Women perform strongly at Albany Mountain Bike Club’s first round of cross country

Albany Mountain Bike Club hosted the first round of its cross-country series at Mt Adelaide and Mt Clarence.

Impressively, more than a third of the field on Sunday were female riders, and several of them won their respective divisions.

Dinah Roecker, Chelsea Sobik, Carly Talbot and Hayley Poett walked away victorious in their respective divisions in the opening round.

AMBC president Dora Adeline said it was fantastic to see so many women taking part.

“The times those ladies achieved would have beaten most of the male competitors in comparable divisions, showing that on average the ladies are probably fitter than the male club members,” she said.

“The timely results by the ladies happened to coincide closely with International Women’s Day, and there are a wonderful bunch of ladies getting involved in mountain biking, with all ages and skill levels.

“For example, under-13 girls’ division winner Hayley Poett (11) blitzed the entire junior field to top all the boys easily.

“Hayley looked so fresh and sprightly afterwards that she could have tackled the longer seniors’ course and still vied for a dais finish.”

Brett Dal Pozzo won the men’s A-grade competition, while Lee Griffith won the men’s B-grade event and Matt Bascombe proved too strong in the men’s C-grade.

Roecker claimed the women’s A-grade event, Chelsea Sobik was victorious in the women’s B-grade competition, Talbot was the winner in the women’s intro to mountain biking, and Poett won the under-13 girls’ division.

Aston Sobik won the under-15 men’s category, while Beau Sobey was too strong in the under-13 boys’ division and Michael Smyth claimed the men’s E-MTB event.