Talia APPLETON wins her first pro race
Talia raced the Alpes Gresivaudan Classic near Grenoble in France on Sunday, a climber’s race with five categorised climbs and 3600m of climbing. And she won!
Here’s a write-up from her team website. (She’s so new to the team she hasn’t even been added to the page of riders!)
Jarrod sent a link to the coverage on YouTube. If you watch from 2 hours onwards it’s mainly Talia versus Clemence Latimer, who came second. It’s all in French and they even interview Latimer after the finish, I guess because Talia doesn’t speak French. Yet.
Recent XC Racing
By Tim Ross
Sunday saw Round 2 of the Vic Schools MTB series at Lysterfield. Almost two hundred kids aged from U9 to U19 contested the XC (Cross Country) events at the site of a Commonwealth Games event held before any of them were born!
MMBCC was represented by Hunter and Logan Hughes, both competing in U11 Novice category. In a crowded field, both rode well with Logan finishing 4th and taking family bragging rights.
Some interesting scheduling has the next round happening at Ballarat this coming Saturday (yep, just one week later and in the middle of a long weekend). The round will be held in the grounds of the Mt Clear Secondary College.
The weekend also featured a double-header in the Shifty Fifty series (XC courses, sort of racing, sort of participation), held at Yackandandah. Saturday’s race was held within the Yack Tracks MTB park, while Sunday’s race headed UP the Epic Trail much of the way to Beechworth then back DOWN into Yackandandah (much faster on the way back!).
MMBCC was very well represented. The Ross family rode both on Saturday (Ben and Tim doing the 25km ‘Shifty Shorty’ and Alastair doing the 15km ‘Shifty Smalley’) and Sunday (with Ben stepping up to the full 50km course).
Simon and Jack Mulvilhill together rode the ‘Shifty Shorty’ on Sunday (it looked to me like Jack pipped dad Simon on the line).
Damian & Ben Grundy also made a cameo appearance on the Sunday, both racing the ‘Shifty Shorty’. Damo subscribes to the hard parenting model, taking the opportunity to show son Ben that he still has some ground to make up.
The Shifty Fifty series takes a winter break now, resuming in mid-Sept for another couple of rounds.
Also coming up in the next few weeks is the next round of the Vic Junior Road Series at Broadford motorcycle track, while the Snowy Riverina 3-hour event is at Wagga in a few weeks (1 hour option available for the not-so-tough).
What’s Elise Empey up to?
By Kate Stonnill
As many of you know Elise had surgery to reattach her tricep tendon in January ’25 after crashing at Red Bull hardline in Tassie. Unfortunately she required further surgery in January ’26 to release scar tissue. Since then she has gradually built up her strength in the gym and on her bike with 3 training sessions a day to combat the ongoing nerve pain and weakness in her arm and shoulder.
In March we discovered she has also torn tendons in her shoulder from previous dislocations. With that knowledge she adjusted her program, with the ongoing help from Steve Ward, and pushed on; but eventually decided to miss the first world cup in South Korea.
Elise headed over to Dvfy in Wales on May18th to join her team Continental Atherton. After a couple of days at their bike park she flew with the team to Loudenville in France for the second World Cup (photos below). She was so excited to be back racing after missing most of last season.
Loudenville proved to be very dry and racers were reaching speeds of 70 - 80 km/h on the top section of track - the fastest times seen at Loudenville! She loves the track and had her best result there in ‘24.
She went in hoping to kick off her season. However, the ongoing weakness in her arm made it difficult to hold her line in the tight corners. After lots of heart felt discussion with team, and home, she has decided to head back to Dvfy to get stronger and "punch out laps" back at Atherton base, where she will get ongoing support. The team have been amazingly supportive.
So fingers crossed she can return later in the season to the form she had in 2024 and hopefully even better.
The Chumpy Project
Mansfield Shire Youth have teamed up with Chris Pullin to deliver an exciting new opportunity for Mansfield’s Young People!
Join Coach Nam Baldwin and Olympian Cam Bolton for a three night camp at Mt Buller, focusing on courage, composure and character!
If you would like to find out more information, click here.
If you’d like to apply click here.
Keep in mind, applicants must be a resident of the Mansfield Shire and aged between 15 - 17 at the time of the camp.
Spaces are limited. And ALL applicants must go through application process.
Finally …
It’s been announced that Gravelista will be hosted in Seymour for at least two more years.