Pics here. Viv’s pics here. 

Despite the horrendous weather conditions a sizeable contingent of Manchester cyclists turned up for our first event in Manchester, thanks especially to Manchester Tri Club, Manchester Wheelers, Manchester Metropolitan Uni and The Birmingham Boys.

The qualifying rounds immediately threw up some surpise results, with 4th fastest qualifier being Matt Rotherham despite being only 13 years old and much-favoured ex Herne Hill sprinter Jak Kenton Spraggan only coming 12th….Oh dear.  Rollapaluza’s charming doorperson Jason, a pre-race favourite whom most thought would be sidelined due to a broken collarbone took time off from his duties to casually set the eighth fastest time…one-handed! Luke bagged £100 as fastest qualifier, but would he claim the main prize later on?

In the first round the top 16 went head to head in knockout competition, the form book was followed with the fastest qualifiers in each heat all knocking out their slower opponents, except Andy Fardon who overcame James Wise to continue to the quarters, youngest competitor Matt knocked out the oldest in the battle of the generations with his opponent Charlie claiming to be TWO generations older….we’re not too sure about that though.

In the quarter finals there was major upset with the amazing one-armed Jason knocking out the fastest qulaifier Luke…with an incredibly smooth ride….Dan Woolfenden seemed to be getting faster with every ride and disposed of Lee Buckley who qualified fastest of these two.  Unfortunately super-fit triathlete Paul Skipper knocked out super-youth Matt, but it was a close race and an amazing performance from Matt, especially when you consider Paul was to be a finalist.

In the semis one-armed Jason was finally knocked out by Paul Skipper and James denied Dan Woolfenden his place in the final which had looked guaranteed earlier in the evening.

In true spontaneous Rollapaluza style we decided to hold the final over 1000m…James Carlsson, showed true class and led from the gun, Paul’s tactic of saving something to the end looked like it might work as he launched his final sprint with 120m to go and indeed he started to catch James, but he’d left it too late and James could not be caught and bagged £200 for his efforts.

Special mention to Viv, our sole female competitor….and a worthy winner purely for being the only lady in Manchester brave enough to take up the Rollapaluza challenge and besides her time was excellent for a first time female Rollapaluzaerer!

Thanks to our sponsors ODABAN  for the cash prizes
and PAC bags for the £220 Courier bag for best placed Messenger, which went to Jason, pity he has no shoulder to wear it on right now!
Also The Central Skatepark, for putting up with us…..here’s to many future cycling / skating / BMX crossover events in the future!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 12:26 and is filed under Results. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.