Tributes and triumphs dominate 2018 cycling RoadNats
Related Story: Australian Simon Gerrans wins Tour Down Under for record fourth time
Three-time world champion cyclist Alex Edmondson has taken out the 2018 Australian Road National Championships, holding onto his winning lead with two laps to go in the 185.6-kilometre course.
The 24-year-old was ahead of Jay McCarthy who came in second place, Chris Harper in third and criterium winner Caleb Ewan in fourth place.
Ballarat local and 2017 National Road Series champion Shannon Malseed took out the winning place for the 104.4-kilometre elite women's race — her first racing as part of a professional team.
The well-timed sprint at the finish, took her ahead of Lauren Kitchen in second and Grace Brown in third place.
The men's event was marred by the fall of 2012 Road Nationals champion Luke Durbridge, who crashed into the pavement as he rounded a bend on the course towards the end of the race.
In the criterium earlier in the week, Caleb Ewan won the elite men's race, with Rebecca Wiasak taking out the women's title.
Cameron Scott took out the Under-23 title and Stephen Cuff and Sarah Gigante won the Under-19 men's and women's respectively.
Saturday's Gran Fondo event was cancelled due to heatwave conditions.
Show of solidarity for fallen champion
Hundreds of cyclists took a moment away from the competition on Thursday to commemorate the life of Jason Lowndes, a promising competitor who was hit and killed by a car while training near Bendigo in last month.
Friend and professional cyclist Brenton Jones organised a tribute lap for Lowndes, who Jones said had a promising future as a competitive cyclist.
External Link: cycling tribute
"This year would have been his third year as a professional and he was only 23, 24 years old," Mr Jones said.
"He had plenty of results as [coming] sixth at the World Championships for Australia in the Under-23 was a fantastic achievement."
"I'm gonna be riding my season this year for him."
Mr Jones said Jason's death is another reminder to motorists that cyclists should be respected on the road.
"We're not just bike riders, we're husbands, brothers, sons, daughters," he said.
"We're people just trying to ride our bikes, be safe and keep fit and healthy."
RoadNats sets the stage for coming year
SBS cycling commentator Matthew Keenan said the RoadNats is one of the most significant events on the cycling calendar, on par with the Tour Down Under.
"You win this national title in Ballarat and you get to wear that jersey all year long and remind everybody about what you did," he said.
"For example, Simon Gerrans has won it three times, he gets to wear that green-and-gold jersey right the way around the globe and he wears it at the Tour de France."
"In terms of the outcome of this event, in my opinion, it is the most important."
This year the national paracycling championship has been brought into the mainstream competition for the first time.
"There's been a big push over the last five or 10 years for equity between men's sport and women's sport which has been fantastic and the progress made there is great, but we need to make similar sort of progress with paracycling," Keenan said.
"So any kid that might have a disability how big or small that may be, they can be sitting at home as well and get inspired by seeing other athletes compete and overcome their personal hurdles."
Keenan said the inclusion of the Under-19 races in the RoadNats this year has also been a significant first for the competition.
Businesses unimpressed by crowd numbers
Local business owner Dave Robey said he was disappointed by a lacklustre turnout to his centrally located cafe.
"We were expecting thousands on Sunday, that's what we'd been told," he said.
Mr Robey said he'd bought extra stock and put a lot of extra staff on for the event.
"Everybody's saying: where's all the people? And we're saying the same thing," Mr Robey said.
"I thought that it was a thing that was supposed to support local business, but there's an inundation of food trucks and coffee carts from all over, so that makes it harder.
"It's great as a spectator sport, but not so good for local business; our target was a lot more."
He said next year the cafe will likely close for the event.
"Which is what one of the other cafes did… because they sort of had an inkling that it was gonna be like this, and it wouldn't be worth putting on the extra staff and buying the extra stock if the sales weren't going to materialise," Mr Robey said.
"We've basically bought enough bottled water that we'd thought we'd sell in one weekend; there's probably enough there to last us until Christmas."
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