RACE THREE – NGARUAWAHIA, NOVEMBER 22
It’s getting serious…we played our “JOKER”.
Our cycling dynamo’s conquered leg three of the Dynamo team championship series in Ngaruawahia on November 22nd.
Their approach to tackling each race with a clear strategy is paying dividends with team McKenzie & Co. on the top of the Teams category leader board.
Here’s our race debrief from team captain, Mark Taylor:
Placing first awards the winning team a high-score of 15 points, and with the “Joker” doubling that score, the winning team can walk away with a maximum of 30 points.
“This leg was the longest and hilliest so far at 95kms, and it sure delivered with some solid racing. Knowing it was going to be a challenging course, which suited our riders, we opted to play our “Joker”.
“It was our strategy to play our Joker when we were pretty confident of a win. So the plan was pretty basic, get four riders across the finish line in the top 20.
There was a decisive breakaway early on, but we didn’t have any of our riders in it. All of our guys attacked at some stage during the race, trying to get to the lead group or at least try to get ahead of the peloton. But each of these breaks were rolled back, such was the quality of riders in the peloton.
“This meant it was all going to come down to a sprint finish. We delivered on our pan with Carwyn taking 6th, Alex 9th, Jeremy 10th and Graham 18th, enough to give us the win in the teams section for the day.
We’re now sitting in first place on the leader board for the teams category, and Graham and Carwyn sitting at 7th and 8th respectively in the Individual Points series.
We’re looking forward to some fierce racing in the next three rounds, particularly with Signature Homes, Troy Restieaux Real Estate and BDO. These are strong, very competitive teams, and Signature and Troy Restieaux have yet to play their Jokers, which means we have plenty of fun times ahead!!!
RACE TWO – TOKOROA, OCTOBER 2020
You’ve got to love a team with a plan!
Our Central North Island cycling team approached race two in the Dynamo team championship series with a clear plan of attack, in much the same way we attack a new project or job.
With roles assigned and milestones identified they were ready to bring home the points. Here’s our race two run-down from our happy team captain, Mark Taylor:
“Round two of the Dymano team championship series was based out of Tokoroa this time and was a 70km road race. In comparison to round one it had a small climb of around 500 vertical meters.
We had a clear plan to get the points in this race and that was to attack from the get-go. We wanted to split the peloton by the 20 km mark, recover for the next 15km of downhill, then attack again over the final 15km.
It all went to plan as we kept hammering the pack with constant attacks until Graham O’Grady (GOG) got out in a two-man break with Signature Homes Racing rider, Darryl Soljan about 30km from home. GOG held out for 2nd place, crossing the line with Darryl a minute clear of the bunch.
Once GOG was away the rest of the team hung back in the peloton, rested up and prepared for the chaos of a mass sprint finish. Carwyn took out 5th, Jeremy 8th, I got 13th and Alex took out 18th, all within 2 seconds of each other!
With five riders in the top 20 we got enough points to win the team category for the day. This also bumps us up from 4th to 2nd on the team table. And we haven’t played our “joker” yet, which gives us double points.
On the individual points table Graham is sitting in 6th place, three points behind the leader and Carwyn in 9th.
There’s a lot of racing still to come with another four rounds to go, but things are looking good, and we’ve definitely raised a few heads.”
On ya lads. Looking forward to the next race in Ngaruawahia in November.
RACE ONE – CAMBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 2020
What does your workplace do to keep fit? Apparently, our Central North Island crew are a mad bunch of lycra wearing cyclists.
Yes! Yes it is.
Our McKenize & Co. team are competing in the Dynamo Events, Team Championships Series over the 2020/2021 summer cycling season. The goal of this series is to provide a competitive team racing series that suits abilities not ages.
It comprises of six races all around the Central North Island and with COVID-19 affecting events – including the cancellation of New Zealand’s largest cycling occasion, the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge – our guys jumped at the chance to take part in this months-long summer series.
The McKenzie & Co. team is made up of a group of good mates, who regularly train and race together.
We’ve got expert surveyor and all round great guy, Mark Taylor who manages and rides for the team. Alongside him is survey technician and NZ representative triathlete Graham O’Grady, builder and NZ Xterra representative Alex Roberts, St Johns first responder and Ironman Jeremy Ross, medical sales rep and Ironman Lindsay McCord, and ex-McKenzie & Co./Central Surveys technician and very accomplished hard core MTB’er Carwyn May.
The lads are off to a great start taking out 1st place in the Category 4 team time trial with a blistering time of 1:04:22 for the tough 42km course, which included 1500ft of vertical gain in between the 20-30km marks.
Well done lads. Keep up the great work and we look forward to more successes in your next events.
