Early-bird series—2026 #7 (the series concludes).

Matt Burton will try again to reach that 200th Ride milestone, this time with even greater significance—it'll also be his birthday, just like at the event we mentioned in the race report for EB#6. He also has one of the larger aggregates for rides on the Lovekin Sausage where David Equid sets the pace within the present field with 88 previous rides. David Bryant also reaches a milestone: ATTA ride #50

BIP series? There are only five riders who would qualify under the existing format. The speed groups, if we had them, would be > or <31.7km/h for a rider's best five rides. Nevertheless, there was a hugely fascinating struggle to watch between Sophia Sammons and Mackenzie Coupland, both of them breaking through the 40km/h barrier in EB#5—the first time for women on the Lovekin Sausage; both girls well deserved their successes in the AusCycling National Championships that followed EB#6.

We're into lap 5 and the first to finish will be Andrew Simpson while there's little to separate Kate Bonner, Ann Brinkamp and Fiona Whelan. Scotty McDowell is a bit more leisurely today and it looks like Richard Williams is a scratching. Ann is the first of that group to finish, 9sec faster than Kate. Starting more conservatively, she came home with her fastest lap and looks like taking the biggest share of today's BIP points.
With half a dozen yet to start, Campbell McDowell, with a hefty PB, has taken top spot from Thomas Bruins with only a couple of those at the end of the list likely to displace him. There looks to be quite a list of DNS again this morning, the last of the starters are underway and, yes, Matt Burton now has the fastest Lap1 time.
Matt finishes ride #200 at the top of the list but short of his PB from EB5 not too surprisingly. But it doesn't look like it's been a great morning for PBs anyway. We'll see…
Lily Suckling one of only two juniors today and just starting ahead of Matt, finishes. That's all (one DNF).

Yes, that was quite a finishing flourish to the series from Campbell: a +1.3km/h PB taking him to within 30sec of Matt at the top of the list and a full hand of seven PBs for the series (the only one to manage that feat)! The women had good representation in today's PBs list; both Fiona and Larissa tallied four PBs for their series—the second best overall tally.
Of the 440 rides for the series, Ann Brinkamp was the only BIP rider who tackled all seven; a number of blokes rode seven including David Equid who, as all riders would know, also set up the timing and did start lists for all events—a not inconsiderable effort. He'll also need to dig out video times for Richard Williams for this ride he says.

mouse (peterm@atta88.au)