Albany Cycle Club’s Liz Cooper bags top honours in tight Scotsdale Slam handicap in Denmark

Albany Cycle Club returned to the scenic Denmark hills for its latest handicap race, the Scotsdale Slam on May 10.

The 44km course, while not especially long, has over 500m of vertical ascent, ensuring that it is no easy day out.

A reasonably fresh south-westerly wind in the faces of the riders on the outbound leg added to the overall effort required.

Being a handicap race, riders started in stages with the aim of giving all an opportunity to win.

The “go” group of Liz Cooper and Shirley Thurston led the field away, with Jimmy Watmore and Paul Gibson following 10 minutes later with the aim of catching the front two as soon as possible.

The biggest group of the day started at 15 minutes behind but a lack of cohesion on the start line saw two riders dropped immediately, with only one making it back after considerable effort, and leading to a disjointed effort thereafter.

Colin Rose and Vince Bascombe were the last two riders away, each solo, and both with a solid task in front of them to reach the front of the race.

With the gaps between the front groups and the chasers inevitably narrowing on the long climb to Alpaca and the shorter pinches out to the turn, Cooper and Thurston kept up a steady pace to maintain their advantage.

Behind them, groups were starting to fracture as riders started to tire.

As the race neared its conclusion, the rapidly narrowing gap meant the chasers Frank Bate and Sean Crisp were catching glimpses of their quarry.

However, they didn’t quite have enough road and in a tight sprint finish, Liz Cooper took the win and fastest time for a female.

Thurston finished second and Bate collected the final spot on the podium.

Vince Bascombe finished with the fastest time overall, averaging 38.7km/h.

The club now moves to a series of gravel events, and would like to thank the marshalls on the day for putting out the signs, timing and managing the turnaround.