THE start of the Peel Districts Cycling Club winter road season at Casuarina saw a record number of riders racing last Saturday afternoon.
The youngest riders raced in E-grade accompanied by chaperones for three laps of the 8.6 kilometre circuit.
On the first lap, the grade quickly broke up with Connor Buchel, Lily Grevett and Taj Wisewould setting a fast pace at the front.
On the final lap Grevett was dropped, and in the sprint to the line it was Wisewould taking the win, Buchel second and Grevett third.
D-grade was a mixed grade, with some of the faster under 13 riders and other riders in their seventies.
The bunch stayed together for the first three laps.
On the fourth and final lap, three riders got away and stayed away with Graham Thornton first, Zak Jacobsen second and Joshua Howe third.
C-grade was raced at a frantic pace, there were a number of attacks but they were chased down.
Instead the bunch dwindled in number every lap.
On the fifth and final lap, A and C-grade got mixed up.
Out of the final corner Ron McArthur attacked and in the confusion got a small gap.
When the remains of the bunch realised they chased hard, but the tiring McArthur took the win, with Danny Savage second and James Derrick third.
There was a number of young up and coming riders in B-grade.
However, it was two of the oldest riders in the race, David Irvine and Michael Moohan who established a break on the third lap.
The pair built up a good lead and the bunch never got organised to chase them down.
In the end Irvine outsprinted Moohan to take victory with Darren Kinsella winning the bunch sprint for third.
Any A-grade rider hoping to ease into the road race season would have been disappointed a large field of 33 started the race.
It was a furious ride; constant attacking, riders off the front getting chased down and counter attacks.
After seven laps and 60kms, 32 riders rounded the final corner.
In the sprint to the line, Matthew Peterson jumped early and got a small gap, only to be chased down by Bernie Swart who took the win.
Peterson held on for second, narrowly ahead of Richard Maher.
