Michael Matthews of Australia timed his sprint perfectly to clinch the men's under-23 road race title in Geelong today, passing Germany's John Degenkolb metres from the line. Unusually, there was a tie for third place between the USA's Taylor Phinney and Canada's Guillaume Boivin - there's nothing between them in the photo-finish - the pair looking rather amused as they jointly held the bronze medal aloft.
Matthews, who only turned 20 last weekend, is set to join Rabobank for next season, and was the protected rider in the Australian squad, emerging from the bunch of 50-odd riders contesting the finale to big cheers from home fans.
The rider is nicknamed 'Bling' due to his penchant for jewellery, earrings and neck chains being his favourites apparently, and now he has a gold medal to add to his collection, plus of course a rainbow jersey to go with it.
Earlier in the 159km race, the shortest in the history of the event, there was a headache for commentators as US road race champion Ben King got off the front with the Australian rider Ben King, but those two were brought back.
Subsequently, a coupe of legendary Italian names from yesteryear, both former world road race champions, figured at the head of the race as Moreno Moser, nephew of the great Francesco, went on a solo attack on his ISD Neri team issue Cipollini bike.
The American King and Britain's Alex Dowsett got away from the group to try and bridge the gap, but they and Moser were reeled in one by one as the race moved into its penultimate lap of the 15.9km circuit.
After the bell, French rider Tony Gallopin got off the front as he had done on the previous lap, but it was always going to be a struggle to stay ahead of the chasing peloton as the riders shaped up fro the bunch sprint, the first time the race has finished in that manner since Stuttgart in 2007 when Peter Velits,the HTC-Columbia rider who finished third in last month's Vuelta, took the rainbow jersey.
In my sample size of one , I get 'given' much more room riding my mountain bike by passing drivers. On my road bike I get a lot of close passes...
3 hours ? Mine is good for at least 6 hours. Even the old just radar sensor could cope with that and the light + radar is meant to have a 10 hour...
I think space makes it more aero ? Like the Hope GB track bike ?
For the first time ever, I'm impressed with the overall weight of a Pinarello. Given this bike also tests very well aerodynamically, (and again...
I know! I've mentioned this before on here but in firearms training one of the first thing's one's told is that if you make an error that could...
Bike jackings -was rife in South Africa when i left and probably still is. Sad state of affairs, I hope the rider heals up quickly and suffers no...
What about Miguel Indurain?
Wow! I dream of getting 6,000km out of a chain! My bike has only just cleared 5,000km...
Maybe we need to take a note out of the drivists playbook and label the lack of secure bike storage as discriminatory against the disabled
Well, I passed this lot yesterday and they seemed to be enjoying the ride... (apparently it was the national chopper convention or something!).