It was the hill climbers' time to shine in Cycling Otago's annual Brian Woods Memorial race from Palmerston to Mt Cargill on Saturday.
A field of 30 riders entered the 57km handicap race, but it was a veteran rider, and father of this year's Tour of Southland King of the Mountains champion Joe Chapman, who came out the winner.
Tony Chapman pipped Stu Thomas for the win, with Katie Menzies and Maaike Duncan hard on his wheel for third and fourth respectively.
The limit bunch had a 28-minute head start on the scratch bunch. The course followed SH1 from Palmerston to the Karitane turn-off. From there riders followed the coast road from Karitane to Warrington and briefly rejoined SH1 from Evansdale to Waitati, before turning up Mt Cargill Rd to finish at the summit lookout.
Head winds out of Palmerston took their toll on the riders who then faced the arduous hills along the coast road.
By the time they reached SH1 at Evansdale only one bunch was still together with the other bunches being well spread out.
However, it was the final unrelenting 8.5km climb up the Mt Cargill Rd that allowed the true climbers to come to the fore.
While the Chapman bunch was testing each other on the approach to the finish, further down the hill the battle for fastest time was being fought between scratch riders Stu Crooks, Andy Connelly and Phil Turnwald.
In a very close finish, Crooks took the honours with the others being awarded the same time of 1hr 30min 34sec.
Rising star Reta Trotman continued her fabulous form to be the fastest woman, just three minutes behind the fastest men.
Fresh from winning the inaugural Tour de Femme in Central Otago last week and the le Race in Akaroa the week before, Trotman showed once again she is one to watch as she continues her build-up towards elite national championships in Christchurch in January.
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