (Budget)
Jason Spencer (Charter Mason)	Ben Dyball (Huon)
Rhys Gillett (African Wildlife)	Nathan Elliott (Target Trek)

More impressions from 2013/


Earle (Huon), Evans (Budget) and Lapthorne (Drapac) climbing the Baw Baw!

tsmoha wrote:
Thanks, guys! Baw Baw should be fun, like last year was. There may be some tough(er) competition for Earle this season, Ian But he should be amongst the top-favorites of course!

Have some unexpected spare time, so decided to share kind of a "teaser" for the soon-to-be-started NRS season! It's just a great photo, taken in the recently held (real) Grafton to Inverell Classic, which was won by Jack Anderson, btw