ViaStrada has competed in the McLeans Forest Park "6 hour blast" mountain bike event for four consecutive years, winning podium places in each of the last three years.
In 2008 our women's team, the Bicycle Belles (consisting of Helen Woodhouse, Megan Fowler and Jeanette Ward) finished third in their category.
In 2009 our ViaStrada Special Vehicles team of Axel Wilke, John Lieswyn and Rick Houghton came home third in the corporate category.
This year's event was held on 16 October 2010, with ViaStrada entering a team of John, Rick, Andrew Macbeth and Warren Lloyd. They turned up to a damp and drizzly McLeans Forest Park at 8:30 am to be confronted with an almighty traffic jam. As traffic engineers, they could not help themselves from designing a more elegant solution to the problem of providing over 1000 riders and additional support crews with access to the venue.
By 2 pm the clouds had lifted, the sun was out and the team was looking good for completing 14 laps. Without knowledge of the standings, and not realising that they stood a chance of being "in the money", they developed a cunning strategy to squeeze one more lap out of former cycling pro John Lieswyn. This turned out to be a stroke of genius, as the team placed third in the Corporate Category - one of only three teams to complete 15 laps, with a field of 56 teams.
All in all, a good day at the office!
