Peter Budd was racing in his seventh consecutive championships and has the incredible record of finishing on the podium on each occasion. Once again Budd was outstanding in taking the silver medal to make it seven podiums from seven championship events.

Club spokesperson Michael O’Reilly said that “Budd’s performance is a phenomenal achievement. To win medals for seven years, spanning across two age groups is amazing. Men’s bike racing is very competitive with large numbers of competitors and to continue to excel each year is a testament to his ability, preparation, training and most of all his race craft.”

The race was a 40km scratch race with Budd racing in the 55-59 age group. After a solid first half of the race Budd attacked with three laps to race and got a good gap. He stayed away for around 7km before he was chased and brought back into the bunch with just under two laps to the finish.  

The race winner attacked soon after and the bunch allowed him to pick up a dangerous time gap. Coming into the last kilometre it was going to be close. Budd was positioned well through the tight technical corners of the finale and put in a strong sprint. The leader was being pulled back with every pedal stroke but hung on to win by around 5 metres with Budd flashing across the line in second.

Budd has now won one gold, four silver and two bronze medals from his seven championship races.

Melissa Budd was also racing the championships and unlike the benign early conditions that Peter raced in the wind had really picked up by the time Melissa’s event started.

“The wind was blowing around 40 kilomtres an hour when we started,” Budd said. “It was tough. Particularly down the long back straight where it was hard to get a sit in the cross wind,” she added.

Budd put in a solid ride and was very active the first few laps. After the race she said “ I keep learning every race. Peter makes it look so easy to get great results but it really is hard. I’ve only been racing a short time and I feel like I’m improving. I’m learning from each race.”

Both Melissa and Peter now have their focus on the NSW Teams Time Trial Championships this coming weekend.

They, along with fellow Griffith BiciSport rider Frank Signor will be racing in one of five BIciSport teams entered for the event. All three riders are looking forward to the challenge of the teams time trial.

In a first for a Griffith rider, Melissa Budd, Frank Signor and Peter Budd will join up with their BiciSport club mates in contesting the State Championship event.

Not having had the opportunity in previous years the move to Bicisport paved the way for each rider to support their new club. BiciSport will be fielding five teams across the various age groups at the championships.

The teams time trial is a race against the clock with the teams time based on the third rider across the line. Teams leave the start gates at two minute intervals with riders sharing turns at being on the front.

The course is an out and back 41km long. The outward journey sees quite a lot of climbing and it is this part of the course where the race is usually won or lost. The homeward journey is super fast with time lost on the outward leg hard to recover speeding for home.

Peter Budd will be riding in the BiciSport 180+ age group team. In this event the three youngest riders must have an aggregate age of 180 years. Budd last rode a team’s time trial event in 1985 with his former club Randwick Botany. That event was over 80km but he isn’t fooled about the shorter distance this time.

“Time trails always hurt”, said Budd. “You are basically on your limit the whole way and with a team time trial it is worse because you don’t want to let your team mates down so you go even deeper into the hurt box.”

The national champion Manly team will enter the event as hot favourites but with a good ride the BiciSport team could be in  the picture for a medal.

Frank Signor will be in competing with the BiciSport #2 open team. Signor will be riding his first team time trial event and has been putting in the practice on the time trail bars in recent weeks. Once Signor gets over the lumpy first half of the course he will be able to use his power to advantage on the fast run home.

Melissa Budd will be riding in the BiciSport open women’s team and like Signor will be racing her first teams time trail event. Melissa has also been training on her time trial bars and her form is looking very aerodynamic whilst down on the bars. With aerodynamics being so important in time trialing Budd has that part covered. Next is acquiring some raw power to get up and over the climbs.

The three Griffith based BiciSport riders will meet up with their teammates in Nowra with the race contested on Saturday. The race is followed by a BiciSport club dinner on Saturday evening. Sunday will see a BiciSport club supported ride where riders will no doubt chat about the unbearable pain and suffering of a team’s time trial and how they can’t wait to do it all again next year.