Unfortunately, today we had one of those 'equipment malfunction' glitches that prevented us collecting intermediate times at the base of Big Gidge: 'good news', it was said by some who reckoned it might save them some embarassment; others, possibly wouldn't think so.

One of the latter is probably Michael Storer who has a notable disdain of gravity and likely flew over the last five kilometres on his way to another Course record (Juniors). His arrival at the finish displaced the last of a number of incumbents of the 'No1 chair' today, Jon Gregg. To make matters worse for Jon his time actually vanished entirely for a few minutes (as, indeed did Michael's) and so Matt Illingworth was reinstated at the top of the list - maybe some sort of metaphysical symbolism is to be seen there? Anyway, first man home had been Chris Roberts who really didn't even bother to try out the chair as he very soon left for the crit at Technology Park wwondering if a 70min warmup on Toodyay Rd was the best way to approach a crit. By the time Chris had left Nat Jones had taken over the chair to enjoy for barely ten minutes when last week's record-breaker Tom Barratt tipped him out. Then came Matt and Jon -all quite evenly spaced.

However while most of this chair-swapping took place Jess Huston had made her claim for the women's No1 spot and was not going to surrender it to anyone else; Steff VanA and Mel Robinson took their second and third places in quite an orderly way.

Our scripting of today's weather conditions didn't quite get the wind direction correct although by the end there was a decent easterly for the last of the riders. As always, those on the PBs Table earned their places.

Arriving early at Gidge for the early registrations were Lorraine, Aviva, Carolyn Equid and Troy. Troy had a very busy morning travelling to Toodyay to manage the start and, on the way distributing the course signage. He returned to Gidge as the 'sag'wagon'; no opportunity for any pedalling on his part. Jeff Usher, who as usual had managed the roster, for once had a more leisurely trip to the start of the event: Northam to Toodyay is a lot shorter than most of his journeys. Peter Pavlovic and Terri Usher completed the team. Thank you all. And thank you as always to the Webb family for their best wishes as we remember Mark.